Oklahoma City Thunder: 2017-18 NBA season preview

Best-case scenario

For any team in the league, winning the title is the best-case scenario. That’s the on-court goal of every team, even if many realize that goal is out of reach for the upcoming year. But the Oklahoma City Thunder are one of just a handful of teams that can claim a championship as the goal within reach.

It will take work, and involve growing pains, but this team can figure out a balance between its three high-usage stars. Such a balance where the Big Three share the ball in a way that keeps them engaged will be the biggest key to contention.

Steven Adams is still a player on the rise, and Andre Roberson is one of the league’s very best defenders. If both can take a step forward offensively as threatening low-usage players, this team will be very difficult to guard.

In the best-case season for Oklahoma City, Billy Donovan manages the rotation and the three stars thrive together. Carmelo Anthony is dynamic with defenses keyed in on Westbrook and George, and does turn into “Olympic Melo” as so many are hoping for. George happily accepts the second-banana role and plays hard every night.

This team hits the 58-60 win mark, claiming the Western Conference’s second-best record. In the Western Conference Finals they upset the Warriors, then go on to defeat LeBron James in the NBA Finals and bring a title to Oklahoma City.

Worst-case scenario

Not every super-team pans out, and this grouping could go horribly wrong. Carmelo Anthony could think of himself as the player he was five years ago, instead of accepting his place as third in the pecking order. Paul George could expect to fill the same role as Kevin Durant did in Oklahoma City, with Westbrook as the “sidekick.”

If Andre Roberson cannot improve offensively, then he can’t play in the postseason and especially not against the Warriors. That leaves a gap in the starting lineup and a role that will need to be filled. Small items like that could sink a Thunder team now operating with less depth.

A worst-case season sees the Thunder struggle to coalesce, and a very strong Western Conference chews them up and spits them out. The Westbrook-George pairing is not working out, and the Thunder flip him at the trade deadline to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Entering the postseason as the seventh seed, Westbrook and Anthony fall to the Houston Rockets.