Thunder at the Trade Deadline Observations

Tonight the Thunder play the Memphis Grizzlies at home on the night of the NBA’s trade deadline and for the second straight season I have the Thunder circled in red as the league’s most underachieving team at this juncture in an NBA season.

The Thunder stand at 34-19 with one of the league’s highest payrolls and should easily with any focus whatsoever be 40-13 and tied with the Milwaukee Bucks for the most wins in the NBA.

Again, I’m tired and bored with the local college media which attempts to cover the Thunder. The two brief paragraphs above aren’t all that radical, but you never read or hear any of this except from maybe Jim Traber. The level of coverage on the Thunder is appallingly weak if you’re a real NBA fan and you’ve been watching the league for five decades or so.

The Thunder are never challenged or taken to task for every season since 2012 for basically underachieving. Maybe in 2017 when they won 47 games following Durant’s departure I might give them a break. But not a huge one.

This Thunder in 2018-19 should be a strong contender. They should be at the 40 win plateau already if Billy Donovan had the coaching personality to ‘somewhat’ drive a team. This team has been relatively healthy unless you ever considered Alex Abrines an integral part of the team. This isn’t a team which has missed a lot of man games due to injury. Both Westbrook and Paul George have been healthy since the 0-4 start without Westbrook.

But it goes deeper because if you really look at this team everyone in the rotation has gotten better and performed at a high level individually. Steven Adams is having a career year and is now a borderline all-star type of player. Jerami Grant has evolved into one of the league’s most versatile players. Terrance Ferguson proved us all wrong and is the best two way player the Thunder has had at the shooting guard position since probably Thabo’s 2012 season or maybe Kevin Martin in 2013.

Paul George is having the best season in his NBA career and is a legitimate top four MVP candidate.

Dennis Schroder in my view is in the top three contenders for Sixth Man of the Year.

Nerlens Noel is one of the league’s best defensive specialists coming off the bench.

Patrick Patterson has been solid after getting off to a slow start and Abdel Nader has been fine taking over the Abrines minutes and Hamidou Diallo has been a pleasant surprise as a second round rookie making his way through his first NBA season.

So why the underachievement for this team with Carmelo Anthony gone and Billy Donovan already given his option year despite the fact the Thunder haven’t done anything of any note whatsoever these past two seasons so far.

I guess it’s just Sam Presti’s way is all I can assume at this point. If you’re an objective person you have to take notice that since Durant’s departure this franchise hasn’t done anything from a team standpoint except help Russell Westbrook pad his triple double numbers.

That’s it as far as I can see. They’ve finished no higher than fourth in the West in the regular season since Durant joined the Warriors. They haven’t sniffed winning a first round playoff series. They’re a collective 3-8 versus the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz in those post season games.

So what is it a fan should take away from all of this?

To me, it says either one of two things:

1 Russell Westbrook as a high usage point guard doesn’t have an overall game which can advance in NBA post season play when the competition is good every game and the opposing coach doesn’t miss obvious things.

2 Or Billy Donovan is in a bit over his head. Or maybe it’s calibrated combination of both of these factors rolled into one.

I don’t know, but I know this is a roster which should be headed for a 52-54 win regular season and at the minimum a team which should advance to the semi-final round in the West. To me, if I were Sam Presti these would have been my minimum benchmark requirements for this team.

But I guess I’m to assume in little college market Oklahoma City no one at the top thinks that way or rolls that way. I guess just having a team which is good enough to sell tickets is the line of achievement threshold.

So at the trade deadline for the second straight season the Thunder are one of the league’s underachievers from my point of view.