Oklahoma City Thunder: 3 Players Nearing Return For Battered Thunder
By Phil Watson
The Oklahoma City Thunder are getting healthier, slowly, and three of their injured performers are nearing a return.
Guard Anthony Morrow appeared to be ready to debut Sunday night for the depleted Thunder, but his left knee kept him sidelined for a seventh straight game.
However, the Oklahoman reported, that Morrow should be back this week—perhaps as soon as Tuesday night when OKC visits the Milwaukee Bucks.
Forward Perry Jones, out with a knee contusion, and guard Andre Roberson, who is nursing a sprained foot, are expected to be back shortly after Morrow.
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The Thunder will still be without forward Grant Jerrett (ankle surgery) and forward Mitch McGary (broken left foot) for a longer haul.
And then there’s the superstar duo of Kevin Durant (right foot surgery), still expected to be out until at least mid-December, and point guard Russell Westbrook (right hand surgery), who is also out until early December at the earliest.
The Thunder have lost five of their first seven games, but did pick up a victory at home Sunday night over the improved Sacramento Kings behind 22 points and six assists from Reggie Jackson and 17 points and nine rebounds from Jeremy Lamb.
It is still remarkable just how banged up the Thunder have been this season. Just seven games into the season, Oklahoma City has just six players—Serge Ibaka, Steven Adams, Lance Thomas, Sebastian Telfair, Nick Collison and Kendrick Perkins—that have played in every game.
So it’s not surprising that the Thunder is lagging in just about every major statistical category. Oklahoma City is 24th in the NBA in offensive rating (100.6 points per 100 possessions), 22nd in defensive rating (107.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) and 28th in turnovers (17.5 percent of their possessions are ending without a shot).
The turnover rate is particularly glaring since coach Scott Brooks has dramatically slowed the tempo given the short bench—the Thunder rank just 25th in the league in pace of play with 91.4 possessions per game.
It’s been difficult to establish much continuity, considering Oklahoma City has used four different starting lineups in just seven games.
Not only are the Thunder having to adjust to different players shuffling in and out of the lineup, but some of them are seeing dramatically increased roles on the offensive end.
Ibaka is being asked to do more—his usage rate is at a career-high 22.8 percent. But while his scoring is up (17.1 points per game, two more than last season’s career best), his blocked shots are dramatically down (1.7 per game after averaging at least 2.7 each of the last three seasons) and he is fouling more often (3.3 per game).
It’s the downside of him being asked to do so much more than he has ever been asked to do before.
In the four games since Reggie Jackson has been back in the lineup, he is averaging 41.8 minutes and 20 points per game, but shooting just 37 percent overall and 26.9 percent from 3-point range.
While he is averaging 8.3 assists per game, he also at a usage rate of 27.5 percent and his player efficiency rating is a below-average 12.9 (15.0 is the league average).
Perhaps most telling of just how thin the Thunder have been is this: Telfair, out of the NBA last season, is averaging double-figures at 10.4 points per game.
Even when Bassy was playing more than 30 minutes a game for the Minnesota Timberwolves nearly a decade ago, he never averaged double figures.
And he’s doing it extremely inefficiently—shooting 33.3 percent overall and 23.5 percent on nearly five 3-point attempts per game.
As a team, Oklahoma City is shooting just 31.9 percent—23rd in the league.
But it’s turnovers that are killing the Thunder. They average 18.4 per game—27th in the league—while forcing 11.1, which is dead last in the NBA.
Getting back Morrow should help with the outside shooting. He was third in the NBA with the New Orleans Pelicans last season, hitting 45.1 percent from deep, and he is a former league leader in the category (46.7 percent as a rookie with the Golden State Warriors in 2008-09).
Jones was hitting 36.4 percent from long range before he went down with the knee bruise and while Roberson isn’t a particularly adept offensive player, he brings length and quickness to the perimeter defense.
They have three potentially winnable games coming up this week—at Milwaukee Tuesday, at Boston Wednesday and home for Detroit on Friday, That means a chance to at least get back to .500.
And the schedule looking ahead into early December isn’t terrible—home games with the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors are looming, but there are two games with Utah, a home game with the Knicks and visits to Philadelphia and Detroit between now and Dec. 7.
It’s seven games in—far too early to throw in the towel, despite what Mark Cuban might think.