Player and team writeup for March, and overall

[fallacy]

I thought since this was our first month with our "new" team, we should have some sort of baseline to show what we should expect out of our team from now on, since our overall stats are skewed due to having Green/Krstic on our team. So here it goes.

Durant - 25.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.1 blocks, 1.4 steals. .457fg, .459 3pt, .902ft
Overall - 27.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.0 blocks, 1.1 steals. .463fg, .363 3pt, .878ft

As we can see Durant's scoring is less needed now that we have a more balanced team. Also his rebounding will probably be down around the 5 or 6 area now that he has to battle with Perk, Ibaka, and Nazr full time. His defensive stats have also improved now that he has a real PF/C behind him. Turnovers are also down because he isn't forcing as much. His 3pt shooting has been insane in March, don't expect that to stay

Westbrook-22.1 points,8.1 assists,3.6 rebounds, .2 blocks, 2.2 steals. .476fg, .478 3pt, .815ft
Overall - 22.0 points, 8.3 assists, 4.6 rebounds, .4 blocks, 1.8 steals, .444fg, .348 3pt, .841ft

Westbrook really hasn't been affected by this trade much statistically. His rebounding of course will go down now that we have real rebounding PF/C's. Like Durant, his 3pt shooting has been ridiculous, don't expect that to stay. His fg shooting has been excellent by his standards, let's hope it stays that way. Turnovers still a problem.

Perkins - 6.0 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.0 blocks, .8 steals. .600fg, .480ft
Overall - 6.7 points, 7.9 rebounds, .9 assists, .9 blocks, .4 steals, .564 fg, .538ft

Statistically, we got what we were expecting with Perk. Brook's doesn't play him a ton of minutes so that affects his raw stats a little bit. His fg shooting has been excellent since joining the Thunder but his ft shooting has been awful. We all know that Perk's impact isn't shown in the stats.

Ibaka - 11.9 points, 9.2 rebounds, .4 assists, 3.4 blocks, .5 steals. .519 fg, .714ft
Overall - 9.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, .3 assists, 2.3 blocks, .4 steals. .546fg, .742ft

Ibaka's rebounding has been much improved as well as his raw scoring since he became a starter, that was expected. The biggest surprise since Perk joined this team has been his insane ability to block shots. He is second in the league in blocks this year despite his limited playing time for the first 2/3 of the season. Next year he should easily lead the league in blocks. His shooting has dropped a bit now that he puts up 2.5 more shots a game, but at over 50% his shooting is still excellent.

Harden - 16.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, .4 blocks, 1.4 steals. .494fg, .355 3pt, .859ft
Overall - 12.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists, .3 blocks, 1.1 steals. .442fg, .360 3pt, .841ft

Harden has had the biggest improvement out of anyone since the trade. His points, assists, steals, and fg shooting are all up significantly. Expect this to continue since he is now the leader of the second unit. He has become what we all wanted Jeff Green to be. I caution people wanting to move him into the starting lineup right now because he has been awesome with our second unit and is the main reason our second group is so good.

Team stats - 14-2 W/L, .876 W%, 95.3 points allowed, 106.7 points scored
Overall - 50-24 W/L, .676 W%, 100.9 points allowed, 104.7 points scored

We've been insane overall. .876 W% of course is unsustainable but awesome to see nonetheless. Also a 11 point, point differential is impossible to have over a course of a season. Since the trade both our offense and defense have been much better. It's kind of weird since we replace Green/Krstic with Perk/Nazr. It shows just how much offense improves when you have people playing real positions and when you finally release James Harden on the NBA.



Overall, we've been impossible awesome this last month and we can't sustain this over a full year. Expect our defense to be better next year and our offense to probably drop off a bit.

[slick_watts]

Nice write up. I have a couple things to add.

Westbrook has been affected by this trade immensely, his usage is way up. 33.3% USG for the month of March, which would rank second behind Kobe Bryant over the course of the entire season. With his high TO rate, and average scoring efficiency relative to many of his teammates, this is something that is not desirable. Westbrook is the only player who has been negatively affected by the trade IMO.

Durant's been alright, but there is one concern with him also. He's only shot just over 2 attempts at the rim this month, per game. This is, by far, the lowest of any month since his rookie season. He's shooting more jumpers overall this year, but since the trade that's gone up even more. I'm guessing that this has a lot to do with inadequate floor spacing and the way defenses are able to array themselves against him when he plays with Thabo and Perkins together.

Harden's obviously been the biggest beneficiary. He should be starting, though, because if you take away the Wizards game, our starting lineup with Perkins doesn't look so great on offense. Take the Golden State game, that lineup put up under 90 points per 100 possessions against the Warriors in almost 19 minutes. That's awful. There have been other games like that too (Utah game, Portland game) against average to poor defenses where our starting five could not take advantage of solid defensive stretches because they just couldn't get a bucket. I think it's also become a catalyst for Westbrook's increased usage as detailed above; when teams can trap Durant and pack the paint as they do when our starting five is out there, Russell is too often forced into creating shots for himself. And Durant is forced into taking long jump shots that the defense wants to give him. These bad habits have cropped up occasionally when they play with Harden as well.

It was a great month, and there are very good signs that this team is turning a corner.

[theokie]

Not to discredit anything that OKC has accomplished this past month, but weve also benefited greatly from a very easy schedule.

Weve played what, 5 teams with winning records this month? Memphis in a game that we lost, Philly who is just barely over .500, Atlanta whos been playing horribly, and Miami and Portland.

The Thunder should be winning those games. Theres only 1 on that schedule where we were probably underdogs.

Lets see what happens when we start playing some quality opponents.

Portland on the road, a home and home with Denver, and the Lakers at home all in the next 6. These games will be a better barometer of what kinda team were going to be heading into the playoffs

[slick_watts]

Atlanta, Miami, Portland, and Philly are all quality road wins...