2024-2025 OKC Thunder Games Thread

[slick_watts]

some thoughts.

i don't think chet will be back this year. i'm sure it's possible, but it seems like a best case scenario for an injury we basically have no precedent for in american basketball.

jalen williams has been elite with shai on the court with him this year, and awful in his minutes without shai. this is a trend that began last year after micic was traded. the units with jdub and without shai are 9.5pp100 worse than they were last year offensively. and jdub himself is at sub-50ts on 32usg in those minutes. he's too good a player to be this bad leading bench units, and this was the case even when chet was playing. i'm not sure what hartenstein will do for him that chet didn't-- it's clear to me that unit requires a secondary ball handler. someone who can handle resets. isaiah joe, aaron wiggins, cason wallace, ajay mitchell, lu dort, ousmane dieng-- these guys in the game during those jdub reserve minutes cannot create advantages. they're also all mediocre passers except maybe mitchell, and he's a rookie.

the one guy who does have a history of handling the ball and having some success with it is alex caruso, but paradoxically he's the one guy on the thunder who doesn't seem to have the green light to drive recklessly into the paint any time he wants.

offensively, the team has struggled mightily finishing in the paint (outside the restricted area) and making threes. as far as i'm concerned, ousmane dieng should never see the floor if kenrich williams and isaiah hartenstein are healthy and available.

and obviously our free throw rate is abysmal. for both these things (shot making and free throw rate), i think one of the major culprits is the opening up of our offense to a ridiculous degree. it seems like everyone has the green light to attempt shots or put the ball on the floor at any moment. we're leading the league in early 3pt attempts (33% on them). we are accumulating 30+ drives per game from players that are not shai or jdub. guys like aaron wiggins and cason wallace are dribbling into 18-footers. it's a free for all and our efficiency is paying for it.

[slick_watts]

people are complaining about shai? he's been slightly more turnover prone, and slightly less efficient than last year when you adjust for league average. he's increased his block rate and his energy on defense, in general. and he's also absolutely NUKING teams when he's on the court without jalen williams. with jalen williams on the bench shai is producing dang near 40 points per 75 possessions on 67ts.

[Big nick]

I don't believe chet will be back this year and sadly I think he has a short career. He's just to feeble and I hate it because he is a real difference maker. With Shai and chet and jdub this team could be a dynasty.

[bbms]

such a nice game, always good to see jdub bringing the steel

[slick_watts]

there will be some growing pains offensively with hartenstein. his presence changes court geometry, shai and jdub see a lot of bodies since no one is concerned about hartenstein on the perimeter at all (v. chet or jdub center, or even jaylin williams). also i think hartenstein's presence flips a switch in our guys that makes everyone play like the globetrotters. shai had a bunch of turnovers seeing bodies and trying wild passes. they settled down eventually.

hartenstein, in his 2nd game with okc, set a career high for fg attempts, and a career high on attempts from 5-16 feet (9 attempts, previous high of 7 set in last year's playoffs). he really likes that floater. i'm not a fan of floaters in general. in the short roll, hartenstein is such a weapon that it makes sense to let a few of those off per game as a way of diversifying the offense. he makes them over 50% of the time so it's not like it's a turnover. but i don't think an open hartenstein floater is a 'win', either.

[bbms]

agree with the floater thing, but his floaters look so clean

[Mr Thunder Nick]

I'm very pleased with our OKC Team, but I'm also a little bit disappointed by our first round pick from last summer. A.Mitchell is much more productive as Dillon Jones.

[Mr Thunder Nick]

Dawn...want to go to Vegas this year. The best is to win against Utah as high as possible. I also hope that Caruso and JWil will be back soon.

[Mr Thunder Nick]

Now we play the Dallas Mavericks next Tuesday at home in the quarter finals of the Emirate Cup. We payed already at home against Dallas the 11/17/24 an another home game against the Mavs is scheduled the 1/23/25. Could it be that we play 3 home games against Dallas this season, or will the game from January be changed to another game?

[Mr Thunder Nick]

What's going on in this forum. Is there no more exchange ? Boycott?

[ThunderBolt]

What's going on in this forum. Is there no more exchange ? Boycott?

This year was pretty much championship or bust to me. I don't believe we are a championship team without Chet.

[slick_watts]

the thunder are going to need to acquire a reserve ball handler to replace ajay mitchell. mitchell is a fun story who hopefully will stick around but he's not good enough. we can probably get a significant upgrade for fairly low cost there.

[Devilanche]

Haven’t been posting much on this forum on the following reasons.

1) To be fair expecting us to be good and win enough for homecourt. Probably even top 2 seeds out west still.
2) Chet is out, if he’s not back and ready for playoffs it limits what we could be for obvious reasons.

3) obviously we still have room for improvement, positive spin is that that’s scary considering how good we are performing but reality is that the weakness is why we would be knocked out in the playoffs.
4) like slick mention Ajay Mitchell has surprised us and done well but we definitely need an upgrade come playoffs at the backup PG spot or at least more ballhandling somehow.

5) still think we need a better PF / big SF backup given how Kenrich and Jaylin aren’t exactly the most reliable health wise.
6) no issues with how our rookies are doing , hope Dillon would have played more but his game wasn’t an easy fit and it’s probably going take him a year to fit in and find a role.

7) cason really need to start finding his shot and probably Caruso as well ?
8) I guess we probably will trade Dieng at the trade deadline, guess consistency is just not there or he will be finding it on another team.


I’m still optimistic about the playoff though but without Chet don’t see us as likely as coming out west and with Chet don’t have us as favourites against Boston/Cleveland with our flaws above.

[jake_swivel]

What's going on in this forum. Is there no more exchange ? Boycott?

Personally, I stopped posting after getting a warning from a mod.

[ThunderBolt]

What's going on in this forum. Is there no more exchange ? Boycott?

Personally, I stopped posting after getting a warning from a mod.

I stopped posting because I missed Jake.

[jake_swivel]

What's going on in this forum. Is there no more exchange ? Boycott?

Personally, I stopped posting after getting a warning from a mod.

I stopped posting because I missed Jake.

Miss you too, buddy

[Mr Thunder Nick]

Ok there is a little revival in this forum.

Considering Chet. I spoke to my Osteopath, who told me 8-10 weeks is realistic for such an injury, but he will lost a lot of muscle mass in the first time, so I think he could be back after the Allstar brake. I hope I'm this as realistic and not too optimistic. That would be 14-15 weeks.

[Devilanche]

Ok there is a little revival in this forum.

Considering Chet. I spoke to my Osteopath, who told me 8-10 weeks is realistic for such an injury, but he will lost a lot of muscle mass in the first time, so I think he could be back after the Allstar brake. I hope I'm this as realistic and not too optimistic. That would be 14-15 weeks.

I’m not too sure how much weight we should be putting into an osteopath words but given chet injury was hip can he do upper body exercise ? Lower body probably yes .

[bbms]

you guys are so weird, now that we finally have the good games and stuff, everybody stop posting.

know my posts ain't much but there's tons to celebrate for

[Xatticus]

My tablet died and I’m old enough to find a phone ungainly for this purpose.

I used to post from a PC, but the ads are excessively annoying.

I still watch the Thunder and check in here from time to time, but the process of posting has become increasingly irritating, so I seldom do.