For the Thunder, the only pressure is internal and the only urgency comes from trying to make every day a success.
Months of games and practices lay ahead for the Thunder between now and the end of the season, when it hopes to be playing its best basketball. Today, however, on just the third day of U.S. Cellular Thunder Training Camp, the Thunder battled with just as much energy and focus as it would a late-season session. Leaders like Kevin Durant have helped usher in that steely-eyed, laser-sharp concentration early in camp and combined it with a youthful verve and vigor. So far, the hard work and dedication each player displayed this offseason has paid dividends.
“It’s been intense,” Durant said. “Everybody has been focused and locked in on what the coaches want us to do. I’m very pleased with everybody’s progress this summer. Having guys work out here this summer really advanced us a little bit as far as what we want to do.”
“Summer League helped the younger guys out and summer time as well, being here,” Durant explained. “The first few days have been great. We just have to keep it up and move on to the next day.”
Durant, who just turned 26 years old, has been developing and finding his voice as a leader over the past seven seasons that he’s been in the NBA. As he enters year number eight and coming off of an MVP campaign, Durant hopes to make his teammates around him even more effective, but also be the catalyst for mutual accountability. As one of the many players who worked out at the INTEGRIS Health Thunder Development Center before official practices even began, Durant helped set the tone for what he hopes will be a fruitful training camp.
“I want us to challenge ourselves,” Durant said. “I want us to come to work and be focused in every single drill and every detail. We have to do it the right way. It started the other day on the first day of training camp. I’ve very pleased with everybody. We can always get better but I’m pleased right now. We have to keep working and get ready for our first preseason game.”
One area in particular that the Thunder wants to challenge itself this preseason is in its ability to make the offense work for one another as opposed to playing in isolation situations. Over the past few years the Thunder’s assist rate and ranking has steadily improved.
Head Coach Scott Brooks wants his team to continue to evolve on the offensive end, and gave a laundry list of to-do’s in order to make that happen. Brooks believes in good spacing, trust in teammates and the pass, enjoying a teammate’s success and creating easier decisions for one another.
“We’ve been working on it over the last few years of really involving the pass more and more,” Brooks said. “Our guys have really picked it up. Going into the summer, those are the areas we wanted to focus on offensively, to give ourselves a better shot every time down court.”
The most important part of the Thunder’s offensive philosophy, however, is predicated on how the Thunder plays defense. Getting out into transition to create easy, open-floor opportunities is the way the Thunder wants to score. In order to do so, the team must play high-level, focused defense on every possession. The schemes are important and the tendencies of the opponent factor in each night, but the work the Thunder puts in now will breed consistency on the defensive end, which will be ultra-important once the season begins.
“The continuity of having a large number of our returning players back helps in our training camp because we know exactly what we do defensively,” Brooks said. “We’re always trying to improve on that. You can’t be satisfied with what you did yesterday. You have to use today to get better.”
“We’ve always had that day-by-day, incremental gains approach in our program,” Brooks explained. “Today is no different. Tomorrow is not going to be any different either. We have to really come in every day and add what we do. Defensively, we know what to do, we just have to continue to work on our technique and get better and improve as this training camp goes along.”