2018-2019 OKC Thunder Regular Season Pt 1: A Renewed Hope

[slick_watts]

So I’m curious, I watch Ferguson and he seems to be playing defense but the analytics aren’t completely supporting this yet. Why?

rapm and all prior informed metrics are designed to be skeptical of short term outliers and ferg himself only has barely over 1k minutes played to begin with.

most analytics we talk about, or at least all rapm-liked ones, are predictive rather than descriptive. which is why they will appear to be skeptical.

something like DBPM would be descriptive, and ferguson currently has a decent DBPM this season. DBPM is sorta shoddy but you get the point.

After how many minutes will RAPM no longer be skeptical?

many hundreds of minutes i am guessing.

it's worth noting that despite the success of the ferguson starters, the thunder defense is 2.5pp100 better on the year with him on the bench. he is also not particularly productive on the boxscore defensively and fouls a lot. the starting unit represents less than 1/3 of ferg's minutes. we're allowing > 10pp100 more to opponents in ferguson minutes other than the starters than the ferguson starters.

so it isn't so cut and dry. ferg appears to contribute positively with the starters defensively but this only encompasses a fraction of his total minutes, and the other minutes he plays isn't nearly as successful defensively. it's possible there may not be a meaningful defensive impact for rpm to ferret out.

[CROklahoma]

We aint trading Ferg, and his contract, especially not for bottom trash like Snell.
Fergs defensive impact will be 2x greater than Snell's ever soon ...

Loadin’ that hot take cannon there ain’t you

Yes, I wanna see what these kids can evolve into with Russ, Adams and PG around.
It'll take time, but both of them are showing flashes and are contributing, each in their own areas.
Why would anyone trade away young, prospectful, cheap and productive contracts for someone like Snell, is beyond me.

[Dn4sty]

We aint trading Ferg, and his contract, especially not for bottom trash like Snell.
Fergs defensive impact will be 2x greater than Snell's ever soon ...

Loadin’ that hot take cannon there ain’t you

Yes, I wanna see what these kids can evolve into with Russ, Adams and PG around.
It'll take time, but both of them are showing flashes and are contributing, each in their own areas.
Why would anyone trade away young, prospectful, cheap and productive contracts for someone like Snell, is beyond me.

Two time defense impact of Snell (even though he’s not elite) would probably be close to All NBA defense. I like Ferguson a lot, but don’t ever see him having Roberson/Covington level defense

[getrichordie]

I’ve been toying around with different reasonings as to why Washington would want to send Beal to OKC. What in the world would they want, ya know?

This is a little out there, but I can kind of see it for Washington.

The premise is that Grunfeld is married to Brooks and thinks he can develop a young-ish team.

Washington thinks Adams and Roberson are two guys who can come in and help with locker-room issues and get guys back on track.

Grunfeld has seen that getting pro’s pros into a young locker room can change things around and help reset the foundation.

phone about to die/will finish later


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Bergmaniac]

Trading Ferguson for Snell would cost too much money to be even a remotely realistic option anyway given your tax situation. He'll cost way too much money for the marginal upgrade you'll get. I don't see you adding any salary this year unless it's for a significant upgrade, you are too deep in luxury tax territory for the ownership to approve anything else.

[getrichordie]

Trading Ferguson for Snell would cost too much money to be even a remotely realistic option anyway given your tax situation. He'll cost way too much money for the marginal upgrade you'll get. I don't see you adding any salary this year unless it's for a significant upgrade, you are too deep in luxury tax territory for the ownership to approve anything else.

When does that cost kick in? Snell’s money gets absorbed into Melo TPE this year if deal is done.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[Bergmaniac]

Trading Ferguson for Snell would cost too much money to be even a remotely realistic option anyway given your tax situation. He'll cost way too much money for the marginal upgrade you'll get. I don't see you adding any salary this year unless it's for a significant upgrade, you are too deep in luxury tax territory for the ownership to approve anything else.

When does that cost kick in? Snell’s money gets absorbed into Melo TPE this year if deal is done.

Trade exceptions have nothing to do with the luxury tax. You'll still pay Snell's whole salary while he plays for you and all of it will count for luxury tax calculation purposes.

[Dn4sty]

When is Burtons 45 days up? Its gotta be in a couple of weeks at most

[ThunderBolt]

When is Burtons 45 days up? Its gotta be in a couple of weeks at most

They don’t count travel days so I think he has a bit left.

[slick_watts]

Trading Ferguson for Snell would cost too much money to be even a remotely realistic option anyway given your tax situation. He'll cost way too much money for the marginal upgrade you'll get. I don't see you adding any salary this year unless it's for a significant upgrade, you are too deep in luxury tax territory for the ownership to approve anything else.

When does that cost kick in? Snell’s money gets absorbed into Melo TPE this year if deal is done.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

it still counts towards the cap lol. read cbafaq.com before you comment on junk like this. seriously. i even answered this for you earlier. the trade you proposed increases our tax payment by $22 million this season.

[Dn4sty]

When is Burtons 45 days up? Its gotta be in a couple of weeks at most

They don’t count travel days so I think he has a bit left.

Aware but did he practice with team today....those add up

[Pillendreher]

Can Grant keep it up? Its getting to where if he's open in the corner I almost expect it to go in.

he came into the year shooting 30.1% career on 568 attempts. 33.2% since joining okc on 226 attempts. jumping from that to 37% would unusual. he's not even shooting particularly well from the corners this year, only 34.4%. he's been much better above the break. again, unusual.

there's a good bit of evidence to suggest that this is just a hot streak he's in the midst of.

I think that's actually a tracking error on basketball reference. This is stats.nba.com:



He's 17/41 from the corners according to this, ie he's shooting 41.5 %.

[Pillendreher]

Thunder DRtG adjusted for opponents' offense: 101.1
Average DRtG adjusted for opponents' offense for the rest of the league: 110.0

Per stats.nba.com, they are

1st in opp eFG%
10th in opp FTr
1st in opp TOV%
11th in opp ORB%

I love watching us play well defensively as a team. If only we could shoot somewhere close to league average.

[ThunderBolt]

Can Grant keep it up? Its getting to where if he's open in the corner I almost expect it to go in.

he came into the year shooting 30.1% career on 568 attempts. 33.2% since joining okc on 226 attempts. jumping from that to 37% would unusual. he's not even shooting particularly well from the corners this year, only 34.4%. he's been much better above the break. again, unusual.

there's a good bit of evidence to suggest that this is just a hot streak he's in the midst of.

I think that's actually a tracking error on basketball reference. This is stats.nba.com:



He's 17/41 from the corners according to this, ie he's shooting 41.5 %.

He’s had fairly significant variance year to year shooting the three since he’s been in the league. Maybe this year is a “good” year.

[Pillendreher]

Thunder have six (!) players among the 20 top in team NetRtG 22 games in. The Warriors have 3, the Bucks have 4 and the Raptors have 5.

[Bergmaniac]

Possible cause for concern is that since Westbrook came back from the ankle sprain, your offense is back to being terrible when he is on the bench. 83.7 ORTG when he has been on the bench in the last 7 games. Patterson not being able to hit anything is a big reason for that.

[RalphSampsonJr]

Thunder have six (!) players among the 20 top in team NetRtG 22 games in. The Warriors have 3, the Bucks have 4 and the Raptors have 5.

Yet guys wanna keep talking about making a huge trade.. yea the shooting sucks but getting rid of a huge piece could disrupt this crazy defense.

A trade for some offense is definitely not a silly idea, just needs to be for a guy that shoots 38+% percent from 3 and can stay on the court defensively for 15 minutes a night.

Trading a future prospect like tferg or a huge piece like Adams is not a good idea imo

[getrichordie]

Possible cause for concern is that since Westbrook came back from the ankle sprain, your offense is back to being terrible when he is on the bench. 83.7 ORTG when he has been on the bench in the last 7 games. Patterson not being able to hit anything is a big reason for that.

Patterson sucking and Abrines, Ferguson, and Diallo all missing time hurts too.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[getrichordie]

Russ having a lot of fun this year

Read on Twitter

Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Old Man Game]

Can Grant keep it up? Its getting to where if he's open in the corner I almost expect it to go in.

he came into the year shooting 30.1% career on 568 attempts. 33.2% since joining okc on 226 attempts. jumping from that to 37% would unusual. he's not even shooting particularly well from the corners this year, only 34.4%. he's been much better above the break. again, unusual.

there's a good bit of evidence to suggest that this is just a hot streak he's in the midst of.

I think that's actually a tracking error on basketball reference. This is stats.nba.com:



He's 17/41 from the corners according to this, ie he's shooting 41.5 %.

My perception isn't always perfect but that certainly tracks closer to my memory of how he's been shooting it this year. Also, I do think his release looks a bit smoother.