The one thing the Thunder value above all else -- even above winning -- is certainty. It showed when they traded James Harden. It showed when they traded Reggie Jackson.
And it showed on Wednesday when they fired Scott Brooks after seven wildly successful seasons as head coach -- because the one thing you can't have with a lame-duck coach on the last year of his contract is certainty.
And guess what you don't do if you value certainty the way the Thunder do? You don't fire your coach unless you already have a pretty good idea who his replacement will be. All signs point to University of Florida coach Billy Donovan, a longtime friend of Thunder GM Sam Presti who is itching to move to the pros, league sources told CBSSports.com on Wednesday.
"He's ready to try the NBA," said one person who has been in contact with Donovan.
It's been eight years since Donovan agreed to a deal to coach the Orlando Magic, got cold feet and backed out of the deal. The resulting settlement reportedly included a non-compete clause that prohibited him from taking another NBA job for five years.
The statute of limitations has expired, and much has transpired in the intervening years. Three trips to the regional final and one to the national semifinal for Donovan at Florida, before the Gators missed the NCAA Tournament this past season. Three trips in four years to the Western Conference Finals for Brooks in Oklahoma City, and one trip to the NBA Finals, before the Thunder missed the playoffs this season -- one in which reigning MVP Kevin Durant played only 27 games due to injury. According to the Wall Street Journal, Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka were on the floor together for only one third of OKC's games this season.
But this was not about the job that exemplary job that Brooks did in the past, or even the exemplary job he did this season -- with the torrent of injuries and a major trade at the deadline that completely reshaped the team's bench.
In Presti's own words from the team's statement on Brooks' dismissal, this was about "an assessment of what we feel is necessary at this point in time in order to continually evolve, progress and sustain."
As Donovan's past flirtations with the NBA proved, there are no sure things in the coaching business. But nothing in Presti's track record suggests that he'd cut ties with as successful a coach as Brooks has been -- one who Presti said "has earned his rightful place in the history of our organization" -- only to call a meeting 30 minutes later to start brainstorming names for the coaching search.
All indications point to those names already being in the hat, and one of them having the initials, "B.D."
One coaching industry source called Donovan "the only logical choice left" after UConn coach Kevin Ollie issued a statement Wednesday saying he's staying in Storrs and has "no plans to pursue other opportunities." (Though such carefully chosen words don't preclude opportunities from pursuing him.) Ollie also has strong buyout language in his contract, which pays him an average salary of $3 million a year and calls for him to owe the university between $1 million and $5 million if he leaves for an NBA job, depending on the timing.
Ollie is highly regarded in the Thunder organization, having played for the team -- under Brooks -- in 2009-10. But that's a steep price to pay for the small-market Thunder, who have dipped into the luxury tax for the first time in their history.
Donovan makes $4 million a year and would be seeking an arrangement similar to the five-year, $25 million deals that Golden State gave Steve Kerr and the Knicks gave Derek Fisher last summer, league sources said.
One person who has known Donovan for a few years described him as "tired of recruiting," and said that if he ever made the jump to the NBA, it would have to be a winning situation with a GM he knows and trusts. The Thunder check all those boxes.
There's no need to recruit in Oklahoma City, because the cornerstones -- Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka -- are already there. All Donovan would need to do in Durant's case is win -- which he's always done -- and convince him to stay.
It's why Presti's decision on this coaching hire is so important for the Thunder -- and one of the reasons he felt he needed to make a change now, as opposed to next summer. If Presti hits on the hire, he gives Durant a full season to grow and establish a foundation with a new coach before the free-agent suitors come calling on July 1, 2016.
And if the choice is Donovan, Presti can sell Durant not only on the team's winning track record, but also on organizational stability. Chances are, any team with enough cap room to sign Durant next summer will be lacking in both.
Donovan and Presti have become friends over the years, and Presti's analytical influence has worn off on the Gators coach, who has progressively become more interested in advanced statistics. In fact, Presti has hired two members of Donovan's staff in the past 12 months -- assistant Mark Daigneault to coach OKC's D-League team, and video coordinator Oliver Winterbone to serve as a basketball information analyst.
Another thing Presti values is continuity between the NBA franchise and its D-League affiliate, which last year moved from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. He also values information, plenty of which he's no doubt gotten about Donovan through employing his former assistants for almost a year.
But nothing trumps certainty in Presti's regime, and by firing Brooks on Wednesday, he dodged a full calendar year of the opposite as he prepares to arrange all the furniture just to Durant's liking ahead of the free-agent summer of 2016.
If Presti has taught us anything while putting together one of the NBA's true powerhouses, he does not do the job blindfolded. Everything is done with a purpose, and the purpose here isn't hard to see.
