2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder

photo found at www.grantland.com

In retrospect, the 2013-14 season of the Oklahoma City Thunder came down to Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. The San Antonio Spurs quickly gained the 2-0 advantage after the first two games in Texas, but the return of Serge Ibaka allowed the Thunder defense to even up the series before heading back to San Antonio for the pivotal fifth game. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich substituted shooter Matt Bonner into the starting lineup in place of center Tiago Splitter, and it was the overall depth of the Spurs and the 55-26 disparity in bench scoring that cost the Thunder the game. A five-point loss in overtime of Game 6 sealed their season, and general manager Sam Presti’s approach to building the 2014-15 team began with addressing the roster’s depth and bench issues in the offseason.

The James Harden trade two seasons prior was made to shore up some of those long-term depth questions. Kevin Martin was a valuable addition to the 2012-13 team before signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves that summer, but Jeremy Lamb worked himself into the rotation in his second season at backup shooting guard last year and the organization selected center Steven Adams with the #12 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. The final piece of the transaction came this summer as the 20^th selection in the 2014 Draft (by way of the Dallas Mavericks), where Presti took another young, mobile big man in Mitch McGary, from the University of Michigan.

With their own pick in the draft – at #29 – the Thunder drafted Stanford wing Josh Huestis and will essentially “draft and stash” him in the Developmental League for at least a season. The move will allow the team to save a roster and salary spot, and give them a chance to develop the defensive stopper in their Oklahoma City Blue franchise in the DLeague. 

Presti entered the free agency period strapped for cash and up against the luxury tax threshold, with only about $5 million to spend. Despite the limitations the team initially aimed high with phone pitches to free agent big man Pau Gasol, but he would ultimately sign with the Chicago Bulls for three years and $22 million. Whereas the Bulls’ notoriously conservative ownership signed off on the team’s amnestying of starting power forward Carlos Boozer to allocate resources to the free agency acquisitions of Gasol and Nikola Mirotic, Presti said he didn’t consider using the amnesty provision on his own starting center, Kendrick Perkins. 

Anthony Morrow 2013-14 shot chart, courtesy of nyloncalculus.com

His biggest free agency investment instead was shooter Anthony Morrow on a three-year, $10 million deal (with partial-guarantees in the third year). Morrow will play both wing positions, at 6’5”, and shot the three-ball at a 45% clip in 2013-14 for the New Orleans Pelicans, but struggled to reach the 20 minutes per game mark due to his inconsistent defense. He’ll replace Caron Butler’s spot in the rotation and at the corner-three-point line after Butler signed with the Detroit Pistons as a free agent.

Backup point guard Derek Fisher also moved on from the organization this summer, having retired from the NBA after 18 seasons to become the head coach of the New York Knicks. Sebastian Telfair is not only still in the league but will probably see playing time for Oklahoma City as their third point guard. His playing time should be a bit more limited than Fish’s the last couple of seasons – assuming health from Russell Westbrook and Reggie Jackson.

Much like Westbrook last season, Thunder star Kevin Durant will enter the 2014-15 NBA season injured and inactive. A Jones stress fracture in his right foot will keep the reigning-MVP out for six to eight weeks but shouldn’t affect his long-term health. As in last year without their point guard, the ancillary and depth parts of the Thunder roster will be forced to step up to overcome the loss for the first month or so of the regular season, but the young talent will need to develop during the season for the Oklahoma City Thunder to improve upon their 59 wins and eventually defeat the NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference playoffs.

For a title-contending team that’s a lock to win 70% of its games, the Thunder have a lot of young pieces on the roster. Only one player will be over 30 years of age on opening night, and Nick Collison predates to the Seattle Supersonics days. Young bigs Adams and McGary will battle Collison and Perkins for playing time this season as quicker lateral-defenders in the pick-and-roll, and Adams could overtake “Big” Perk as the starter early in his second season. McGary, one half of The Scooter Boys along with KD, is still recovering from his own broken foot suffered in the preseason, along with a back injury that kept him out of the second half of the Wolverines’ season last year.

The development of the young wings on the Oklahoma City Thunder will be of early importance to the team, in light of Durant’s injury. Third-year players Jeremy Lamb and Perry Jones III will need to make strides on the court to not only help to replace KD’s league-leading 32 points per game last season, but to play for a contract extension at the start of next season. Lamb averaged 8.5 points per game on 35% from three in ’13-14 but couldn’t quite supplant Thabo Sefolosha as the starting two-guard, while Jones started 7 games and shot 46% from the field in 12 minutes per game. Jones is a natural choice to gain more minutes at the small forward position with Durant out but will need to show more confidence in his jumper and use his physical tools to be an effective defender. Jeremy Lamb has the prettier jumper and more-advanced offensive game and could seize a starting spot at the 2 or 3, potentially keeping Reggie Jackson as the backup point guard and a Sixth Man of the Year Award candidate on the bench.

If Lamb isn’t aggressive early, he could lose his starting opportunity to fellow-young wing Andre Roberson again in 2014-15. Roberson started 16 games for head coach Scotty Brooks at the shooting guard spot but only averaged 1.9 points and 2.4 rebounds on 48.5% from the field in 10 minutes per game. As a tough and defensive-minded wing, he draws comparisons to former-teammate Sefolosha, but without the threat of the three-point shot yet. Brooks has been building up his confidence all preseason, encouraging him to get to the basket and become more aggressive on offense, as he’ll have plenty of open looks in a starting lineup with Westbrook, Durant, and Serge Ibaka.

Despite the team’s youth and inexperience with some of their developing players, Brooks has had the Thunder performing at elite levels on offense and defense the last few seasons. Presti has been hamstrung by the salary cap – thus the James Harden trade two seasons ago – but has given Brooks some veteran role players to supplement their three stars, particularly on defense. Perkins, Collison, Sefolosha, and even Fisher were all tough defenders who helped to teach the day to day responsibilities of team defense to the increasing number of young players that now populate the roster. As the roster turns over and becomes younger overall, the teaching abilities of Brooks and some of the now-vets becomes even more important, as they integrate the next generation of Thunder draft picks into the fold.

Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman

The development of the young players should help the Thunder offense become less conservative in the half-court and give the lineup more spacing options going forward. Last years’ starting duo of Sefolosha and Perk were total non-covers for opposing defenses and put more attention on their stars by being players defenses would double off of and dare to score. Combined with Brooks’s sometimes, um, basic sets, and the team seemed to reach their sixth-ranked offense almost entirely on the backs of their Big Three last season. 

In the playoffs and against elite defenses, Brooks’s play-calling and simple sets sometimes struggled to generate good shots, and the lack of secondary movement after a pick-and-roll, for instance, forced Durant and Westbrook to create their own offense when advanced defenses took away certain options. The arrival of Steven Adams as a starting-caliber big man last season at least gave the offense more options than Perkins, as he could slip screens and finish around the rim as the dive-man off pick-and-rolls. As players like Lamb, Jones, and Roberson develop their jumpers and confidence in the NBA, it should help the spacing of the OKC offense and give Brooks different options to replace some of the limited players of the last couple of seasons.

As to whether Brooks can implement adjustments to his offense remains to be seen in 2014-15, but the team succeeded in spite of their limitations by making the 2012 NBA Finals before falling to the Miami Heat. That roster had the dynamic play-making of James Harden off of the bench, especially against San Antonio, and was able to replace the limited movement on offense with elite talent. It’s unlikely that Sam Presti will have another opportunity to acquire a player of Harden’s abilities again, given the teams’ annual draft position at the bottom of the first round, but he’s hoping that this current collection of young talent can develop and contribute as rotation pieces in 2014-15. Next summer he’ll have decisions to make on Kendrick Perkins and Reggie Jackson, and the Oklahoma City Thunder could be even more-reliant on their young talent to develop in ’15-16.

For such a young team, it’s not quite a make-or-break season, as the presence of Kevin Durant (and Russell Westbrook… and Serge Ibaka) makes any NBA franchise competitive, but the ’14-15 Thunder could have their deepest collection of talent in years. The threat of the luxury tax could prevent Presti from matching an “overpay” of Reggie Jackson next summer, and the worst-case scenario is that the developing young talent isn’t yet able to replace a potential free agency departure, as Reggie replaced Harden. 

A step forward for players like Lamb, Roberson, or Perry Jones would be huge for the Thunder both this year, with Durant out for the first few months, and in the long-term, but also come playoff time. The bench and supporting pieces of the Oklahoma City Thunder might never reach the level of continuity and cohesiveness as their Spurs counterparts, but in order to advance past their rivals in hopefully another Western Conference Finals match-up, they’ll have to be better than last season.