Thunder coach Billy Donovan kept coming back to how helpful it was to have several players in Oklahoma City over the summer.

According to Donovan, the Thunder began the first day of training camp Tuesday discussing the team’s identity, both on offense and defense. Then they spent over two hours of work on the court.

“Some of the guys being here this summer, it was good to have them there to kind of introduce some things and talk about some different things with them,” Donovan said. “It probably afforded us the opportunity to do a little bit more scrimmage today than we maybe would have had we not had some guys coming through.”

It was evidently on Donovan’s mind because he brought up that offseason work again after answering a question on a different topic -- veteran point guard Chris Paul's communication.