Patrick Patterson looks like a starter in Thunder scrimmage

Oklahoma City's Patrick Patterson, left, puts up a shot over Tyler Davis during Sunday's Blue and White scrimmage on Sunday at Chesapeake Energy Arena. [PHOTO BY SARAH PHIPPS, THE OKLAHOMAN]What a difference a year makes for Patrick Patterson.

At the end of the Thunder's Blue and White Scrimmage, there was hardly any sweat on his now-chiseled 6-foot-9, 230-pound frame. Patterson was listed as playing 39 minutes on the unofficial stat sheet, but that wasn't entirely accurate. The scrimmage ran 10-minute quarters for the first three periods, then switched to a running clock in the fourth.

The point is Patterson played a lot, and that wasn't possible last preseason.

“It's a night-and-day…