From calls to be fired to a complete turnaround! Billy D has always done best with coachable talent over stars and it shows!
Indeed! I think his decades of coaching college with constantly changing personnel has made him a master at modifying his system to suit his players. They're arguably a better, more balanced team without 2 top 10-15 players. It's pretty incredible. He's also running a 3-guard offense at times, similar to what he did here. He's definitely in the top 3 for coach of the year....and i think he'll finish in the top 2 if not #1
I would love to know if Billy enjoys coaching College or pro the most. It would be interesting to get his feedback.
I'm sure he doesn't miss all the recruiting shenanigans and can focus on basketball 24/7, but probably misses the young player development and impact + turning boys into men. That said there are still plenty of young guys in the NBA that didn't have college coaches like BD (few have), so he's probably a father figure to some of them too But I'm not him....lol...so would love to hear his feedback too
Instead of recruiting HS players he now has to recruit multi-million dollar divas. And he still has to recruit against teams with much more money. Same as it ever was.
He has Sam Presti for that. He just coaches the team he's given, regardless...and doing a tremendous job given the loss of 2 MVPs, a hall of famer and an all-star. Hence the award.
I love this for two reasons. 1. Great for Billy and we all love him! 2. Keeps his butt safely in the NBA and away from any potential NCAA rival. My guess is even if he eventually is fired in OKC, teams will line up to recycle a COTY.
Apparently they just announced Raptors Nick Nurse as Coach of the Year (the official NBA one)...but no doubt Billy D and the Thunder have done so much better this year than anyone predicted.
Presti has the check book, but BD has to convince them that they want to play in Oklahoma. These are young kids with lots of money. Oklahoma City is where you would want to be? I am a white guy and thinking back to my youth that would be a hard sell.
Tell them they can be THE name of the franchise and they can just get a summer home in L.A. lol Oh and OKC fans are great with support.
I don't know why, but I actually shed some tears when they fought back and won game 6, especially when Chris Paul talked about how they were a team of players folks traded away and didn't have a use for anymore. If they beat Houston, I think it could be a career-defining moment for Coach Donovan.
Great year for Donovan, but the one problem he has had for 20+ years came back again, can’t find a play that works on end game situations. He is getting destroyed on Twitter, sucks to see all the good will he built up this year evaporating. But he deserves it in this case, the play was terrible.... had to call a TO when it didn’t work once, and came back with the exact same play everyone bunched you’re and easy to defend, and somehow ended up being an inbound to Adams thirty feet from the basket and facing away with 1.2 seconds left. And it got stolen anyway. The previous possession they didn’t score either so they had two chances at it. But I give him a pass on that one, putting the ball in CP3’s hands and letting him go was fine. Win or lose with your best player.
Yes that was a very strange end of game play, especially out of a timeout. That said, do we know it was BD's fault or did the players just not execute it properly? They looked like headless chickens trying to figure out what to do, and didn't set any hard screens. Should have had CP3 come off a double screen for a good look. Game 7 loss or not..."experts" gave them a 1.4% chance of making the playoffs before the season started, so by all accounts over-exceeded any expectations by a country mile. Fans that say it was his fault are clearly missing the big picture, but that's what fandom is all about sometimes. Armchair experts that have no idea what play he drew up or why it wasn't executed properly, just looking for someone to blame. It's incredible they were even in that position in the first place. They should be proud of the season they had and come back hungrier next year
