OKC Thunder: 5 Keys To Stepping Up As Title Contenders

5. Abandon Randy Experiments

The Randy Foye trade was a nice try. Without giving up anyone vital to the rotation, the Thunder swung for the fences on a career 36.9 percent three-point shooter. Good job, good effort.

But Foye hasn’t been an efficient long range threat since his first season in Denver back in 2013-14, and even then he was shooting a paltry 41.3 percent from the floor overall. His 54 games with the Nuggets this season were also worrisome, with the 10-year veteran posting a meager 6.0 points per game on ugly .351/.296/.830 shooting splits.

The hope was that giving him a more concrete role on a winning team would revitalize his scoring potency off the bench, similar to his role with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2010-12. Unfortunately, that plan has completely backfired.

In his first eight games with OKC, Foye’s numbers have plummeted even further to 3.8 points per game on 30.8 percent shooting from the field and 25 percent shooting from three-point range. And yet — somehow — head coach Billy Donovan is still giving him 18.1 minutes per game.

Meanwhile, the Thunder have a perfectly useful backup point guard in rookie Cameron Payne who’s been all but phased out of the rotation, logging a grand total of 32 minutes since the All-Star Break. Before the Foye trade, Payne was averaging 5.4 points and 2.1 assists per game on superior .435/.397/.769 shooting splits and made D.J. Augustin expendable in the first place.

On a similar note, it’s time for the disastrous Dion Waiters experiment to end as well. Waiters is shooting an abysmal 39.6 percent from the floor, yet he takes the most field goal attempts per game of anyone on the roster who’s not in the Big Three. He’s converted a decent 35.6 percent of this threes this season, but he’s been a -21 overall since the break.

Waiters has been turning the ball over, his shooting numbers have slightly dropped and he’s just been a bad decision-maker on both ends of the floor. Between Waiters and Foye sharing the court together, it’s a damn good thing this team has two top-10 players on its roster.

Eight games is a small sample size, but it’s fair to say Foye has been an unmitigated disaster so far. For a team that needs to make some noise in the playoffs to remain an attractive free agency destination for Kevin Durant, the margin for error is slim.

It’s time for the Randy Foye and Dion Waiters experiments to end, with their minutes being funneled back into Payne, Anthony Morrow or even more of Kyle Singler, who recently worked his way back into the rotation and was quite good over OKC’s latest road trip.

Next: No. 4