Thunder Finishing Up Solid First Week

By Randy Renner

After four days of practice, three of them featuring two-a-days, Thunder head coach Scott Brooks is pretty happy.

"I thought today's practice was very good. After four days there are some guys who are a little sore but they all came out today with great energy."

And right now that's important. Brooks doesn't want to see anyone losing interest or focus this early, despite how achy their muscles might be.

"After three or four days of practice you know the body kinda tells you you need to take a day off, but we didn't have that. Guys really committed to getting better and working on all the things we wanna take care of going into this season."

Brooks and his coaches have been able to have the players work on some new things this week since the newest members of the team spent a lot of time over the summer learning the system and terminology.

"They've been picking up things as quickly as we've been putting them in, so far it's been great."

Rookie Mitch McGary is soaking up knowledge from Steven Adams who's now a veteran.

"Yeah that's weird," Adams admitted, thinking of himself as a vet, "But he's my young guy so when he makes a mistake I just go up to him and say like 'hey young fella, that's how it is," he said with a chuckle, "so that's cool."

But Adams said McGary is doing a great job of adjusting to the pace of the NBA game and how to play his position at this level.

"He's doing great," Adams said, "he's learning a lot right now because a ton of information is being thrown at him and he's taking it really well."

As far as giving the rookie any advice Adams is trying to play it as safe as possible, "I don't wanna throw him off or anything so usually after he makes a shot I'll go up and say, 'good shot,' something real safe."

And Adams kept things safe with reporters too, when he was asked about the lineup and who was playing where, he simply said, "oh it's been changing every day."

Somewhere Scotty Brooks had to be smiling, as you know he's said he doesn't plan to reveal anything about the starting lineup (beyond the obvious Durant, Westbrook & Ibaka) until the last days of camp.