First Half of the Season

[slick_watts]

So half the season is over and OKC is a surprising five games over .500 at 23-18. We've experienced some great wins such as @SAS, @UTH, ORL, @PHO, and most recently @ATL but have also had many downers, such as the slew of last possession losses which remind us that this team is a work in progress.

I'm going to do my best to summarize the season so far.. I'm going give my impressions of the offense and defense in general here, then throw in some thoughts on the individual players later on.

I think everyone can say that, regardless, the overall quality of play was unexpected and the team is out performing what even the biggest homers could have predicted.

[dream_catcher_9]

I can't be happier with the way the season has gone so far. We all would have liked to win some of those close games, and play better down the stretch, but really that's asking for too much with this young team and coach.

Ill post some thoughts on our players as well, but overall they are playing very well in this stage of development and we have a lot to look forward to.

[slick_watts]

Dean Oliver, one of the biggest basketball nerds on the planet, describes Four Factors to Winning. These four factors correlate very strongly with team success:

eFG% - A measure of shooting efficiency that accounts for three pointers. i.e. how well are we shooting the ball.

TOV% - Estimation of turnovers commited per 100 plays. i.e. how well are we taking care of the ball / wasting possessions.

ORB% - The percentage of available offensive rebounds secured. i.e. how well are we getting second (or third, etc.) chance opportunities at scoring?

FTA/FGA - How often do you go to the line? Free throws are the most efficient way of scoring points (especially for OKC..).

These are in descending order of importance.. but if you're doing well relative to the competition at these things, you're going to win games. Measuring your opponent's four factors describes how well you're doing on defense.

Here are our rankings on offense.

eFG% - 21st of 30
TOV% - 26th of 30
ORB% - 7th of 30
FTA/FGA - 4th of 30

Our Offense Rating - or points per 100 possessions - is 20th in the league.

So basically, right here you see our strengths and weaknesses on offense. We're very strong getting to the line. Kevin Durant does a great job of it, but Russell Westbrook and James Harden are also above average at drawing fouls. We also happen to hit a high percentage of our free throws, so that's an aspect of our offense that is really working for us. In fact, our foul shooting and foul drawing have probably won us a few games this season.

We're also very good on the offensive boards - top fourth of the league. We get ourselves a lot of second chance opportunities and our offense is fairly good at converting them. The fact that our PG is probably one of our best on the offensive glass speaks to our success here.

We're not good at shooting the ball. This has actually gotten slightly better from last month as Kevin Durant has been highly efficient, and James Harden / Russell Westbrook aren't as bad, but overall we have a problem getting and making high percentage shots. Part of this is personnel related; we don't have any kind of interior scoring threat to convert high percentage shots. Part of this is probably coaching related; our sophistication on offense is way behind our defense - we look lost on offense frequently, whereas on defense everyone seems to have a good idea of what to do at almost all times. The good news is that this is moving in the right direction - we're making more jump shots and we're slowly developing some play that work more often than not (pick and roll, mainly). We probably are close to our potential here, without a player that finishes inside it's tough to be a top shooting team. Our 3pt shooting has been better, though, and has helped offset our other problems here.

The worst part of our offense is the turnovers. We have way too many. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are the main culprits here, but everyone on our team is turnover prone. Unlike our shooting, this has been getting worse as the season has gone on, particularly in Kevin Durant's case. The cure? Experience. This is something that will get better with time. Also, this is another weakness that would be strongly aided by a high percentage scorer in the front court finishing easy shots. Coaching is another factor here, our lack of sophistication on offense lends itself to sloppy play at times.

Overall, I give our offense a B-. I'd say a C- if it weren't for the fact that some of these things are moving in the right direction. We need to take better care of the ball as a team, and look for easier ways to score. We must take high percentage shots and avoid getting caught up with three pointers - we're shooting them better, but we only have a few guys on the team that should be shooting them with any frequency (Durant, Harden, Maynor, and MAYBE Sefolosha since he's open almost all the time). Until we can get a big man that is able to finish inside, this is unlikely to become a top 10 offense. But minimizing the turnovers and working to get the highest percentage shots would go a long way toward improving this offense.

Side Note: Our game calling to end quarters, halves, and even games is atrocious. Scott Brooks calls the same isolation play for Kevin Durant almost every time. We got bailed out twice in recent games: once by a clutch Russell Westbrook elbow jump shot against Dallas, and another tonight by Jeff Green who seemed to say 'this never works, watch this'.

[slick_watts]

I can't be happier with the way the season has gone so far. We all would have liked to win some of those close games, and play better down the stretch, but really that's asking for too much with this young team and coach.

Ill post some thoughts on our players as well, but overall they are playing very well in this stage of development and we have a lot to look forward to.

Definitely agree on playing down the stretch..

[dream_catcher_9]

nice post. I agree with you about turnovers. Russ and Durant will get better in time, those 2 players are still in the early stages of their development IMO.

I think one of the biggest reasons our offense isn't great at eFG% is like you said no low post scorer, but also because we are a bad 3 point shooting team. Durant, Westbrook, Harden can all drive and kick but we don't have the 3 shooters to hurt the opponent. Not to mention all 3 of them are still very young and aren't the best decision makers.

Basically what I'm saying is we have all the pieces in place to contend for a LONG time as long as we find a big body down low who can score, defend and rebound.

The 3 point shooting and turnovers will improve with experience IMO, because our penetrators will make better decisions with the ball when driving.

[slick_watts]

Defense is name of the game for OKC, and it's the reason we're winning games. This is highly evident in our opponent's Four Factors:

eFG% - 2nd of 30
TOV% - 11th of 30
ORB% - 22nd of 30
FTA/FGA - 17th of 30

Defensive Rating: 3rd of 30.

Note our Defensive Rating relative to our opponent's performance in the Four Factors. Although we're only excellent at one of them, it's the most important one - and on the flip side it shows how much our poor shooting affects our offense.

Anyway, obviously we're doing a heck of a job on defense. Our opponents are shooting dreadful percentages against us on a consistent basis.

Now here's an amazing fact. Oklahoma City allows the third most attempts at the rim in the entire league, at 29.5 FG attempts at the rim per game. However, opponents are only shooting 58.7% on those attempts - we're 9th best in the league at that. What does this mean? It means we're doing an excellent job challenging shots on the interior (though we do foul a bit too much, more on that later). More importantly, it means that the 3rd best defense in the league has a lot of room to get much better. Teams attack the rim against us because we lack the shot blocking to dissuade it. Considering the fact that we give up very low percentages on jump shots, could you imagine how good our defense would be if we had the personnel to force teams to shoot against us?

This also illuminates one of our weaknesses on defense - our guards don't always keep their man in front of them. Our help defense doesn't really scare anyone, either, so we do give up a lot of attempts at the rim. It's nice that we're contesting the shots, but it would be better if either our guards could consistently keep their man in front of them (Russell Westbrook, looking at you here) or we could acquire some shot blocking to perform weak side defensive duties.

Otherwise, the basic premise of our defense is to get a hand up, and force a low percentage shot. We're fourth best in the league in opponent 3pt%, with similar performance at all long ranges. This illustrates the importance of length on defense, Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha, Kevin Durant, and James Harden are all long player. Basically all our perimeter guys. When we rotate to shooters and keep the opposing team's offense on the perimeter, we're forcing someone into a tough shot. And so far it's working out for us.

We're also good at forcing turnovers. Not great. But good. We were better at this earlier in the season. We've gone away from some of the switching on defense, which elimiates some of the potential for turnovers, but also helps us remain consistent and avoid mis matches. Again, our length on defense serves us well here, we get a lot of steals.

The defensive boards is one place where we have a problem defensively, and it's well known. We've lost five games by my count due to our team's inability to secure defensive rebounds. It's a symptom of two things: lack of ideal size and length in the front court (besides Kevin Durant), and the fact that we allow so many shots at the rim, which crowds the paint and leads to stronger odds of the opposition getting position. The Spurs game was indicative of this problem. Tony Parker got to the lane at will, and even when he missed, Blair was in the paint getting rebounds and basically throwing our small front court out of the way. This is something that's unlikely to get better without either a change in rotation (i.e. start Nick Collison) or acquire a player who can rebound the ball.

Lastly, we do foul a little too much, but again, this has a lot to do with allowing so many shot attempts at the rim. We're mostly a young team, but even so, most of our big men are prolific foulers. It's not a huge problem, because we're almost right at the league average, but it's something we could do better, and probably would do better if we had a legitimate shot blocker or our perimeter defenders kept their men in front of them more consistently.

At any rate, our defense is excellent. All the work put in the offseason on the defensive end has paid off. Everyone knows where to be, and when. It's rare to see anyone taking defensive possessions 'off', and the best part is that our best player leads the way defensively. This is a huge part of building a winning culture; any player(s) we bring in down the road will likely follow Kevin Durant's lead and play defense. The thing is that we're still not at our defensive peak. Many of our young players still make young player mistakes, and as previously stated we lack the ideal size and shot blocking on the interior. I think this team has the makings of a #1 defense in the league provided they fix the minor problems.

One nitpick: I hate all the switching. We do a lot of switching to cover up for some of our personnel weaknesses on the defensive end. Oftentimes, it leads to trouble. Such as Russell Westbrook guarding Dirk Nowitzki. That's not a winning matchup. The switching has been toned down some of late, and perhaps not coincidentally, our defense has performed even better. Hopefully it will mostly stop when we get the right people at the right places.

[dream_catcher_9]

great post and very informative. Ill be reading it again. When you say we have great length on the perimeter you are correct and I think Presti wants long athletic players out on the back court. However Eric Maynor is the one exception as he has a small wingspan and isn't that long. But I guess since he does so many things well on offense that's its not a huge problem. I also notice that virtually all of our players are versatile. They can guard multiple positions.

If we get a low post banger who can block shots and rebound do you think we have the potential to be as good as a peak Boston Celtics team?

also what do you think is more important, a low post scorer who shoots great percentages, or a low post banger who defends very well and rebounds very well?

[slick_watts]

Ideally you want a player that can do both.. but the supply of that is limited.

I think if you have the choice you take the big man that can create high percentage offense. We've shown that we can largely mask our deficiencies on the interior defensively, but we can't really do much to hide the fact that we can't shoot. Also, it's easier to find defensive specialist big men in today's NBA (we might even have one in Serge Ibaka) than it is to find high efficiency big men.

Any high efficiency big men would also be good defensive rebounders. Here's a good test:

Assuming contracts are equal, and ignoring roster implications, who helps our team more? Troy Murphy or Brendan Haywood?

Both are decent rebounders, but Troy Murphy is by far the more effeicient scorer. Brendan Haywood is the better defender in the traditional mold. I think Troy Murphy would bump our offense up to top half of the league. Brendan Haywood would help our defense, but do little to help our struggling offense.

Maybe a better comparison would be Emeka Okafor or David Lee? Okafor might make our defense the best in the league, but David Lee would balance our attack out and make us lethal on both ends.

Defense does win championships, but you need to score too.. we've seen that in the games we've lost to the elite teams.

[Clangus]

Slick I could read one of these post a day and love it.

That write up was better than anything i ahve read on any of the other sites combined. Thankyou and keep up the AMAZING WORK

[Thunderbones]

slick thanx for the info man your posts are great

[slick_watts]

Kevin Durant - 29.1 / 7.1 / 3.0 on 48.4% / 36.0% / 87.9% -

There are only two flaws in Kevin Durant's game at this point: one is turnovers. There is only one non-PG that is averaging more turnovers per minute than Kevin Durant, and that's Dwight Howard. The other flaw is his clutch play - Kevin Durant's game takes a serious downswing in fourth quarters. KD shoots 50% or better from the field in the first three quarters - 40.5% from the field in the fourth. Random coincidence or not, this is something that KD will have to correct if he wants to be the best in the league.

Other than that, he's been spectacular. His scoring efficiency is up from last year, his rebounding is up, and he's become something of a defensive leader on the court. KD currently has a TS% above .600 which is a spot reserved for the most efficient wing players; to achieve this while shooting at such high volumes is very difficult. Lastly, his three point shot is starting to come around, he's got it up to 36% on the year which is a very healthy percentage, and he's creeping very steadily toward 50 / 40 / 90 percentages.

I didn't think Kevin Durant had another quantum leap in him this soon. I thought he would improve defensively (though not to this degree) but did not think that he could improve his production on offense that much so soon after making a huge jump last season. I was wrong. KD has found another gear and is just making mincemeat of everyone on offense.

A-

[slick_watts]

Jeff Green - 14.6 / 6.0 / 1.6 on 43.9% / 28.3% / 77.1% -

It's hard for me to look at Jeff Green objectively. On one hand, his production on the court has not taken any steps in a positive direction this season. On the other hand, he's doing the best he can on defense to overcome his physical limitations and usually puts in the effort on that side of the ball. He's a locker room guy, too, and everyone seems to like him.

That said, I don't know how you can be impressed with Jeff Green's progression on the court. All his efficiency numbers are down from last season, his rebounding is down, assists are down.. the only area where he's improved is shot blocking, which is a testament to how much effort he's giving on defense. But I don't think it makes up for his struggles on offense.

To put it another way, there are only 16 forwards in the NBA that average 36 minutes or greater. In terms of shooting efficiency, Jeff Green is ahead of only Stephen Jackson and Trevor Ariza (both obstensibly guards). In TRB% he's ahead of only Rudy Gay, Trevor Ariza, and Stephen Jackson. His 3pt shot is worse than all except Zach Randolph and Pau Gasol. Jeff Green just is not a productive enough player to warrant the type of minutes he's getting on the court. If you value adjusted +/- at all, don't even bother looking to that metric for help, Jeff Green is -19.2 in APM. This is a very low number which basically says we're almost 20 points per 100 possessions better with Jeff Green off the court.

I like Jeff Green as a player. He'd be a decent starting SF playing ~32 minutes a game for a good team. He's athletic and gives great effort. But he can't shoot, he can't rebound, he can't defend scoring forwards.. at this point, it's hard for me to believe he is anything other than an overall liability on the court most of the time, and every means of objectively measuring a player's impact agrees with this assessment. Perhaps getting a legitimate center would help him out a little; but it won't help out much if he can't shoot the ball.

C-

[slick_watts]

Russell Westbrook - 16.1 / 5.0 / 7.5 on 39.9% / 25.9% / 77.1% -

Russ is strange. He's putting up much better assist and turnover numbers this season, and it's apparent that he has a stronger grasp this year on how to run a team. But his shooting is still bad, marginally worse than his rookie year, and it's shown no signs of developing any kind of reliability.

Let's look at the positive things first. Russ is top ten in assists, top ten in A:TO ratio (among point guards), top five in rebounding (among point guards), and can play well defensively when he has his head in the game. If it's one thing you'd look for Russ to improve this year it's his decision making with the ball and his floor game. It's still nowhere near ideal; but it's certainly much better and has convinced me that he's probably an NBA point guard for the duration of his career.

Now the bad stuff - he still can't shoot. Russ has had an interesting year shooting the ball. He started off hot from three point range, which afforded him a decent shooting efficiency, cooled off considerably in December (with his efficiency plummeting), until now where he's barely shot any three pointers in January and has his efficiency back to 'bad but not horrible' range. He still seems to be finding his way on offense.. it's OK for now, but eventually he has to come up with a way to shoot better. It's hard to contend when your second best player is shooting under 40% from the field: shooting efficiency is one of our biggest weak point and Russ either has to shoot less, or shoot better shots.

Defensively, Russ lives a bit too much off his college reputation. He's not a great defender, he makes a lot of mental errors and has some trouble keeping his man in front of him. He enjoys switching off, going under screens, and doing other things that seem to always create mismatches for the opposition. Obviously, though, he has tremendous potential as a defender with his quick hands and feet. Most of his problems here are mental.

So even though he's still shooting horribly and his defense has beena mixed bag, Russ has definitely imrpoved his floor game and is playing like a legitimate NBA PG. I feel that's enough right now to feel excited about his future. The second half of Kevin Durant's sophomore year was about when he blew up and became a legitimate star. I'm hoping Russ follows suit.

B+

[Clangus]

what are your thought on Russell's potential? Superstar? Star? Solid starter?

[dream_catcher_9]

what are your thought on Russell's potential? Superstar? Star? Solid starter?

I think he could become a Star if everything goes well and he develops to his full potential.

[MVP-3]

If you guys hang on to 8th seed, I would love to watch you scrap it out with the Lakers. I have full confidence that you the Thunder can go even farther then 8th seed though.