A quiet storm
Grant’s success in bigger role starts before the games
Jerami Grant is a bolt of energy for the Thunder, but it starts with a calm pregame.
Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell tried one of those twisting, acrobatic layup attempts Monday early against a buzzing Thunder defense. It might have worked if Jerami Grant hadn’t seen the play an hour earlier.
Before every game for about three years, the 6-foot-9, 220-pound Grant has closed his eyes and sat perfectly still facing his locker. It’s meditation, visualization, relaxation.
“Just (to) try to quiet my mind down,” Grant told The Oklahoman.
For Grant, that pregame time is the calm before the storm, the antithesis of the energy and ferocity the fifthyear forward has brought to the Thunder's starting lineup this season.
With a win against New Orleans on Wednesday, the Thunder can get to 10 games over .500. It’ll be the fewest games the Thunder has needed to reach that mark since needing 30 games in the 2015-16 season, the year before Grant’s arrival.
Grant’s play with the first unit is a big reason for that success. Since
being inserted into the starting lineup against Boston four games into the season, the Thunder is 17-5 with the secondbest point differential per 100 possessions (9.2) in the NBA.
“It’s a credit to their program the way he’s developed as a player,”
Jazz coach Quinn Snyder said before Grant posted 13 points, four rebounds and an emphatic block on his team Monday in a 122113 Thunder win. “It’s a credit to their team and to Billy the way they’re using him.”
The true tide-changing moment in the way the Thunder use Grant came in that memorable Game 5 comeback against the Jazz in the playoffs when Thunder coach Billy Donovan absorbed Carmelo Anthony’s minutes with Grant’s to spark a third-quarter rally.
With respect to Anthony, Thunder players and coaches tiptoe around the differences
between that team and today’s, but Grant is a major difference.
He fits more into the traditional mold of the Thunder’s frontcourt destroyers.
Young. Athletic. Multi-positional. More “Air Congo” (Serge Ibaka) than “Stay Me7o” (Anthony).
“Watching them, there’s an energy he brings to their team that also raises everybody’s level,” Snyder said.
When Thunder general manager Sam Presti and Donovan made Nerlens Noel a priority offseason signing — Donovan flying to Miami to meet with Noel the first day of free agency — the move was twofold. Noel could give the Thunder a dynamic backup center, but also free Grant to play more
minutes as a power forward.
“I just knew I was going to play a little more of the four this year,” Grant said. “I understand what that means in terms of where I’m going to be on the court and things like that. It just kind of fell into place.”
Grant had his best statistical year shooting the ball last season in field goal percentage, taking fewer 3-pointers as the Thunder moved him closer to the basket.
Upon agreeing to a three-year, $27 million contract on the same night as Paul George’s big free agency announcement, Grant came into the season visualizing shooting more 3-pointers.
The Thunder came into the season imagining
Patrick Patterson as the starter at power forward. With Patterson’s struggles in the first three games, Grant’s practice has paid off as he leads the Thunder in 3-point field-goal percentage (39 percent).
“I think for him it’s kind of been an evolution,” Donovan said. “When he first came here we tried to play him at some small forward spot and then last year he played a lot of five (center) for us, and then this year he’s back to more his normal position, playing the power forward spot.
For the guy that can play any position across the frontcourt and defend any position on the floor, there’s more peace now amid chaos. Grant has juggled numerous roles throughout his young career and will continue to for the Thunder, but when he closes his eyes before a game now, the picture is much clearer.
“I feel good,” Grant said. “Just getting used to all the guys we have, we’ve got a couple of years under our belt. I definitely feel more comfortable.
•When: 7 p.m., Wednesday
•Where: Smoothie King Center, New Orleans
•TV: FS Oklahoma (Cox 37/ HD 722, Dish 412, DirecTV 675, U-verse 751/1751)
•Radio: WWLS-AM 640/98.1 FM
Three things to know
•After scoring 42 points in the third quarter of a 122-113 win over Utah Monday, the Thunder remains the best thirdquarter team in the league, with a net rating of 19.1.
•The first time The Thunder and Pelicans met this season, Julius Randle came off the bench to shoot a perfect 10-of-10 from the field, scoring 26 points in New Orleans’ 122-116 loss to OKC.
•The Thunder leads the all-time series with the Pelicans 20-13.