Donovan getting to know new players
Thunder coach Billy Donovan has spent most of this summer getting to know the team’s new acquisitions — and not just the X’s and O’s part of them.
For Billy Donovan, the personnel begins with the personal.
When the Thunder coach flew to Los Angeles to meet with Paul George soon after Oklahoma City acquired George in a trade, Donovan wanted to talk about the big picture with the small forward.
“I think throughout the course of the summer we’ll have more and more of an opportunity to sit down and talk about basketball and those kind of things,” Donovan said last week. “But it was really more just to get to know him a little bit more as a person and get to know a little bit more about his family and his background and what he’s been through throughout the course of his life.”
Donovan and George did talk X’s and O’s “in a light way,” George said, adding that their initial conversations were more about “backgrounds, upbringings” and “the initial greeting sort of thing.”
But the time will come with George — and Thunder free-agent signees Patrick Patterson and Raymond Felton — to talk shop.
And Donovan will be ready.
Thunder general manager Sam Presti has been busy this summer retooling the roster, and Donovan has done his homework on each new addition.
He’s watched what worked for Patterson in Toronto, what clicked with the Clippers for Felton. Donovan watched the Pacers’ playoff series against LeBron James and the Cavaliers for a postseason glance at George.
“You want to be able to do that just to see different things that they had success in, things that they did well, looking at what they’re doing, how it complements the rest of our guys,” Donovan said.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time the last week since all this has kind of transpired watching film, and I’ll continue to do it, really, throughout the course of the summer.”
Donovan is known for tinkering, but last season, he worked with limited tools.
The Thunder famously cratered with Westbrook off the court, and when he was on it, OKC relied on him more than any team leaned on a single player’s offense.
That changes with George in the starting lineup at small forward. He can catch and shoot or create off the dribble, making him on paper a strong complement to Westbrook.
Patterson’s ability to stretch the floor with 3-point shooting also should be a boost to the starting five. And Felton’s experience gives OKC a fresh look backing up Westbrook.
That means adjustments for Donovan, whose third Thunder team will look significantly different from his second, which was radically altered from his first, built around Westbrook, Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka.
“From a philosophical standpoint, there’s certain things I really, really believe in offensively that would probably be broad-stroke things,” Donovan said. “But I think if you play the same system all the time, sometimes the system doesn’t fit a player and you have to come up with (different) things.”
So Donovan will work ahead this summer.
With his starting lineup likely set, he’ll have to think about rotations — and about whether and how much he’d like to stagger Westbrook and George, maximizing the time that one or the other is on the court.
After a season of coaching an offense dominated by Westbrook’s triple-double average, he’ll have to determine how best to integrate George, who’s coming off the highestscoring season of his career.
He’ll spend significant time breaking down film, and that’s fine with Donovan, who gets a kick out of the process of piecing together a team.
“Maybe some of the things that we did last year offensively may not be the best thing for this team offensively, and you’ve got to figure out what are those things,” Donovan said.
“For me, going through the film and watching that, I enjoy that part of it, trying to figure out ways that we can help complement each other.”