Oklahoma City Thunder End of Season Wrap Up

Predicted Outcome: 50-32, tied second place Northwest Division

Finished: 55-27, first place Northwest Division, 9-8 playoffs

After reaching the first round of the playoffs last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder improved even more reaching as far as the Conference Finals.  The Thunder proved itself to be not just another flash in the pan team, but a solid playoff contender for years to come.  They simply scorched the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs and toughed out a seven game grudge match with the Memphis Grizzlies to reach the Western Conference Finals.  Unfortunately the entire roar ran out of the Thunder as it was handily defeated by the Dallas Mavericks.  In that loss, the Thunder showed many flaws that could derail any chance of this young and up and coming team to repeat their conference final advancement or have any chance of being a championship team.

For starters, the Thunder’s offense leaves little to be desires.  It’s primarily dominated by just two players, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, while the rest of the team either look on or get their points by picking up what few scraps that they can get.  There is literally no ball movement and the offensive sets are completely predictable—either give the ball to Durant and get out of the way or Russell Westbrook brings the ball up and just drives the lane without even thinking to pass.  It’s especially sad considering the fact that Russell Westbrook is a point guard; it’s his job to facilitate the offense and get his teammates involved.  Unfortunately he does not.  Despite his impressive numbers of 8.2 assists a game during the regular season, Russell Westbrook has been essentially a ball hog for much of the season.  If you don’t believe that just look at his numbers.

Westbrook averaged 17.0 shot attempts during the regular season; that was second only to Kevin Durant’s 19.7 per game.  The player behind Westbrook only attempted around eight shots per game; that was shooting guard James Harden.  With those 17 shot, Westbrook was not that efficient either offensively.  He shot .446 from the field, made .336 from beyond the arc and just .451 inside the three point arc.  During the playoffs it was even worse.  Russell upped his shot attempts to 20.2 and only made less than .400 of them; he also shot an abysmal .292 from beyond the three point arc and .410 on regular two point field goals.  His assists per game also dropped from 8.2 to 6.4.   His turnovers almost doubled during the playoffs from 2.8 per game to 4.8.  Those are not especially good signs of Westbrook’s prowess as a point guard.
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