OKC Thunder: Terrance Ferguson better as 3-and-D player

The OKC Thunder may be hindering Terrance Ferguson’s development instead of letting him settling into a role and branching out from that.

For Oklahoma City Thunder‘s Terrance Ferguson, “struggling” has been a fitting word for his offseason. Ferguson has averaged just 5.7 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game for the OKC Thunder’s Summer League team through three contests.

This is coming off a rookie season where the first round pick for the Thunder averaged 3.1 points per game and not even a rebound or an assist per game.

The Thunder now want to play faster and have more players other than Russell Westbrook or Paul George to get into the middle and facilitate to shooters. Ferguson is one of the other players that have been tasked to do this job.

Ferguson is playing in Summer League to play with the ball, not just off it taking spot-up shots. Ferguson would be a great player if he learned to play with the ball, but now is not the time yet to put that much of a load of Ferguson’s plate.

Right now, Ferguson should be a 3-and-D player that gets easy spot-up opportunities and one whose defense leads to fast break points.

Ferguson has proved that he can do this in superior fashion. On Jan. 3, he dropped 24 points against the Los Angeles Lakers in game where he used his defense (three steals) to create offense and made six out of his nine 3-point attempts.

On March 16 against the Los Angeles Clippers, Ferguson had 12 points and shot 2-of-4 from 3-point range. He also had three steals that game too.

When Ferguson is making 3s, he can heat up in a hurry. Of his five double-digit games last season, there was only one game against the Clippers on Jan. 4 (after the Lakers game) where Ferguson did not shoot over 50 percent from 3-point range. He shot four or more 3s in all of those games.

When you look deeper into the stats Ferguson did not have a bad shooting season. From 16 feet to less than 3-point range, Ferguson shot 61 percent, even though he was just 8-of-13. In the corner where about half of Ferguson’s 121 3-point attempts came from, he shot 42 percent.

Ferguson should focus on shooting at those areas during the offseason.

The Thunder love to build up two-way players as seen by their Summer League roster. With Ferguson, they have a player with great promise that can be their next great two-way player.