2018-2019 OKC Thunder Regular Season Pt 1: A Renewed Hope

[Pillendreher]

dennis schroder 25+ usage and < -2.0 BPM is in some mighty company the past five seasons.

[Pillendreher]

3-Point-Era MPG-Leaderboard, >= 25 USG%, <= 50 TS%, <= -2.5 OBPM



If you account for usage, ie FGA, FTA and TOV, as well as point creation by assists, Schröder, despite being a point guard, has been worse than Melo was last season: Schröder has used a total of 932 possessions to either potentially assists somebody, take a shot, turn the ball over or draw a FTA for a total of 947 scored and assisted points. Melo has done the same for 1505 points on 1219 possessions. That means 1.02 points per possession for Schröder and 1.14 points per possession for Melo, which is very alarming since Melo was an offensive scrub outside of making 3s here and there.

[slick_watts]

it's almost as if when a player sucks somewhere else they still suck when they join the thunder.

[ThunderBolt]

it's almost as if when a player sucks somewhere else they still suck when they join the thunder.

Why did we give up a FRP for Schroder? It still makes no sense to me. We took back more long term salary and Atlanta thought he was a cancer. Was no one else willing to buy out Melo and Presti was forced to get under the tax or did he realy believe Schroder was a good player?

[Pillendreher]

it's almost as if when a player sucks somewhere else they still suck when they join the thunder.

This is worse than just being his Atlanta self though. He was starting on the Hawks for two seasons and had a 103 ORtG and a 52.4 TS% with a +1.0 OBPM. Still not "great", but better than what he is offering this season anyway. If you accumulate his usage and passing, he scored/created 1.11 PPP. That's something we could live with. But not this.

[slick_watts]

it's almost as if when a player sucks somewhere else they still suck when they join the thunder.

This is worse than just being his Atlanta self though. He was starting on the Hawks for two seasons and had a 103 ORtG and a 52.4 TS% with a +1.0 OBPM. Still not "great", but better than what he is offering this season anyway. If you accumulate his usage and passing, he scored/created 1.11 PPP. That's something we could live with. But not this.

he's playing a lot of minutes next to russ which makes him worse, and a lot of minutes with a bench group where his usage is 38%... which makes him worse. i think he'll settle somewhere between 50-51 ts or so. but he sucks regardless.

individual ortg has an assists component to it so that's why it's so much lower. part of the reason anyways.

[RalphSampsonJr]

3-Point-Era MPG-Leaderboard, >= 25 USG%, <= 50 TS%, <= -2.5 OBPM



If you account for usage, ie FGA, FTA and TOV, as well as point creation by assists, Schröder, despite being a point guard, has been worse than Melo was last season: Schröder has used a total of 932 possessions to either potentially assists somebody, take a shot, turn the ball over or draw a FTA for a total of 947 scored and assisted points. Melo has done the same for 1505 points on 1219 possessions. That means 1.02 points per possession for Schröder and 1.14 points per possession for Melo, which is very alarming since Melo was an offensive scrub outside of making 3s here and there.

This matches the eye test.. and my eyes hurt

[Pillendreher]

Our shot distribution has been kinda wack the last two weeks. Going back 7 games (so starting with the Rockets Christmas game):



Our 3rd best player can't be 9th while Abdle freaking Nader is 4th. Adams needs to be featured regularly.

[Old Man Game]

Our shot distribution has been kinda wack the last two weeks. Going back 7 games (so starting with the Rockets Christmas game):



Our 3rd best player can't be 9th while Abdle freaking Nader is 4th. Adams needs to be featured regularly.

Nader must just be incredible in practice or something. Because I swear they way they are treating him despite mixed results you'd think he was a vet with a track record to stand on.

[Pillendreher]

Our shot distribution has been kinda wack the last two weeks. Going back 7 games (so starting with the Rockets Christmas game):



Our 3rd best player can't be 9th while Abdle freaking Nader is 4th. Adams needs to be featured regularly.

Nader must just be incredible in practice or something. Because I swear they way they are treating him despite mixed results you'd think he was a vet with a track record to stand on.

The team has a history of doing this with scrus though. After Huestis made a 3 once, they ran plays for him like he was Ray Allen.

[Pillendreher]

Both with the starters (Schröder this season with Westbrook-George-Adams next to him, Jackson 2013/14 with Westbrook and Durant next to him). Neither of them are efficiency monsters, but a 5 % point difference is still noticeable. Schröder takes almost every 2nd shot as a 3 while attempting more midrange jumpers than shots at the rim. Jackson was less efficient from 2 and still way below average from 3, but at least he got the line almost twice as often.

I simply don't know if we should spend so much time on playing a guy outside of what he can actually do.

[Pillendreher]

I've thought that his talk of "adjusting" and the "new offense" was more or less nonsense for a couple of weeks now. Then I just stumbled upon this while looking at some numbers:

Through the first 7 weeks of the season, 53.6 % of the Thunder's baskets were assisted. We passed 243 times a game and had 45.1 potential assists per game. Starting with the 8th week of the season, our AST% dropped to 51.6%, our passes per game to 228 and our potential assists to 40.9. Pace adjusted for 100 possessions, that's 236 passes per game to to 216 per game and 43.9 potential assists per game to 38.9 per game. Last season we averaged 260 passes per 100 possessions and 44.1 potential assists per game. 53.5 % of our field goals were assisted.

It reinforces what I've been seeing. More standing around, more pull ups, less created shots. I don't know if it's a byproduct of Russ trying to find his shot, George being able to get his own shot, but we can't go on like this. If George regresses just a little bit, this house of cards like approach will collapse on us. There is no way whatsoever that Schröder with the starters can be a net positive if we just stand around.

[RalphSampsonJr]

I've thought that his talk of "adjusting" and the "new offense" was more or less nonsense for a couple of weeks now. Then I just stumbled upon this while looking at some numbers:

Through the first 7 weeks of the season, 53.6 % of the Thunder's baskets were assisted. We passed 243 times a game and had 45.1 potential assists per game. Starting with the 8th week of the season, our AST% dropped to 51.6%, our passes per game to 228 and our potential assists to 40.9. Pace adjusted for 100 possessions, that's 236 passes per game to to 216 per game and 43.9 potential assists per game to 38.9 per game. Last season we averaged 260 passes per 100 possessions and 44.1 potential assists per game. 53.5 % of our field goals were assisted.

It reinforces what I've been seeing. More standing around, more pull ups, less created shots. I don't know if it's a byproduct of Russ trying to find his shot, George being able to get his own shot, but we can't go on like this. If George regresses just a little bit, this house of cards like approach will collapse on us. There is no way whatsoever that Schröder with the starters can be a net positive if we just stand around.

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[RalphSampsonJr]

The going away from Adams after his dominant start is just inexcusable to me.
Even Scotty Brooks went on about how tough he is down there! 4 shots on 100% first 9 mins then 2 shots for the rest of the game?
Adams has shown an ability to pass from the post even if double teamed.. his useage cant be that low!

[Pillendreher]

I've thought that his talk of "adjusting" and the "new offense" was more or less nonsense for a couple of weeks now. Then I just stumbled upon this while looking at some numbers:

Through the first 7 weeks of the season, 53.6 % of the Thunder's baskets were assisted. We passed 243 times a game and had 45.1 potential assists per game. Starting with the 8th week of the season, our AST% dropped to 51.6%, our passes per game to 228 and our potential assists to 40.9. Pace adjusted for 100 possessions, that's 236 passes per game to to 216 per game and 43.9 potential assists per game to 38.9 per game. Last season we averaged 260 passes per 100 possessions and 44.1 potential assists per game. 53.5 % of our field goals were assisted.

It reinforces what I've been seeing. More standing around, more pull ups, less created shots. I don't know if it's a byproduct of Russ trying to find his shot, George being able to get his own shot, but we can't go on like this. If George regresses just a little bit, this house of cards like approach will collapse on us. There is no way whatsoever that Schröder with the starters can be a net positive if we just stand around.

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George's AST to FGA ratio has plummeted as well. In the 19 games prior to the loss vs Minnesota, he averaged 4.5 assists to 20.1 FGA. Since then he's been averaging 2.1 APG to 23.4 FGA/G to, so he went from 1 assists for every 4.5 shot attempts to one assist for every 11th shot attempt. It's been a pattern. Russ has been shooting more and so has George. More your turn, my turn and it has not worked because is Russ shooting well enough for that.

EDIT: With both Russ and George on, not a single other player but Nader (:crazy:) has crossed the 15 USG% threshold since the Minnesota game (7 game sample). Both Russ and George use 32 % of our possessions each, then you have **** Nader at 15.8, Grant at 14.6, Adams at 12.6, Patterson at 12.0, Ferguson at 8.9 and Schröder at 8.7. That's not a recipe for success.

[acheema0]

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[Pillendreher]

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[ThunderBolt]

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Now im more confused

[getrichordie]

One thing that’s not being taken into account in the Melo v. Schroder discussion is the very different roles they play.

It makes more sense to compare Schroder’s individual stats within the Schroder-Westbrook-George-Adams lineups to Melo’s individual stats within the Melo-Westbrook-George-Adams lineups...

Melo is probably going to win that discussion because he didn’t play a high-percentage of minutes on a second unit.

Also, outside of Schroder on the second unit, where is the evidence that he’s got significant help on the offensive end?

We keep talking about Schroder, but Patterson has been awful and Abrines has not been shooting well and has been sick. Nader is a decent spacer but he’s an end of the bench guy. Diallo is a rookie... Noel has such a raw offensive game that it’s hard to feed him the ball in the post and count on him for buckets. Everything is predicated off of what Schroder does and that’s the biggest problem with the offense...

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[Pillendreher]

Everything is predicated off of what Schroder does and that’s the biggest problem with the offense...

The way he plays with the bench is absurd. He finishes more than 40 % of the possessions with the bench by himself and does so at a piss poor efficiency. Nobody around him is getting consistent looks that they can make. So what is he doing exactly?

He's not the only player in the league that is asked to be the offensive focal point of a lineup. He's surrounded by guys that can do certain things offensively, as is the case for basically every team. Is it really unreasonable to assume that he leads the bench to a better offensive output than this?



1st percentile? Really? That's the same percentile the George bench was in last season offensively. And lo and behold, the same unit with Huestis instead of George ranked in the 65th percentile. Being at least capable offensively is really not that difficult for a bench unit. But every time we ask one of our "better players" to do everything while all the other guys just stand around, it fails.

The approach needs to change, plain and simple. A guy like Schröder should never have that kind of offensive load.