OKC Thunder Offseason 2017: The Reshapening

[Kizz Fastfists]

Won't make it out of the first round? Come on man. This is one of the youngest teams in the league. Plus you know Presti will work his magic.

If Russ is still here next year we will win the first round series!

What young players have upside? Abrines and Sabonis? Ok. The rest have several years in the league and are either going into the last year or their rookie contract or are on their 2nd contract. How many players take big jumps in their 2nd contract? Young does not guarantee improvement. It just guarantees stupid mistakes.

Jerami Grant and McDermott are were 78th and 81st in SF RPM out of 81 players! They are young! Maybe they can improve to 75th and 78th! OKC had 5 players that deserved NBA playing time last year. Russ, Roberson, Taj, Adams and Dipo. They will have less this year unless Abrines and Sabonis take huge steps forward.

OKC will be worse in '17-'18 than they were in '16-'17. I'm sorry to be the one to inform you of this since you seem to be under the impression that they will be adding talent with no cap space and no assets. It doesn't work that way. When you run out of cap space and you can't afford to keep your best players and you have no way to replace them your team gets worse.

[Osirus89]

Where is that Groundhog Day gif when you need it.

"IF" Russ ever leaves OKC, it will be to either go home to LA or join San Antonio. There are ZERO other legitimate options for him. Zero. zero. 0. Cero!!

Golden state and Cleveland aren't going to be weaker just because Russ joins a new team. Why run to a new team that doesn't give him a better chance of beating them and make less money. Sure, if Russ joins a team with jimmy butler and Hayward in Boston, they would be a very good team. However, all 3 would make much less money than they could and they still won't beat golden state. What's the point. It's a fool errand to try to defeat the Warriors by jumping from team to team. That's why Chris Paul will probably stay in la and Hayward will probably stay in Utah.

Until 1 of the Warriors core leaves the team, they are the juggernaut. Durant probably cost Russ a chance at ever winning a ring by joining GS. There is no way around it. He probably cost a lot of teams the chance at a ring. Clippers, Utah, Houston and so on. It's the cold truth. Slapping together a team will not defeat them. Only age or injury will. Paul George isn't going to la, if he does go, to win a title. He's going to be the face of the lakers like his idol Kobe. Kyle Lowry might go home to philly.

If you are not on Cleveland or golden state, you better not find fulfillment in only winning a title, because you are just setting yourself up for disappointment. Play wherever you are happy. That's all you can count on unless something as crazy as Durant joining the Warriors happens again.

[Andre Roberstan]

Where is that Groundhog Day gif when you need it.

"IF" Russ ever leaves OKC, it will be to either go home to LA or join San Antonio. There are ZERO other legitimate options for him. Zero. zero. 0. Cero!!

I'm not sure where you're getting this from.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Just to be clear you think that if the #1 seed in the East upgraded from the 17th PG in RPM to the 3rd that would not be a drastic improvement or a title contender? I guess that is one way to look at it. I tend to think that if the #1 seed in the East that has no superstar and their two best players are Horford and Crowder were to add Russ they would be a VERY good team and a contender.

[Dn4sty]

Just to be clear you think that if the #1 seed in the East upgraded from the 17th PG in RPM to the 3rd that would not be a drastic improvement or a title contender? I guess that is one way to look at it. I tend to think that if the #1 seed in the East that has no superstar and their two best players are Horford and Crowder were to add Russ they would be a VERY good team and a contender.

I don't think RPM tells the whole story of how good a player is or isn't.

[Osirus89]

Where is that Groundhog Day gif when you need it.

"IF" Russ ever leaves OKC, it will be to either go home to LA or join San Antonio. There are ZERO other legitimate options for him. Zero. zero. 0. Cero!!

I'm not sure where you're getting this from.

I was thinking of options that make sense. The one that keeps being suggested in Boston makes no sense at all. They have a billion guards and mediocre big men. Adding a guard won't help them. If you take out the bad teams in the league, there aren't many options for him to go somewhere. San Antonio is the closest team to contending, but we would have to be doing Russ a solid for him to go there because they have nothing that would interest OKC. I put Los Angeles just for the sake of going home I guess.

What other teams would adding Russ put them over the hump. Los Angeles wouldn't even be a contender so I don't know why I listed them

[ThunderBolt]

The lakers would be a good fit, I just don't like their pieces as well. Ingram and number 2 are a good starting place. What I really want is number 3 and Ben Simmons.

[Old Man Game]

So Fred Katz heavily implied Collison could leave for somewhere he'd actually get minutes in a recent Locked on Thunder. Hadn't even considered him leaving.

[Kizz Fastfists]

So Fred Katz heavily implied Collison could leave for somewhere he'd actually get minutes in a recent Locked on Thunder. Hadn't even considered him leaving.

What team would he get minutes on? Brooklyn?

[jambalaya]

One way to approach this would be to ask what team plays a big with a worse RPM than Collison's -1. The answer to that is lots.

Many folks don't understand or "trust" RPM because it isn't perfect, so they use other approaches that are even less reliable / trustworthy on average.

As Kizz noted above McD and Grant are near the absolute bottom of RPM and team results with them on court are consistent with that. Christon last place for PGs. Bing. Sabonis, Abrines, Singler just medium bad. Bing, Bing, Bing. Most of Presti's recent choices BAD to as BAD as you can get.

The RPMs of the Thunder players in aggregate match up real good with actual team net points / SRS. If you accept the values for the good players, then the rest of the guys have to be real bad in aggregate. Credit / blame might be a little different player to player but the big picture is incredibly awful Presti bench drags the few good players down to a modestly above average team.

[Balkman32]

So Fred Katz heavily implied Collison could leave for somewhere he'd actually get minutes in a recent Locked on Thunder. Hadn't even considered him leaving.

I think it really depends on what Collison wants to do. He has a home here but if he wants to try to play he will have to go elsewhere.

[jambalaya]

This is a short summary of a model I prepared:

If Thunder keep Roberson but not Gibson and most of the main rotation played ALL improve by about 1 on RPM, McD and Grant go to only half as bad and Christon becomes an average backup PG and nobody misses ANY time then the Thunder could become a plus 7 SRS team, which is probably a barely legit title contender with a slight chance at the title. If EVERY optimistic positive change happened and NOTHING negative happened.

If you make a still very rosy scenario with no bad news, just somewhat less unrealistic positive news they might be a plus 5 SRS and compete for the 3rd seed in west (if none of Jazz, Clips and Griz improve) and a decent chance at reaching conference finals if they match-up and play well in round 2.

If you accept that some to many of the Thunder players won't improve or as much as in rosy scenario #2 or someone has a down year or Robes leaves or anyone misses time and is replaced with worse, then they will be short of this second estimate.

[Andre Roberstan]

Do you have a general idea of an average RPM improvement year-over-year for prospects at the age of our roster? Or does that data exist somewhere?

[jambalaya]

I am going to look for exactly that. I think it exists (done years ago). I think on average players may improve about 1/2 pt on RPM per year for first 4-5 seasons but that is just a guess and might be a little too high.

[jambalaya]

Found a study of RAPM from 3 years ago and it is roughly 1/2 pt per year to 25 then the increases rapidly slow and become declines at 28.

[Old Man Game]

Found a study of RAPM from 3 years ago and it is roughly 1/2 pt per year to 25 then the increases rapidly slow and become declines at 28.

Interesting.

[Old Man Game]

Found a study of RAPM from 3 years ago and it is roughly 1/2 pt per year to 25 then the increases rapidly slow and become declines at 28.

Interesting.

[spearsy23]

Taj leaving isn't going to be the biggest factor in a decline, regression to the mean in close games is. We should have been a .500 team but Russ dragged us above it. Nobody in the history of ever is actually that clutch

[ThunderBolt]

Is Derrick Jones jr a guy Presti would try to get? He's 20 years old, extremely athletic, cheap, can't shoot and potentially buried on the bench behind warren and maybe Josh jasckson after the draft.

[Osirus89]

Is Derrick Jones jr a guy Presti would try to get? He's 20 years old, extremely athletic, cheap, can't shoot and potentially buried on the bench behind warren and maybe Josh jasckson after the draft.

He and Russ have a history, but in theory he seems like a presti guy as far as physically. I would pay to see Russ's face if presti said "We are about to bring in Derrick jones from Phoenix"