2017-2018 OKC Thunder Regular Season Thread Part Deux: Follow the Melo Brick Road

[Osirus89]

How you gonna waive Kilpatrick to sign Shabazz if you're Milwaukee? I'd rather have Kilpatrick than Brewer tbh

WTF...
Shabazz is so bad, it isn't even funny. I looked up his stats earlier in the season and they were awful. I looked up his stats today and WOW is all I can say. He doesn't offer any benefit to a team when he plays. None.

[ThunderBolt]

Even if we found a second buyout option, who are we going to waive? Dakari is our only true backup center. So unless we are signing a true backup, we don’t have many options.

[retrobro90]

Even if we found a second buyout option, who are we going to waive? Dakari is our only true backup center. So unless we are signing a true backup, we don’t have many options.

Waive Nick and give him a position on the coaching staff? Kilpatrick isn't a world beater but he'd be a real good fit for us.

[retrobro90]

How you gonna waive Kilpatrick to sign Shabazz if you're Milwaukee? I'd rather have Kilpatrick than Brewer tbh

WTF...
Shabazz is so bad, it isn't even funny. I looked up his stats earlier in the season and they were awful. I looked up his stats today and WOW is all I can say. He doesn't offer any benefit to a team when he plays. None.

He used to have a post game and now he doesn't even have that anymore. He hogs the ball like he's an all star too. There's really not one good NBA skill he can bring to a team.

[Dn4sty]

Even if we found a second buyout option, who are we going to waive? Dakari is our only true backup center. So unless we are signing a true backup, we don’t have many options.

Waive Nick and give him a position on the coaching staff? Kilpatrick isn't a world beater but he'd be a real good fit for us.

Consider waive Kyle?

[Dn4sty]

Even if we found a second buyout option, who are we going to waive? Dakari is our only true backup center. So unless we are signing a true backup, we don’t have many options.

Waive Nick and give him a position on the coaching staff? Kilpatrick isn't a world beater but he'd be a real good fit for us.

Consider waiving Kyle?

[ThunderBolt]

Singler is 20-something games from being an expiring contract. We might as well hold on to him because that could be useful next year.

[slick_watts]

so i did some of bondom34's legwork for him, and here's a four factor breakdown offensively of the following teams while these players are on the court. i took these numbers from stats.nba.com.



now this is interesting. first, i want to point out these would all be top 10 offenses over the course of the current season but none of them would be top 5. i was also surprised at how close kemba walker and kyrie irving offenses were to the thunder's. even without exploring the factors, is a < 1pp100 difference on offense enough to even start arm waving over this and calling out individual comparisons?

my point on offensive rebounding is made here convincingly. the largest gap any of these teams have on any of the others is the thunder's advantage on offensive rebounding. of these four factors, i don't think anyone would argue that ORB% is the one that these players impact the least as high usage scorers and ball handlers.

westbrook's thunder commit the most turnovers, and are second worst on own eFG, the two factors i would argue that these players have the most impact on for their teams.

there just doesn't seem to be much here that would preclude this conversation from even taking place. these four players are close to each other on individual offensive impact looking at the boxscore stats, and would anyone really say that these team numbers with them in the game is enough to shut the door on the comparison? or call it insane?

we could go deeper and look at teammates and control for that too but in the end we have a metric orpm that is supposed to do that and it has all these guys tightly packed.

so i'll return to my original proposition that the change in league dynamics may be increasing the offensive impact of players with the skillsets of kemba, kyrie, and lillard who can make jump shots at high volume and decreasing the same for players like russell westbrook and john wall who are low % jump shooters.

[ThunderBolt]

so i'll return to my original proposition that the change in league dynamics may be increasing the offensive impact of players with the skillsets of kemba, kyrie, and lillard who can make jump shots at high volume and decreasing the same for players like russell westbrook and john wall who are low % jump shooters.

I see some logic behind this theory. If it’s true, can it be offset with having Russ surrounded by elite shooters? Wall has beal, Porter, Morris and Oubre who are all very good three point shooters. Oubre has taken a massive jump this year in three point percentage. However, we didn’t really see walk at 100% all year.

[Pillendreher]

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[slick_watts]

it's true. we have a negative MOV in games andre roberson hasn't played. .500 or better to close out the season would be tough. at this point, missing the playoffs may be best for the future since i don't think paul george is staying on a 1st round or 2nd round exit anyways. may as well the get the pick, and perhaps provide impetus for carmelo anthony to exercise his ETO. how we rebuild from there is tenuous.

[Pillendreher]

it's true. we have a negative MOV in games andre roberson hasn't played. .500 or better to close out the season would be tough. at this point, missing the playoffs may be best for the future since i don't think paul george is staying on a 1st round or 2nd round exit anyways. may as well the get the pick, and perhaps provide impetus for carmelo anthony to exercise his ETO. how we rebuild from there is tenuous.

That was before Corey Brewer. Now everything changes.

[ThunderBolt]

Jokic was a second round pick. That’s about all that gives me hope for the future. If George leaves we likely won’t make the playoffs even if we keep russ. So we should keep our picks but we’ll need to get lucky with ping pong balls since we won’t be bad enough to completely tank.

[Kizz Fastfists]

If George leaves we likely won’t make the playoffs even if we keep russ. So we should keep our picks but we’ll need to get lucky with ping pong balls since we won’t be bad enough to completely tank.

I do wonder that when George leaves if it won't wake up Presti to reality and he'll move Russ or if Russ won't want to stay on a team with no future and request a trade.

[ThunderBolt]

If George leaves we likely won’t make the playoffs even if we keep russ. So we should keep our picks but we’ll need to get lucky with ping pong balls since we won’t be bad enough to completely tank.

I do wonder that when George leaves if it won't wake up Presti to reality and he'll move Russ or if Russ won't want to stay on a team with no future and request a trade.

I think it will be mutual. I can imagine russ wanting to stay but I also can’t see a place that he would want to play that can give a decent return for him.

[wco81]

Lakers are playing well and Brandon Ingram is playing well.

Would they still want PG13?

[Dn4sty]

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Leave the Warriors stuff out of it, but another cap spike could be coming which would mitigate some of the luxury tax burden that OKC is facing.

[Pillendreher]

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Leave the Warriors stuff out of it, but another cap spike could be coming which would mitigate some of the luxury tax burden that OKC is facing.

Max contracts adjust, don't they?

[Dn4sty]

Jokic was a second round pick. That’s about all that gives me hope for the future. If George leaves we likely won’t make the playoffs even if we keep russ. So we should keep our picks but we’ll need to get lucky with ping pong balls since we won’t be bad enough to completely tank.

I think any picks this team can get over the next few years in the 2nd round will be invaluable. Yeah they often times don’t pan out, but with the rise of the G League there has never been a better time for a player to develop.

[bondom34]

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Leave the Warriors stuff out of it, but another cap spike could be coming which would mitigate some of the luxury tax burden that OKC is facing.

Max contracts adjust, don't they?

They're set by the cap the 1st year of the contract