How Billy Donovan Can Succeed Where Scott Brooks Didn't for OKC Thunder
In what is becoming a common theme for first-time NBA head coaches, Billy Donovan joins the Oklahoma City Thunder without the prospect of a honeymoon or grace period, inheriting a position that demands he immediately succeed where Scott Brooks failed.
Rumors of Donovan's arrival began promptly after Oklahoma City dismissed Brooks, stopping only briefly from time to time, never once leaving the forefront of public speculation. On Thursday, the Thunder made it official, hiring Donovan as Scott's successor:
General manager Sam Presti issued the following statement about the hire, via DailyThunder.com's Royce Young:
And Donovan himself had words of his own about the new position:
Donovan brings plenty of sideline clout to Oklahoma City despite never coaching at the NBA level. He won back-to-back national titles as head coach of the Florida Gators and has more than 500 victories at the collegiate level to his name.
The Thunder are hoping Donovan takes them where Brooks could not. He'll need to make wholesale on-court changes, and he'll need to make them swiftly.
Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and Durant are in their prime and expected to be healthy next season, but Kevin Durant is a year away from exploring free agency. The Thunder do not have the luxury of time, and Donovan would be wise to learn from Brooks' shortcomings.
Lineup Tweaks
First and foremost, Donovan has to ensure the Thunder are running more spacing-friendly lineups.
Ibaka has developed into a legitimate three-point threat, attempting (328) and making (122) more treys this past season than he did through his first five combined. But nearly 75 percent of his shot attempts still came from two-point range. So while his ability to step out is valuable, he needs to see more time at center, where he posted a 20.1 player efficiency rating, according to 82games.com.
Matchup issues that present themselves on the defensive end are just something the Thunder must adapt to and resolve. They employ far too many incisive drivers—Dion Waiters, Westbrook, Durant, etc.—to operate with as many as two bodies clogging paths to the basket inside the post.
Such lineups are easier to stomach when they're defensively promising. But Enes Kanter and Ibaka were a defensive disaster and net minus in the 238 minutes they played together.
Same goes for Steven Adams and Kanter, who allowed 108.2 points per 100 possessions when sharing the floor, the equivalent of having a bottom-two defense. And though Ibaka and Adams found success on the less glamorous end, it came with a statistical decline on offense.
This doesn't mean the Thunder cannot run big at all. Sometimes matchups call for it, and they do have the option of going back and forth between big and small, an approach to which the San Antonio Spurs subscribe.
It does, however, mean the Thunder need to adjust their rotation. If they don't view Perry Jones III and Andre Roberson as contributors who can flip-flop with Durant between the 3 and 4 spots, they'll have to go out and find one—on a beggar's dime, of course, because they're already capped out, per Basketball Insiders.
Injuries did impede the Thunder's ability to experiment, but not one of their top-25 most-used lineups included Ibaka playing next to a floor-spacing 4 or 5. And fiddling with those kinds of combinations is a must if they intend to maximize their offensive potential.
Offensive Overhaul
Getting more creative with player combinations opens the door for a long-overdue offensive evolution.
Indeed, the Thunder are usually fine when it comes to scoring. They ranked 11th in offensive efficiency despite injuries and shifting personnel and finished no lower than seventh in each of their previous four campaigns.
Still, it's the Thunder's uninventive schemes that receive more flack than anything else. Fran Blinebury, writing for NBA.com, suggests Donovan's first move: "After I’m finished having an All-Star level suck-up session with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, I’m installing an offense that gets more ball movement and relies far less on both of those guys to make hero shots at the end of every shot clock and game."
The Thunder ranked 29th in assist percentage (52.8) through the regular season, counting heavily on individual playmaking rather than ball movement—not because injuries forced their hand but because that's how they play.
In 2013-14, when the Thunder were healthier, their assist percentage was similarly low (56.2) and checked in at 25th.
These issues compound themselves late in games. The Thunder's assist percentage plummeted to 40 during crunch time this past season (29th). Not surprisingly, their offense once again failed to crack the top 10 in those situations.
Employing self-sufficient scorers like Durant and Westbrook is an enormous luxury. But many of the league's best offenses—those of the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers and Spurs—move the ball in conjunction with their superstars.
Donovan's pick-and-roll-heavy offense should help address some of the lingering stagnancy. Although pick-and-rolls accounted for 25.8 percent of the Thunder's offensive plays this past season, they didn't run the same off-ball action.
Instead, they relied on the initial on-ball screen to create the necessary space, essentially tying the play's fate to its effectiveness. That dependence isn't pretty, and it's a big reason why Thunder ball-handlers ranked in the bottom half of pick-and-roll field-goal percentage.
Any half-competent defense knows how to defend those initial screens when they're placed beyond or just inside the three-point line. So rather than a clear or clear-ish path to the hoop, players like Westbrook are often left with a tougher look:
On those occasions when he can get through, the shots are liable to be heavily contested:
Brooks liked to run a lot of double-high action to counter these risks. Putting two screeners in place gave Westbrook options and drew the heart of defenses further from the basket:
But even when plays worked, they were seldom the product of noticeable motion. Others stood around watching Westbrook—and, when he was healthy, Durant—go to work.
It's been this way for a while now in Oklahoma City. There are rarely screens away from screens, off-ball motility or secondary options of any kind. Most of the time, there are only idle bystanders whose shot opportunities are predicated on dribble penetrators luring their defenders away.
Correcting this is one of Donovan's greatest challenges. The Thunder need to have ball movement and collective involvement, otherwise the offense will continue to be the product of two or three players doing everything.
Reaching Russ
There is nothing detrimentally wrong with Russell Westbrook. He can be hot-headed and overly emotional, and his shot selection is sometimes damning. But he's also an MVP-level superstar.
It's not on Donovan to change or redefine Westbrook. Assuming he tweaks the way Oklahoma City approaches its offense, he just needs Westbrook to buy into the changes.
Fortunately for the Thunder, reaching players is his specialty, per ESPN.com's Royce Young:
Westbrook is admittedly a unique case. He's an inefficient shooter from the outside, and his skill set is not conducive to system basketball or playing off the rock.
When he is displaced from the ball, he's not the same scoring threat. He put in just 31.5 percent of his catch-and-shoot opportunities during the regular season.
Durant, by comparison, hit 39.7 percent of his spot-up looks. While that's not an overwhelmingly high number, his outside touch allows him to capitalize on quick looks off screens and orbit the three-point line, behind which he drilled 38 percent of his standalone attempts.
The ball needn't come out of Westbrook's hands entirely. He's a point guard. Point guards dominate the ball. But Brooks never found—or perhaps even tried to find—that happy medium between Westbrook the aggressor and Westbrook the complementary, system-friendly scorer.
And if Donovan is going to take the Thunder places Brooks could not, he'll need to do what Brooks did not: Find that middle ground and pave the way for actual change.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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