Oklahoma City Thunder: 3 big questions heading into 2019-20

3. Will there be greater contributions from the young players?

When a team is in rebuilding mode or, in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s case, looking to rebuild, they have to get great contributions from the young players in the early years.

This team will be mostly made up of young players after you get by the nucleus of Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, Dennis Schroder, Andre Roberson and Steven Adams.

Those young players will be asked to step up big time for the Thunder. Players like Hamidou Diallo, Terrance Ferguson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Darius Bazley and possibly Kevin Hervey, if he is called up from the G League.

Diallo proved that he can be effective from what we have seen in the Summer League. He led the team in scoring at 14.8 points per game and looked to be the clear leader for the team. In his second year, he will get more playing time and look to be a greater impact for the team.

Gilgeous-Alexander is coming off a great rookie season. Can he adjust to the change in teams so early in his career? It will be interesting to see. He will have to show a great deal of maturity to handle that.

Finally, Ferguson had a year where he didn’t improve much statistically but he was a great help to the team with his ability to shoot. He will have to show a greater improvement in the upcoming year. If he can show that he can put the ball on the floor that will be a big help to the team.