2024-2025 OKC Thunder Games Thread

[Clav]

Starting tonight, preseason for the Thunder begins with a trip to San Antonio to face the Spurs. It's time for a season thread here, get back in action everyone, let's go! Thunder Up!

Tonight I'm focusing on how the team plays with the starting unit, and how the Thunder's bench lineups seem to play together.

Not so interested in seeing camp-invites get long run for Game 1, I'll see plenty of that in the GL. OKC also has a B2B in Summer League (at home then in Tulsa). That second game is vs New Zealand Breakers so play the camp invite / two way guys in that b2b more, give our NBA squad some solid PT tonight.

[Clav]

Chet tweaked something in his groin or hip on a block. Went to locker room, but the team is playing well -- hopefully nothing serious

no SGA or Dort but a lineup of Wallace Caruso Dieng Holmgren Hartenstein made the Spurs go ice cold. Caruso looks like a great fit, Hartenstein's had a no-look pass to Caruso for a 10ft shot and is grabbing rebounds

[retrobro90]

Chet tweaked something in his groin or hip on a block. Went to locker room, but the team is playing well -- hopefully nothing serious

no SGA or Dort but a lineup of Wallace Caruso Dieng Holmgren Hartenstein made the Spurs go ice cold. Caruso looks like a great fit, Hartenstein's had a no-look pass to Caruso for a 10ft shot and is grabbing rebounds

Don't think that groin tweak is anything crazy based on the lack of reporting during the event and that he came back to the bench even though he didn't play in the 2nd half.

How about Hart with 7 dimes in that first half? Behind the head dime to Caruso was nuts and was soiled by having to hear about it by the spurs announcers on nbatv. But he's a legit playmaking hub. Sabonis level quarterbacking on dho's.

Best I've seen Dillon Jones play thus far. Aggressive on offense and wasn't a complete liability on defense. Took a charge. Played more physical on that end. Willing to let my opinion be more malleable on him so long as he continues to show this kind of improvement.

Ajay Mitchell really impressed in the first half. Happy he got early minutes with some more seasoned vets.

Ous is terrible. No improvement. Tired of beating this drum. Hopefully some team has convinced themselves his g league finals mvp means he's worth something but his processing speed is dial-up when everyone else is fiber optic.

Dub was incredible.

Chet was incredible.

Caruso was incredible.

Theyre gonna be awesome this year. Hard not to be excited.

[Big nick]

Wow I can believe how big dillon is.

[BlazersBroncos]

The amount of balls Caruso disrupts on defense is unreal.

Always though that Hart's passing would enable him to be a offensive fit even if he cant revitalize that 3PT shot.

Just two really smart, unselfish guys that are going to fit like a glove.

Mitchell looked the part already as a bench combo guard. He just knows how to get to his spots on offense.

I never really thought about the fit of Dillon as a small-ball-PF, which is what he was playing last night. Think thats about his only chance to succeed in the league, at least defensively. A guy like Tucker managed a career at PF at near the same size so maybe Dillon can do the same. His connecting on offense is pretty special, you cant teach that feel. Will come down to his 3PT and his defense.

[slick_watts]

Ous is terrible. No improvement. Tired of beating this drum. Hopefully some team has convinced themselves his g league finals mvp means he's worth something but his processing speed is dial-up when everyone else is fiber optic.

he had two blocks. he only had 12 career blocks coming into this season. which is the lowest number of blocks for someone 6'10"+ in their first two seasons (min. 900 minutes) since 2001.

[Clav]

Ous is terrible. No improvement. Tired of beating this drum. Hopefully some team has convinced themselves his g league finals mvp means he's worth something but his processing speed is dial-up when everyone else is fiber optic.

he had two blocks. he only had 12 career blocks coming into this season. which is the lowest number of blocks for someone 6'10"+ in their first two seasons (min. 900 minutes) since 2001.

That's pretty shocking. He didn't have a great season in the GL in terms of blocks, either -- But he did get a handful in the playoffs.

23/24 Season in the GL
Total Minutes RS 1050 :: 26 Blocks
Playoffs Minutes 194 :: 9 Blocks

[retrobro90]

Ous is terrible. No improvement. Tired of beating this drum. Hopefully some team has convinced themselves his g league finals mvp means he's worth something but his processing speed is dial-up when everyone else is fiber optic.

he had two blocks. he only had 12 career blocks coming into this season. which is the lowest number of blocks for someone 6'10"+ in their first two seasons (min. 900 minutes) since 2001.

Lol yeah that's an improvement I guess considering the historically terrible block rate you've outlined.

He was also 1-6 with a negative AST/TO ratio if we wanna throw out numbers from that game but really the eye test is more valuable when we're talking about preseason and he looked awful

[Clav]

On Wednesday we lost to Houston -- all top guys played well, looked pretty comfortable overall, there were a few bumps in the offense and some running into each other on DHO but I Think positive outlook on that. SGA looked chill, it wasn't a full throttle attempt, scrappy game with the HOU defense being pretty good, but they were also struggling on offense. OKC missed a lot of FTs [12-of-21 for the game, really weird]

The bench guys proceeded to lose the lead and the game - Wallace and Joe ---and Wiggins were all -20 or more, Dieng -17, Flagler shot terribly, so not great to see that but we have gotten our first looks at some of the GL squad and there's promising moments from Dillon Jones who is being used as a small ball center because of course he is lol


Thursday, the bench guys - only 8 played - and only Dieng and Jones from our main squad. However, they played a lot better figuring out the offense in the second half and beat the travel weary NZ Breakers. I got to see the first half of this game and though NZ was playing pretty good, it was an interesting matchup between GL squad v pro squad in NBL, pretty equal but we had 10 steals and +9 rebounds total, defense was superior for sure.

[slick_watts]

interesting that caruso got the start. not sure what to think about that.

[Mr Thunder Nick]

For me we have two starting five line-ups depending our opponent.

5: Holmgren 5: Hartenstein
4: JDub 4: Holmgren
3: Dort 3: JDub
2: Caruso 2: Dort (Caruso)
1: Shai 1: Shai

[Kizz Fastfists]

For me we have two starting five line-ups depending our opponent.

5: Holmgren 5: Hartenstein
4: JDub 4: Holmgren
3: Dort 3: JDub
2: Caruso 2: Dort (Caruso)
1: Shai 1: Shai

The starting lineup should be Hartenstein-Chet-JDub-SGA and Dort/Caruso. I'd go with Caruso, but I won't be upset if they go with Dort and bring Caruso off the bench as the 6th man. They'll probably go with SGA-Caruso-Dort-JDub-Chet. OKC has never had a desire run their optimal lineups and it always hurts in the playoffs. They'll run through the regular season no problems easily being the two seed and most likely the #1 in the West. What happens in the playoffs is too early to call. They have a team capable of winning a championship, although turning some of the excess at wing into another PF/C would be ideal, but even without that the team is the best since the KMart year, where they statistically should have won a championship if Russ hadn't gotten hurt. JDub should only be playing PF minutes in a small ball lineup, but he'll probably be the primary PF again this year.

[slick_watts]

the thunder have never in their history mucked around with starters during the regular season, except as a result of injury or trade. i'd be surprised if they fielded opponent specific starters. they've shown flexibility in the playoffs so i can see some opponent specific shuffling at that time. mark daigneault has had no compunctions about being flexible with rotations during the season though, and even benching starters in second halves (happened to giddey and dort several times in 3rd quarters last year).

i would not start isaiah hartenstein, mainly because i think his value freshly occupying the chet-less minutes is higher than whatever small benefit he would bring to the starters. i think i would start aaron wiggins.

[Clav]

Both good points from you two, I would prefer starting with 2 bigs to cover early game cold streak as much as possible. Getting Hartenstein down there will help us if we're not on point shooting out of the gate.

SGA/Dort/Jdub/Holmgren/Hartenstein is my guess.



I just don't see Dort getting demoted, I don't see big money Hartenstein being coming off the bench. I think we'll be really good this year by keeping rotations crisp and not sticking to that starting lineup for over half the 1Q and 3Q, keep the guys rotating in, we have depth in RS if we get ahead to play the game out without pushing our starters flat out

[Patches Perry]

Catching my first preseason game, and man I'm excited for this season. Watching Caruso on the 2nd unit with Wallace is scary. They just pressure the ball so well and have great hands to turn the opponent over.

Hartenstein looks like a nice addition to the rotation, gives us a different element.

Shai, Dub and Chet look as expected (awesome)

[Clav]

Catching my first preseason game, and man I'm excited for this season. Watching Caruso on the 2nd unit with Wallace is scary. They just pressure the ball so well and have great hands to turn the opponent over.

Hartenstein looks like a nice addition to the rotation, gives us a different element.

Shai, Dub and Chet look as expected (awesome)

We're very disruptive on the wing -- im very optimistic about our ball pressure and deflections we get, it's really nice to see. I don't think it will be easy for teams to deal with us night-in-night out. Can't wait for this season, and would really like us to use the final roster spot effectively. Enjoy the game, we're up big right now!

[Mr Thunder Nick]

Man, this team is so deep. Even the two way players are really good players.

[ThunderBolt]

I love Wiggins.

[Patches Perry]

They shot pretty poorly and still won thoroughly, which is a good sign. Their team defense is just outstanding, and the continuity they've established with guys a lot of us have basically given up on like Dieng is starting to pay dividends. Dieng played a good 13 minutes tonight and he is so familiar with the system by now that those minutes are seamless. Those minutes likely disappear once iHeart returns but the depth is there.

Shai and Chet look a little more polished and a little deeper bag. Dub didn't shoot well but I expect him to follow suit in the next game or two.

Wiggins and Joe contracts are going to be absolute steals. Wiggins looked so awesome tonight, like he has improved some.

It's been said to death, but the perimeter defense with Dort, Caruso, Wallace, Shai, Dub, Wiggins is just insane. Our only weakness is guarding bigger faster frontcourt players. Someone like Julius Randle on Minnesota may give us a lot of problems in a playoff series.

[Dadouv47]

I was mostly impressed by Joe, Wiggins and obviously Chet. Joe playing well as a starter and Wiggins being so good coming off the bench is so huge. I liked those players already but I feel like we are even deeper than I thought.