The Oklahoma City Thunder are still figuring out who they want to be

In a sullen and gloomy locker room, at the end of November, the words hung in the humid air along with the smell of spray-on deodorant and detoriariting chemistry. The Oklahoma City Thunder had lost their third-straight game, this time to the Orlando Magic, who ended a nine-game losing streak by looking virtually unbeatable against Russell Westbrook and company.

Westbrook was speaking to the media, an off-court responsibility he bears far more uneasily than any he has on the gleaming hardwood surface. After years of having every word and action used against him, he’s chosen to become curt and defensive. He has developed a churlish facade, delivering abrupt responses if he delivers them at all. It’s not surprising that this might breed negativity from the people who write stories about him, and so the narratives become increasingly judgemental. Fans see the dog chasing its tail in an endless cycle and walk away exhausted from witnessing it, wondering when it all began and why we started watching in the first place.

Minutes earlier, the lasting image of Westbrook after the clock expired and as Magic players temporarily exalted in unburdening themselves of their own losing ways, was of the star guard sitting on the sidelines, oversized hands clasped together and sunken eyes staring downward, oblivious to the celebration unfolding around him. From any other player, this might elicit sympathy but from Westbrook, there is simply the chorus of I-told-you-so tweets that seem perpetually ready to be fired off.

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Later, in the locker room, he is showered and composed, standing resigned in front of the throng of media.

“This one is on me,” said Westbrook with a glassy-eyed stare. The answer is as unexpected as it is easy to accept. Dog, meet Tail.

That blame even needs to be assessed speaks to rushed expectations for the Thunder this season. Sam Presti, Oklahoma City’s general manager, acquired Paul George in a move that was widely lauded, traded for unhappy Carmelo Anthony, and assembled a team that was supposed to compete with the Golden State Warriors for Western Conference supremacy. Presti’s Executive of the Year Award was being engraved before a single game had even been played.

Months later, the Thunder struggle with consistency on a nightly basis, knocking off the Warriors in a spirited game that had everyone convinced it was starting to all come together, then losing to the Magic a week later. It hasn’t helped that the role players dealt to acquire George and Anthony have all flourished in their new homes.

In projecting the Thunder’s chances for success, things are probably not as bad as they seem. Injuries have scattered the West into disarray, and a number of teams with lower expectations than the Thunder find themselves similarly trying to scrape by, hoping that things will get better.

“You’ve gotta be organized and you’ve gotta have structure.”

Still, expectations and final results be damned, one can’t help but see that something is wrong with the Thunder, even if they eventually find a way to coalesce at the right time. Those early-season forecasts were built on the usual foundation of talent, and Oklahoma City certainly has that. But relying on that ability can be problematic, especially for head coach Billy Donovan.

“I think it’s really easy to say, ‘Just throw me the ball and I’ll rescue us,’” explained Donovan in  his trademark lightning-quick, New York accent. He had been addressing the media at-large until that session was cut short by Westbrook’s sudden explanation that he was ready to speak, either now or never. Donovan took advantage of the distraction to slip quietly away through the darkened Amway Center tunnels before speaking exclusively to The Step Back.

Westbrook’s demand might seem petulant but it’s not worth Donovan getting worked up about. He’s tasked with precariously juggling egos and good intentions, as his careful follow-up certainly indicates.

“I’m not saying that’s our guys’ mentality, but I think a lot of the times what’s happened is that [they think], ‘Our team needs a bucket. Come to me and I’ll get that bucket.’ But we can’t just, all of a sudden, say ‘It’s your turn. My turn. Your turn.’ It’s not gonna work. We can’t win at a high level that way. We gotta make the right basketball play. So, that’s not taking away from their ability to be aggressive or their ability to attack, but when they’re attacking and being aggressive, they gotta make the right basketball play. And they’re trying to do that. They’ve been really unselfish at that.”

If blame must be laid for Oklahoma City’s struggles so far, Donovan isn’t exactly free-and-clear. His lineup rotations have been difficult to understand, and while it’s hard to sift through the statistical noise to determine the exact impact, they have probably cost the Thunder at some level.

There have also been questions about Oklahoma’s system of play, or if one even exists. Donovan’s highwire act manifest itself once more, in trying to find the balance between finding the right style of play and one that maximizes individual talents.

“I don’t think you want to get so patterned, as a team, that you become very easy to guard. Some of the greatness of those guys is their ability to read situations in split seconds and make choices and decisions. But, yeah, you’ve gotta be organized and you’ve gotta have structure. There’s no question. When you’re organized and structured and somebody goes to make a play, that’s when you gotta make really good decisions.”

His answer, offers some insight but also mixes in healthy amounts of diplomacy and ambiguity. There’s only so much structure a system can provide without impeding an individual’s creative instincts, even if those instincts can lead to missed shots and lost games.

Moreover, any structure Donovan tries to implement will be an entirely new one. He’s in his third year as Oklahoma City’s head coach and leading his third different incarnation of this team, a fact that’s often overlooked when considering if talent ultimately trumps all other factors. Westbrook and Kevin Durant led the Thunder in Donovan’s’ first year, Westbrook won the league’s Most Valuable Player award and set fire to statistical records during Donovan’s second, and this third year is still a work-in-progress, as Donovan explained during his brief exchange with reporters earlier. “I think where these guys are at in their careers, trying to figure those things out — how to work together, play together and do those things — but you’ve played a certain way for so long, to just expect in a month, six weeks, that that’s going to change, is going to be a little different.”

Interjected into any assessment of the team’s struggles are several references to players being “unselfish” and “willing to sacrifice,” the kind of politicizing that offers hope. “I’m encouraged by their disposition, their work ethic, and the way they’re trying to figure things out,” says Donovan before being cut short by Westbrook’s unexpected availability.

The positivity carries over into Donovan’s pregame answers to media, focusing on the team’s usually-strong defense, which allows the third-fewest points per game (99.4) and seventh-lowest field-goal percentage (47.0). But even in this aspect there is plenty of coal among the diamonds that Donovan focuses on, including Oklahoma City’s collapse in late-game situations. Their defensive rating plummets in the fourth quarter, from 100.9 to 108.1, and their scoring in the same period is fifth-worst (24.7 points) in the league.

“You’ve played a certain way for so long, to just expect in a month, six weeks, that that’s going to change, is going to be a little different.”

When asked about that alarming trend, Donovan ducked any specific explanation, offering this response. “I don’t know that it’s really just the fourth quarter as much as it’s been runs in games and second halves for us. Some of the games where we’ve had some significant leads, we’ve allowed teams to get pretty quickly back in the game. And then, a lot of times in some of those fourth quarters, we’re kind of playing from behind. Where we’ve had a lead at a certain point in time, the other team’s gotten and maintained control and we’re fighting our way to get back into those things.”

The loss to the Magic came hot on the heels of a blowout defeat to the rebuilding Mavericks, and so the team’s sour mood was to be expected. Cracks appeared in Donovan’s polished assessments and perhaps for the first time, it was clear how frustrating this season has been.

“I just have to continue to help them to see the vision of..,” he begins, before collecting himself. “When the ball moves, when you generate 14 assists [as they did in the first half], and it’s being sprayed around and you’re generating good looks, you’re gonna generate a relatively good percentage. And I thought in the second half, we really weren’t able to do that consistently. And, y’know, I know we keep talking about the same thing but as a coach, you wanna be able to try and help them see that vision and be able to carry that vision for the full 48 minutes and we weren’t able to do that.”

Donovan spoke more about the team’s bad habits, all of which seemed on display against the Magic. “Yeah, I say this all the time. ‘It’s not my rules. It’s the game-of-basketball rules.’ There are certain things you have to do related to the game of basketball…it’s impossible to be a really great basketball team without having the stamina to do the things you’re talking about before the game ends. You see the team do it part of the time. You gotta do it the whole time.”

Since the loss to the Magic, the Thunder won three-straight games and five of their last seven. But even in those victories, it’s hard to discern if anything has gone right or better for Oklahoma City since their letdown in Orlando. Wins over the surging Utah Jazz and rocksteady San Antonio Spurs led to a loss against Brooklyn. One win over a team beset by injury (Memphis) is followed up by a loss to another (Charlotte). Even if there’s a realistic possibility the Thunder reach the postseason, there’s no way of knowing what kind of impact they’ll make once they get there.

The presence of George adds an unstable element to Oklahoma City’s volatile season of experimentation. As a potential free agent this upcoming summer, he could walk away and leave a void just as Durant did in 2016. While many think Presti is far too savvy to let that happen, the reality is that he has no way of preventing it unless George explicitly demands a trade because his tenure with the Thunder is so intolerable that the thought of staying beyond this season is impossible. It’s a risk, certainly, but one Presti likely has to take to keep Westbrook and Anthony invested in the long haul.

While many assumed that lumping talented players together would yield an immediate reward, that payoff will take longer than expected, if it happens at all. It’s why situations like Golden State last season and Houston this one are the exception at not the norm; blending elite players can be a recipe for disaster. Risk, it would seem, is the defining theme for the Thunder season.

It’s fitting, then, that during Donovan’s postgame presser, he used a casino-inspired metaphor to describe his players’ flirtation with habits that don’t always lead to victories. “It’s like the house in gambling. You may be able to gamble a little bit here or there and come out on top on a particular day but, over the long haul, those habits you have to establish…the game always comes out on top.”

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Donovan referred to his vision for the players, where they recognize the balance between aggressive individual instincts and pulling back to make what he referred to as “the right basketball play.”

It remains a possibility that Westbrook could accept the responsibility of sharing the ball more willingly than he talks with media, that George could be as resolute in his commitment to Oklahoma City as he is on the defensive end, and that Anthony shines during the NBA’s biggest stage as brightly as he does in international play. It’s a pretty picture, if you squint past the early-season blemishes that distort Donovan’s vision. But it also wouldn’t be that surprising if we wind up like the Thunder during that one bleak night in Orlando: simply not seeing it.