The Oklahoma City Thunder miss Kevin Durant — what grade has the team earned without him?
Kevin Durant only lasted seven and a half games before a hamstring injury would sideline him for two weeks. The Oklahoma City Thunder star is set to return this week, either tonight or Wednesday, and it really can’t come soon enough.
The Thunder have been .500 without Durant and in the losses, showed some serious issues. Some of the flaws so serious that you wouldn’t even expect Durant to be able to fix them completely.
The Thunder offense disappeared down the stretch in a 100-85 loss at home to the Boston Celtics. A Memphis Grizzlies team that has struggled on offense hung 122 on the Thunder in regulation. Then the Thunder managed just 90 in a loss to the Knicks. So far without Durant, OKC is just 3-3.
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The numbers show the drop-off that the Thunder have had. With Durant for eight games, their offensive rating was right behind the Warriors at 110.6. That dropped to 103.1 without KD.
The defense got slightly worse too. It was 101.1 with Durant and has been 102.9 without. The net rating has gone from plus-9.5 down to just plus-0.2.
Ball movement has been worse without Durant too with the team’s assist ratio dropping from 16.8 to 14.4. The team’s effective field goal percentage is down from 53.7 to 47.8.
Anyone would expect the Thunder to be worse without Durant but for a team that has as much depth as the Thunder do, this drop-off was a bit more dramatic than expected.
Some old trends that became familiar last season with Durant sidelines resurfaced as well. Starting with Russell Westbrook.
For as great as Westbrook’s season was last year — he simply tried to do more than any player in NBA history and at times was successful with it — it wasn’t necessarily winning basketball. He took too much of the burden and it wasn’t enough to get the Thunder in the playoffs. We’ve seen shades of that again this season without Durant.
Westbrook’s usage is an insane 38.2 over the last six games without Durant. He’s attempting 21.5 field goals and 8.4 free throws a night. He’s also turning the ball over 5.1 times a game. He’s managed to keep his efficiency numbers consistent despite the increased usage, but we saw last year this is not something that is sustainable enough to put a team in position to win every night.
You can see Westbrook trying to do way too much at the end of the Knicks game (1:40 mark).
The defensive problems have been as bad as last year without Durant too. That is one of the underrated parts of Durant’s game, his defense, especially its importance to this Thunder team. Durant and Andre Roberson starting gives the Thunder a very formidable defensive duo on the wing. It allows Westbrook to gamble and makes it easier for Serge Ibaka to block shots with all that length on the floor. Insert Kyle Singler or Dion Waiters for KD and it’s an entirely different story on defense. And that’s what we’ve seen.
The other big difference when Durant is out is the types of lineups Billy Donovan is able to roll out. One of the most encouraging signs from the start of the season from Donovan was how much he liked to use Durant at the four. With Durant out, small-ball lineups essentially vanished. Durant at the four is arguably the Thunder’s greatest weapon when it comes to lineups and without that in the arsenal, the team regressed to the middle of the pack offensively.
Six games is not a lot and that may be all the Thunder play without Durant in this beginning portion of the season. While 3-3 feels disappointing, even one more win and a 4-2 record would have looked a lot better. But .500 basketball makes those disheartening trends seem like a bigger issue.
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The Thunder are never going anywhere without Durant, we’ve always known this. It’s not just about having him for the playoffs though. A high seed is important and this team can’t survive much in the regular season without the former MVP.
Final Grade: C