Florida Gators

OKLAHOMA CITY — Over the course of six days last July, the Oklahoma City Thunder blew up their roster and sent seismic waves across the National Basketball Association. 

First, the team traded six-time all-star forward Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for two players and five first-round draft picks. The fallout from that bombshell had barely settled when, six days later, the Thunder sent eight-time all-star point guard, 2017 league MVP and franchise superstar Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets in a swap for veteran point guard Chris Paul. 

What in the Sooner State were the Thunder doing? What was their plan for Paul? After years of chasing a title was the club now in utter rebuild mode? Those were the questions being asked in OKC and around the league, but also by Paul, 34 and a nine-time all-star, as he headed to a club that had just gutted the heart of its roster by dispatching its two best players to championship contenders. 

Not long after the deal, Paul came to Oklahoma to meet with team brass, but it was a visit to the home of Thunder coach Billy Donovan that helped set CP3's mind at ease.

"The one thing we talked about was being honest with each other about the situation," recalled Paul, who at the time wanted to know if he had been acquired as a future trade chip to further the OKC rebuild. "For me, probably because I'm older, I understand the value of communication. I wanted to know my situation at hand and if I was going to be there long-term. I told him I didn't know what was going to happen. I also told him I didn't know how to be halfway in." 

Neither did his new coach, who's always been a guy who has and demands two feet in the so-called circle. Paul wanted clarity. Donovan gave him honesty.  "He wanted to know if he was going to be here, but I told him we didn't control that," Donovan said. "What we were in control of was how hard we worked every day, how we practiced and our attitude with how we went about things. There was a perception that we weren't trying to win — and that was not the case." 

Then Donovan added one more thing. A vow, of sorts. 

"I told Chris that I wanted to work on this to where everybody would say, 'Playing for this team was the one of the greatest experiences of my professional career.' There was nothing getting in the way of that and nothing getting in the way of the relationship part of it." 

Fast forward seven months. The NBA trade deadline came and went last week with Paul not only still playing in OKC, but enjoying a renaissance season of sorts with his first all-star selection in four years. The Thunder, meanwhile, boast a record of 32-22, good enough for sixth in the Western Conference, including a 26-11 mark since Thanksgiving (after the club started the season 6-11) that is the fourth-best in the league over that span. The Thunder, together, worked through it on the fly, with their head coach operating the levers masterfully. 

Anyone back in Gainesville surprised? 

It's been nearly five years since Donovan, now 54, left the Gators for the NBA. The greatest coaches (whatever the sport) all feel the itch of the pros, but few are bold enough to scratch it. Far fewer do so and actually succeed. In five seasons with the Thunder, Donovan has shown the people of Oklahoma what the people of Florida already knew. Great coach. Better person. 

And now, amid remarkable success in his post-UF life, Donovan will make an emotional return to Gator Nation Saturday night when the floor at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center officially is christened "Billy Donovan Court" during halftime of the Florida-Vanderbilt game, forever to bear the name of one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history; a rare coach who has furthered his legacy by successfully transitioning to the next and most difficult level. 

"He's always been a great coach, but his leadership and steadiness and approach to honest feedback with his players makes him a superior coach. It's never about him. He rejects that," ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy said. "You watch. When he's back there at Florida for that [court-naming], he's going to talk about his players. When he talks about this OKC team, he talks about the players. His humbleness is not fake. It's how he feels." 

That humility will be on full display at the O'Dome. 



"You can't accomplish something that is big and really important and meaningful by yourself. You have to do it with other people," said Donovan, who amassed a record of 467-186, won six Southeastern Conference titles, went to 14 NCAA tournaments and claimed back-to-back national championships during his 19 seasons on the UF sidelines. "The people at Florida were incredible. The administration, the people on campus, the people I worked with every day, the players. Everything. Everybody. It was the perfect storm."
 
 

That storm gave way to Thunder when Donovan bolted for the NBA in 2015. His first pro team, armed with Kevin Durant and Westbrook, fell one game shy of the NBA Finals. That same summer, Durant left via free agency and Donovan soldiered on for three seasons with Westbrook as the lone alpha dog, each season ending in the first round of the playoffs. 

After the last one, OKC flipped its house, with Donovan, entering the final season of a five-year, $30 million contract, left to deal with the renovation. He never complained. 

"He coaches what he has. He's never been a guy who said, 'Wow, I wish we still had this guy or that guy,' " Thunder assistant Maurice Cheeks said. "What Billy has done since he got here is allow guys — whether Kevin and Russell before, and now Chris — to be who they are and still coach them by being totally prepared and leaving no stone unturned."

The result may be Donovan's best NBA coaching job yet, but one his most pivotal trait prepared him for. 

"Everyone is attracted to humbled greatness," Van Gundy said. "He's the epitome of what service and leadership is about." 


ROLLING THUNDER 

The Thunder were 10 games into their first season under Donovan. The games (and the speed of them) were coming fast and furiously, and Donovan was still dealing with the transition. 

He doesn't remember who the game was against or where it was, just that Westbrook had driven the lane, officials had called a non-shooting foul, and the team was huddled on the sideline during a timeout. Donovan was handed the grease board and began diagramming a baseline out-of-bounds play to run once play resumed. 

As Donovan drew up the action, he was interrupted by one of his players. 

"Hey Coach," Westbrook said. "Up here, we take the ball out on the side." 

Everybody laughed. Including the coach.
 

The move from college to the pros featured some not-so-subtle changes, as well. From the moment Donovan arrived in OKC, he knew the faces in his new locker room would be looking sideways and skeptically at this career college coach and wondering if he was up to the task. What could he possibly know about their game after spending a quarter century in college basketball? 

For his part, Donovan didn't come in making any demands or declarations. Instead, he went out of his way to let the Thunder players know he did not have all the answers. It was an immediate demonstration of that humility, yet with dashes of vulnerability. The combination worked. 

"I had to understand that some of these guys had played 600 or 700 NBA games — and I hadn't coached in one," he said. "The players up here are really, really smart and there really isn't anything they haven't experienced, whether you're talking success or failure. They have an incredible way of getting themselves ready to play and have a maturity about it. And because they've experienced so much, you can really gain a lot of information by communicating with them."

That's why, for example, he went to Los Angeles almost immediately to visit Westbrook at his home and pick his brain. Over the course of his time in OKC, Donovan jetted to all parts of the globe to get to know his players, be it to New Zealand to visit center Steve Adams or Italy to hang with forward Danilo Gallinari. 

There's always been a genuineness to Donovan and the way he interacts with people. He makes it easy. At the UF practice facility, he was known to have lengthy conversations late at night with the cleaning crew. There are no airs about him. Never have been. 

"You should see him when we go to Starbucks," Cheeks said. "Talks to everybody." 
 

Exchanges with his players included sincere personal information gathering, but eventually gave way to basketball fact-finding. Donovan talked with Westbrook about where on the floor he liked to set the offense, his preferred ways to run pick-and-roll, and where he liked to pick up certain players on defense. Dozens and dozens of questions.

Now multiply that by the number of players on the roster. Donovan was in his element. 

"I learned that he was very easy, very chill, and that you could talk to him about anything and he's very straightforward," said Gallinari, who came to OKC as part of the trade for George and is now scoring 19.2 points per game. "I think he's very good at understanding what each player can bring to the table and making sure they're comfortable in different situations of the game." 

The trip Down Under to see Adams included a couple of assistants and the team's strength coach. Adams took the crew out on his boat. The 7-footer threatened to leave Donovan on an island if he wasn't allowed to shoot 3-pointers. Kidding, of course. Adams, a lottery pick in 2013, has yet to shoot a 3 in his career. 

[True story: First possession of the first preseason game this season, Donovan called a play to get Adams that long-awaited 3-point attempt. He made it.]

"When a coach first gets here, there's going to be rough patches — speed of the game, referees, different rules — but he showed he had a decent idea about the NBA and was willing to listen," Adams said. "His vision has stayed the same. His message has been consistent through the five years, while he's made some adaptations and just sort of naturally evolved as a coach in this league." 

Guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, just 21 years old, was part of the blockbuster Clipper deal along with Gallinari, and in just his second NBA season has doubled both his scoring and rebounding averages. His 19.6 points per game tops the Thunder. 

Donovan gets a big assist with that growth, according to the kid who goes by "SGA." 

"I think his best attribute is that you can talk with him about anything and he's going to listen," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "I'm not the same player I was last year. Not even close. I think he's gotten the best out of me, but I also think he's the type of coach you really want to go out there and play hard for." 

Before the season ends, Donovan will have coached more than 400 games in the NBA. That's a lot of dealing with LeBron James, James Harden and Damian Lilliard. His current record of 231-151 equates to a winning percentage of .601, which is far and away the best among coaches who have made the jump from college to the NBA over the last 30 years. The Thunder's overall record the last five years is fifth-best in the NBA, which suggests Donovan is doing fairly well against his current peer group, too. 

The coach is fully actualized. The team is highly motivated. 

Donovan's team. 

"It doesn't surprise me, no," Cheeks said of the head coach's success. "He won two championships at Florida and had a lot of pros on his teams, so we assumed he could do it." 

CHARTING THE GATORS 
Here's a look at how coaches who have made the jump from college to the NBA have fared over the last 30 years. 

Percentage (Record)	Coach	College	In the NBA
.605 (231-151)	Billy Donovan	Florida	Oklahoma City 2015-20 Playoffs: 4
.559 (302-238)	Brad Stevens	Butler	Boston 2013-20 Playoffs: 5
.466 (192-220)	Rick Pitino	Providence/Kentucky	NY Knicks 1987-89 Boston 1997-2001 Playoffs: 2
.450 (9-11)	Jerry Tarkanian	Nevada-Las Vegas	San Antonio 1992 Playoffs: N/A
.431 (239-315)	P.J. Carlesimo	Seton Hall	Portland 1994-97 Golden State 1997-2000 Seattle/OKC 2007-09 Brooklyn (interim) 2012-13 Playoffs: 4
.426 (115-155)	Fred Hoiberg	Iowa State	Chicago 2015-19 Playoffs: 1
.415 (68-96)	Mike Montgomery	Stanford	Golden State 2004-06 Playoffs: 1
.415 (44-62)	Reggie Theus	New Mexico State	Sacramento 2007-09 Playoffs: 1
.391 (72-112)	John Calipari	Massachusetts	New Jersey Playoffs: 1
.361 (69-122)	Lon Kruger	Illinois	Atlanta 2000-03 Playoffs: None
.280 (90-231)	Tim Floyd	Iowa State	Chicago 1998-2002 New Orleans 2003-04 Playoffs: 1
.245 (13-40)	John Beilein	Michigan	Cleveland 2019-20  Playoffs: N/A
.232 (19-63)	Leonard Hamilton	Miami	Washington 2000-01 Playoffs: None

There are nights when Donovan, from the bench, catches himself watching opposing players run the NBA floors and mentions to his assistants that he once sank a bunch of hours into trying to recruit them to play for the Gators. 

A sampling: Karl Anthony-Towns, Jabari Parker, Julius Randle, Joel Embiid, Justice Winslow, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. 

"Seems I always end up saying, 'And we didn't get 'em, either,' " Donovan said. 

Not always. Udonis Haslem, one of Donovan's first marquee signees and winner of three NBA titles, is still playing in Miami. Al Horford is in Philadelphia. Chandler Parsons, though injured, is in Atlanta. Dorian Finney-Smith is in Dallas, Michael Frazier II in Houston. Earlier this season, after a game against Washington, video of Donovan's post-game embraces from Wizards superstar guard Bradley Beal and backup Chris Chiozza (now with Brooklyn) made the rounds on Gators social media platforms. 
 

That time when Coach Billy D, @chiozza11, and @RealDealBeal23 met up at the end of a @WashWizards - @OKCThunder game. #GoGators pic.twitter.com/60Qw6Qd8Zy

— Bruce Floyd (@brucefloyd) February 11, 2020

"All college guys want to up here in the NBA, but there's a job to it. I give those guys a lot of credit for figuring it. It speaks to their character," Donovan said. "So for me, there's an emotional connection when I see them and take pride in what they've been able to do." 

On the subject of "emotional connection," the ante is about to upped. 


COMING HOME 

Beal, currently fifth in the NBA in scoring at 29.1 points per game, will be at the O'Dome Saturday night to honor Donovan. Horford, Finney-Smith and Chiozza, too. Jason Williams, Kenyan Weaks, Brent Wright, Teddy Dupay, Justin Hamilton, Chris Richard, Mo Speights, Vernon Macklin, Kenny Boynton and Patric Young are among those who have RSVPed in the affirmative. There may be others who show up unannounced.

The signature "Billy Donovan Court" decal will be placed on the floor Friday night during a private screening for the former coach and his family. At halftime of the UF-Vandy game Saturday, former athletic director Jeremy Foley, who hired Donovan as a 30-year-old Marshall head coach in 1996, will say a few words then turn the microphone over to the guest of honor, who will be flanked by wife Christine, their children, both sets of parents and extended family.

The arena will roar. 
Donovan is on record — when the court-naming was announced back on Dec. 6 — that he was shocked and overwhelmed by the gesture. After all, it had been five years since winning his final game for the Gators. The two sides bid their farewells and both successfully moved to their next chapters. That's the way the business works.

Life goes on. 

The Donovan home in the gorgeous Nichols Hills area of Oklahoma City is getting close to becoming an empty nest. Oldest son Billy got married two summers ago and works for the Phoenix Suns. Oldest daughter Hasbrouck graduated from UF and is working in Gainesville. Bryan, a basketball player at Division III Roger Williams in Rhode Island, had his "Senior Night" earlier this month and graduates in April. Their youngest, daughter Connor, will graduate from high school this spring and head off to college in the fall, likely in the state of Florida.  In just about every way, the Donovan family still calls Florida home, with a Crescent Beach house on the Inland Waterway — right up the road from the Spurriers, by the way — currently under construction. Why not? 

Come Saturday night, "Steve Spurrier/Florida Field" will be on one side of Lemerand Drive and "Billy Donovan Court" inside the Dome on the other. 

Yeah, that seems about right. 

"I hope I can keep it together, I really do," Donovan said. "But by myself, in my quiet moments, I think I'll be pretty emotional." 

He won't be alone. 


LOVING LIFE IN THE LEAGUE 

The NBA All-Star Game is Sunday night in Chicago. Donovan will be back in OKC in time to see most of it, but is more likely to be on his iPad getting caught up with watching tape. His first game back after the break will be against Denver and star center Nikola Jokic. That will start a Thunder run of four games in six days.  

If the life sounds chaotic and a far cry from his previous one, understand that Donovan absolutely loves his second coaching chapter. He loves the day-to-day grind and loves the seemingly never-ending conga line of games. More than anything, he loves coaching and competing against the biggest and best athletes in the world. 

In college, the coach is the face of the franchise. In the NBA, it's all about the players. That's not to say the coach is insignificant. Far from it, actually. Whereas in college, Donovan was judge and jury of his program, the job of an NBA coach requires a sweeping knowledge of the game, but also the right touches of diplomacy and diffidence. 

Donovan will one day be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. If there was a Relationship Hall of Fame he'd be in it already.

"They're easily the most overachieving team in the NBA this season," Van Gundy said of the Thunder.

After four straight playoff seasons, the 2019-20 Thunder, with Paul on the ball, lost 11 of their first 17 games this season, fueling questions about how long the team would be together and playing for a coach on the last year of his contract. Donovan just kept working with and coaching his players, providing and asking for feedback along the way.

"At 6-11, we were trying to figure out how to play with one another, and I was trying to figure those guys out, also," Donovan said. "I had never coached those guys before. I was looking at different combinations on the floor and how to best utilize Chris with this group. Initially, he probably wasn't as aggressive as maybe he would have liked and was more like trying to fit in, but I think everybody just kind of started figuring everybody out." 

OKC began clicking. The Thunder's winning percentage is .722 since Nov. 29. 

"The biggest thing I love about his coaching, again, goes back to communication," Paul said. "I'm sure at times I can be hard to deal with. But when you're in a game, you see this and you see that and you have give and take. Our motives are the same. We both just want to win."  Last month, just prior to tipoff of their game in Orlando, Donovan sought out Paul and hit him with a last-minute action — something new the coach came up with and scratched out on the board — to run on the Thunder's first possession. Paul, one of the most gifted and savvy floor generals of his generation, ate it up. 

"I love plays," Paul said. "And I really love new plays." 

The action had two options, with the first being center Nerlens Noel coming off a screen with Paul delivering a lob. Donovan wasn't so confident that would be open but liked the second option, a pass to guard Luguentz Dort, who he thought would be clear in the corner, which was exactly what happened and where the ball ended up. 

When the Magic defender closed out Dort at the 3-point line, Dort extra-passed to Gallinari, just as he'd been instructed. Gallinari was wide open on the wing and swished a 3. 
 

As Paul retreated on defense, he looked to the OKC bench, with a wink, a point and shoutout to his coach.

"That was nice!" 

Clearly, Paul's mind is at ease nowadays. His coach got him there. And then some.  

Donovan, meantime, not only has been at peace with his second coaching life for some time, but has come to excel at it. The one he left behind in Gainesville touched countless people and gave Florida fans some of the greatest moments in the school's athletic history. For that, UF forever will be grateful. For that, Donovan's name forever will grace the Gators' home court.

Yes, "Billy D," if only for a few hours, is coming home for what figures to be an unforgettable curtain call. In cheering his achievements past, take time to appreciate what he's done in the present, and wonder what he just might be able to do in the future. 

What a Thunderous night it will be.