“Early in my career, I didn’t take every shot as seriously as I do now, to be more efficient,” James said. “It comes with age, it comes with experience. You know, when you’re an 18 year old rookie, or a 21-year-old, third year in the league, you can get away with a lot of mistakes, and not looking at numbers as much. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been more efficient, taking care of the ball. I value possessions more.”
The bloom is off the rose for the Oklahoma City Thunder. After advancing in the playoffs for three straight seasons, the Thunder regressed last year, losing to the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round. And while many of their Western Conference rivals upgraded in the offseason, Oklahoma City was conspicuously absent in free agency. Their biggest move was letting Kevin Martin walk for essentially nothing; the James Harden trade before last season hangs over every decision they make.
It’s easy to forget that during the regular season, when they had both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Thunder barely missed Harden. They had a 60-22 record, second-best in the NBA, and a +9.4 point differential, the highest mark in the league. Before a knee injury knocked Westbrook out of the playoffs in the first round, Oklahoma City had as good a chance as any to win a championship. If he comes back healthy, they’ll be right there again.
Without Westbrook, the Grizzlies exposed some of the cracks in the Thunder foundation. They double and triple-teamed Kevin Durant with impunity, daring guys like Kendrick Perkins and Thabo Sefolosha to beat them from the perimeter. Perkins had a playoff PER of -0.6; the worst mark in postseason history for a player with that many minutes. All of a sudden, the margin for error in Scott Brooks’ questionable rotations was gone.
Nevertheless, there’s only so much harm a coach can do on a team with two of the top 10 players in the NBA. Durant, a four-time All-Star and first-team All-NBA selection, had a 28.6 PER last season. Westbrook, a three-time All-Star and second-team All-NBA selection, was at 23.7. They are the best of the best; physically dominant players essentially indefensible in a 1-on-1 situation. Even scarier for the rest of the league, they are still getting better.
Durant and Westbrook are only 24, more than six months younger than Stephen Curry. By NBA standards, they are impossibly young, with the primes of their careers still ahead of them. Both have room to improve as decision-makers and all-around players, a transition many great players make as they move deeper into their twenties. In a best-case scenario for Oklahoma City, the two become a younger version of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
In the 2012 NBA Finals, the older stars carried the day. In Game 4, a 104-98 victory which gave Miami an insurmountable 3-1 series lead, Westbrook had 44 points and 5 assists. The Heat had no answer for his dribble penetration and pull-up jumper, but he couldn’t leverage his scoring ability to consistently create easy shots for his teammates. LeBron, in contrast, had a masterful 26 point, 12 assists and 9 rebound performance, controlling every phase of the game.
Earlier in his career, LeBron would have tried to dominate with the dribble-drive, wearing himself out while attacking a set defense from 25-feet out. Instead, with Brooks sticking smaller defenders like Harden and Sefolosha on him, LeBron was content to post up and maul them on the block. He made the game easy on himself, drawing double teams and setting up shooters like Mario Chalmers and Mike Miller for a barrage of open 3-pointers.
Durant took the loss to heart, returning last season with a more balanced all-around game. He posted career highs in field goal percentage, assists, blocks and steals, embracing a playmaking role in Harden’s absence. The next step for him on offense is playing closer to the basket. Thirty-five percent of LeBron’s shots came in the paint last season, in comparison to only 19 percent of Durant’s. Just because a star can make three-point shots doesn’t mean he should take them.
That’s something Wade has realized as he has gotten older. In 2009, he took 3.5 three-pointers a game and made them at a 32 percent clip. In 2013, he took the shot out of his game entirely, averaging less than 1 attempt a game. As a result, he posted a career high in field goal percentage (52 percent) and had a near-career low in field goal attempts (15.8). These days, rather than competing to rack up points, Wade and LeBron compete to play as efficiently as possible.
Right now, inefficiency is the biggest hole in Westbrook’s game. Last season, he took 3.7 three-pointers a game despite shooting only 33 percent from deep. There isn’t a defender in the NBA who can stay in front of him; every time he hoists a three-pointer, he is bailing out the defense. When he does attack the rim, he often forces the action. Westbrook made only 58 percent of his layups last year, a middling number for a player with his finishing ability.
Of course, one of the reasons Westbrook forces shots is the lack of shot-makers around him. LeBron and Wade, in contrast, play in a tremendous amount of space, since Miami’s role players are selected for their shooting ability. That wouldn’t work if the stars had not embraced defense and rebounding. There are no defensive specialists like Sefolosha in the Heat rotation. When they needed a stop on Tony Parker in the 2013 NBA Finals, LeBron guarded him.
There’s no reason that Durant and Westbrook can’t become perennial All-Defensive team selections too. Westbrook, at 6’3 190 with a 6’7 wingspan, is an athletic terror who doubles as one of the biggest PG’s in the NBA. Durant, at 6’11 235 with a 7’4 wingspan, shatters the prototype for combo forwards. When they’re dialed in, the two give the Thunder stoppers at nearly every position on the floor. The sheer amount of length they have is mind-boggling.
Miami didn’t reach their potential until the middle of the 2012 playoffs, when an injury to Chris Bosh forced them to play small-ball. If Oklahoma City ever benched Perkins and moved Serge Ibaka to the center position, they would have floor spacing every bit as good as the Heat and the San Antonio Spurs. Playing in space would also benefit Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb, the two talented young guards who will take bigger roles with both Harden and Martin gone.
And while they may not go small next season, time is still on the Thunder’s side. LeBron and Wade didn’t become teammates until they were 26 and 28, respectively. Three years later, they’re still elite athletes, but their biggest edge over Durant and Westbrook is mental, not physical. To paraphrase Charles Barkley, a lot of guys can jump over a building. What they don’t realize is they can walk through the door and take the elevator instead.
At 21, Durant and Westbrook lost in the first round. At 22, they lost in the Western Conference Finals. At 23, they lost in the NBA Finals. At 24, Westbrook got injured and they lost in the second-round. As long as they stay healthy from 25-35, the sky is the limit for what they can accomplish. Oklahoma City could win a whole grip of titles, starting as soon as next season. There isn’t a team in the NBA with a more promising future and it really isn’t even close.
