Billy Donovan played for Rick Pitino. He learned to coach under Pitino. He lost to Pitino in the 2012 Elite Eight (and the six other times their teams played).
And Pitino was not a successful NBA coach. So the cynical thinking goes, Donovan will struggle now that he takes the helm of the Thunder. But that line of thought fails to consider everything we know about Donovan, two-time national champion and one of the most successful college coaches in the country.
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Donovan is far better set for the NBA world than Pitino ever was, even ignoring that Pitino actually succeeded with the Knicks in the late 1980s before tackling a difficult situation with the Celtics. At 49, he is young enough to grow. And with his Florida program producing numerous NBA players, he has an established reputation around the NBA.
That may not mean this is the right situation for him. The Thunder expect (and need) to win now, an imperative because Kevin Durant hits free agency next offseason and because they can’t let this era of remarkable talent assemblage go by without winning a championship. It would be going too far to say the future of pro basketball in Oklahoma City is at stake, but if the Thunder lose Durant and Russell Westbrook in consecutive years, things could take a dark turn quickly for the franchise.
Still, there are a lot of reasons to be confident in Donovan at the helm. Here are the three primary ones:
1. He has managed pro-sized egos.
OK, we’re mostly talking about Joakim Noah here. Donovan had an exceptionally talented 2006 national championship team, and he brought them back for a second year and won a second title in 2007.
That shows a lot of discipline from the players, the type which can’t be overlooked when handling NBA stars. Durant and Westbrook will want to play for Donovan because he will want them to play their games. He knows how to balance what he has with his own basketball philosophy.
And this team shouldn’t be hard to coach. It wasn’t for Brooks, whose run was wildly successful despite constant criticism of his late-game decision-making. The Thunder have a stacked deck, which is what made it so surprising when Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie made clear he didn’t want the job. All they really need is health, which Donovan can’t control.
2. He embraces modern analytics.
Donovan was profiled in ESPN The Magazine a couple years ago for his trust in “Defensive Efficiency Rating,” his own format of the popular pace-adjusted method of viewing basketball success. He is a smart man by all accounts, and he has been willing to work with other smart men to optimize strategy.
The result has been tremendous defense through the years, emphasizing reducing opponents’ open 3-point chances, playing strong man-to-man and forcing turnovers and getting out on fast breaks as often as possible. Donovan’s team went 16-17 this year but finished 11th in defensive rating.
These tenets will work perfectly with what Thunder general manager Sam Presti wants. Presti is a thinker himself, and he focuses a lot on finding legs up through small moves. Donovan needs to work with Presti better than Scott Brooks did in ensuring various personnel decisions pay off and player development is put near the top of the priority list.
Brooks let players such as Jeremy Lamb and Perry Jones fall through the cracks in ways that Donovan shouldn’t. He turned a lot of lesser recruits into great college players by identifying and building on their strengths, and the NBA system means he’ll have more than a four-year window to do that.
3. He is flexible.
Donovan won consecutive titles with the best college frontcourt in 20-plus years, but he also had great seasons with many other types of teams. In 2000, he took a Mike Miller and Teddy Dupay-led bunch to the title game as a No. 6 seed, while in 2013-14, he went 36-3 with a team loaded with seniors who didn’t make the NBA.
Notice how there’s no single coaching philosophy attached to Donovan, the way the “pack-line” defense gets attached to Virginia’s Tony Bennett or high-paced transition game is associated with North Carolina’s Roy Williams? Part of that is because Donovan adjusts his style to his personnel. The defense always is good, and the results usually are, too. But he doesn’t try to make players fit him. He fits the players.
And if he’s fitting in with Durant and Westbrook, things will go just fine in Oklahoma City.
