By Jeff Latzke
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The moving trucks and house-hunting trips are in the past for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Season 2 will be all about basketball.
Here's an idea of how little of a factor the transition from Seattle will be for the Thunder players this preseason: Only Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and Nick Collison played for the franchise when it called Seattle home.
Everyone else has had a clean start in Oklahoma City, whether through the draft, free agency or a trade.
"It's something that we don't have to worry about anymore," Green said. "I think it's a lot of stress off our shoulders now, just not having the thought of 'Where are we going to live next year?' or anything of that nature. I think we're more comfortable with Oklahoma and our surroundings, and we know coming into this year that we're going to get a lot of support."
Instead of talking about who got lost in their new home city or whether the smaller market can support a team, the Thunder players spent media day Monday talking about ways the team can be better.
"There's no doubt it's a completely different training camp for all of us," coach Scott Brooks said. "Last season, making the transition in July, that's hard. This time of the year, I was still figuring out where do I get medicine for my kids that are sick. Our players, they were no different. They had to get their kids in school, they have to turn on their cable -- all the things that we had to worry about last season.
"We're just focusing on basketball this year."
Instead, the change this preseason will be that Brooks is the one directing training camp. He was named interim coach after P.J. Carlesimo was fired early last season and then hired on a more permanent basis at the end of a 23-59 season.
In trying to improve, the Thunder continued building on the youth movement centered around Durant and Green. No. 3 overall pick James Harden headlines the offseason additions, which also include fellow first-rounder Byron Mullens and veterans Etan Thomas and Kevin Ollie.
Gone are veterans like Earl Watson, Damien Wilkins, Desmond Mason and Malik Rose who struggled through a long first season in Oklahoma City that started out with talk that the team might be the worst in NBA history. Brooks got the Thunder turned around after a brutal 3-29 start, and he fended off talk Monday that the team could be a dark horse contender for the playoffs.
"I'm not going to say that is not possible because every team, you play to be in the playoffs. You have training camp and over the summer you improve your team to eventually make playoffs," Brooks said. "We understand that the Western Conference is pretty tough."
Durant, who averaged 25.3 points to rank sixth in the NBA last season, suggested that the team's transition last year helped forge the chemistry that allowed Oklahoma City a respectable finish after such an awful start.
"To be honest, that helped us grow as a team, helped us bond more. Without that, I don't think we'd be as tight, as close as we are now," Durant said. "We had to go through that. But it feels good, man, just to come back and know that we're settled here. I'm looking forward to riding on the same streets and going to the same houses every day."
There's still a little work to be done in the transition, though. There's still another year of renovations to be done at the Ford Center, and ground was only recently broken on the team's practice facility due to be completed next summer.
In the meantime, the Thunder's preseason workouts have included morning runs in the street -- rain or shine.
"Clearly this is the most settled that this group has been over the past two seasons and I think that that is certainly a benefit," general manager Sam Presti said. "One thing that I respect about our players is they've never used the uncertainty of our situation, our previous situation, nor the transition and how quick that was as an excuse. They've handled it like professionals, and I think should be commended for that."
