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

[ThunderBolt]

Lakers are playing well and Brandon Ingram is playing well.

Would they still want PG13?

Of course. They’ve already cleared capspace.

[hardenASG13]

Great chance to catch minnesota and the spurs tonight.....keep on taking care of business, twolves have a brutal stretch coming up. Okc has to keep winning these easier games like they have, because the end of their schedule isn't pretty.

[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.

Max contracts adjust, don't they?

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

I don’t think you’ll see a 24 million jump in one year again, but if this moves forward I could easily see half of that number on top of the jumps in the cap that are supposedly coming in the next few years.

Basically would help lower OKC tax bill significantly.

[Thundershock88]

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Sounds like great shape to me! I'd be more worried if 14 of the 19 were tanking.

[Osirus89]

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.

Russ being traded went out the window when he signed his DPE. Those contracts were designed to go to players that you don't foresee moving. DPE might as well be a no trade clause with how much money they would require to be moved in a trade.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Russ being traded went out the window when he signed his DPE. Those contracts were designed to go to players that you don't foresee moving. DPE might as well be a no trade clause with how much money they would require to be moved in a trade.

Why? The per year salary on a DPE is the same 35% as any other max for a 10 year veteran. It's the same money LeBron will sign for this off-season with whatever team he signs for.

[Pillendreher]

As long as Presti is the GM, Russell Westbrook will never get traded, period.

[getrichordie]

Can you say, "title-gore?"

Anyways, are some of you guys really bashing Presti this hard? He's no Ainge, but damn, the guy isn't a bad general manager.

I haven't been able to watch many Thunder games as of late due to work, but I've been taking a quick look at the offensive end since Roberson injured his knee (it's been a month). I like to see how players look on the floor with Westbrook since he's the driving force behind our offense and man has Carmelo Anthony been a dumpster fire lately. 44.4 TS%? Bench him. Period. Make him mad so he doesn't pick up his player option! George (~60 TS%) and Adams (~68 TS%) have been thriving and are really efficient. Abrines has been pretty okay-to-solid thus far (54 TS%) and I don't expect much more out of a second-year player even if he was the 32nd pick. Huestis needs to hurry up and show improvement on the offensive end but is the mature, long, athletic hustle player needed with the starting unit and I love seeing him get minutes because his ceiling is just as high, if not higher than Roberson's from an impact standpoint. If this guy can start knocking down open 3s with consistency, that's going to add another dimension to the starting lineup. Grant has been making the most of his opportunities (50 TSA) as he's posting an impressive 74 TS%. You can say the same about Felton as well, as he's posting a 65 TS% on 17 TSA.

Since Roberson's absence, when Westbrook is on the floor, the Thunder are pretty much a neutral team in terms of points scored and points allowed, posting a 116 ORtg and a 115 DRtg. Would the Thunder be better slowing down the offense a bit (hard to do with Westbrook) and allowing *warning: unpopular opinion* Melo to run some ISO action on the block? He has been his most efficient from there (10-16 feet) yet has taken more shots outside of 16 feet has been terrible. You have to wonder if this is a function of Melo being asked to play differently. If so, they need to just go back to feeding him on the block. This will allow the Thunder to rest a little on offense so they can give more effort on defense. Why have Melo on the floor, if you aren't going to use his most lethal weapon - the mid-range jump shot? It doesn't make much sense. It would be a way to keep Melo happy, mitigate his offensive woes, and is possibly beneficial to the defense.

Also, note the pace when Westbrook is on the floor (98.6) and when he's off the floor (89.6). I think that's intentional and I bet it has a lot to do with limiting opponent's possessions and limiting our own to mitigate how terrible our second unit is. Honestly, if I was Donovan, I would try and figure out a way to at least take Melo out early (for Patterson) and just let him slow the pace way down, spread the floor (Patterson or Grant at 5) and take ISO jab-step jumpers late in the shot clock and when he starts getting doubled, find Abrines, Felton, or whoever can hit a damn shot.

Idk, it's late, I can't sleep, I'm a little high, but this is just some spitballin' on the current state of our team and some thing swe might be able to do to improve it going forward.

source: http://nbawowy.com/gmbs3r8uv7

[getrichordie]

Also, is there a possible scenario where we sign-&-trade Paul George to the team of his choosing? If George is leaving, I was thinking Denver might be the perfect place for him. Murray-Harris-George-Millsap-Jokic would be so much fun to watch and Denver has some nice assets too - Chandler plus? Lyles would be a nice pick-up. Maybe we could get a pick(s) too.

[Pillendreher]

I just saw this on stats.nba.com: They're tracking defensive and offensive matchups now.

http://stats.nba.com/game/0021700933/matchups/

I'm not sure I'm really getting what that boxscore is telling me. So the way I understand it, the team scored 100 points on 87 possessions with Russell Westbrook being an offensive player last night. Meanwhile, the Suns scored 110 points on 89 possessions when Russell Westbrook was a defensive player last night. I don't know if you can just add all these numbers up tho because if that were possible, they should match the team's # in ORtG and DRtG with Westbrook on the floor. They don't tho: 114.9 vs 113.6 on ORtG, 123.5 vs 109.8 on DRtG.

This boxscore might be more helpful if you're looking at individual matchups (hence the name). Like this:

http://stats.nba.com/game/0021700803/matchups/?sort=POSS&dir=1&OFF_PLAYER_ID=&DEF_PLAYER_ID=202331

So when George was guarding Durant, the Warriors scored 1 PPP; with Thompson, it's 0.9 PPP and with Curry it's 0.89 PPP. Two weeks later

http://stats.nba.com/game/0021700803/matchups/?sort=POSS&dir=1&OFF_PLAYER_ID=&DEF_PLAYER_ID=202331

the Warriors scored 1.7 PPP when Young was guarded by Abrines.

Or vs the Rockets:

http://stats.nba.com/game/0021700496/matchups/?OFF_PLAYER_ID=&DEF_PLAYER_ID=203460&sort=POSS&dir=1

They scored 0.9 PPP when James Harden was guarded by Andre Roberson. When he was guarded by anybody else, they scored 1.56 PPP.

[Pillendreher]

Why have Melo on the floor, if you aren't going to use his most lethal weapon - the mid-range jump shot? It doesn't make much sense.

Melo has taken the 4th most midrange jumpshots in the league overall. He scores 0.8 points per shot on those shots. That's the equivalent of shooting 27 % from 3. If anything, he should take way less of those shots. He's not making them at a good enough level (of the 33 guys with at least 200 midrange attempts this season, he's 24th in FG%) to take so many of them. For that kind of shot to be as valuable as a 3 taken by an average 3pt shooter (36 %), he'd have to shoot 54 % on those shots. Nobody has managed to do that even once over the last 10 seasons.

So no, Melo should not take more midrange jumpers. He needs to take less and shoot more 3s.

[Bergmaniac]

Donovan should just ignore Melo's ego and play him way less often with Russ and play Patterson instead. Russ/Melo are a disastrous pair defensively and on offense Patterson is just about as good of a floor spacer these days as Melo. And if you are going to run mostly postups and isos for Melo he doesn't benefit much from Westbrook's presence on offense anyway, let him do it against the backups and maybe then get more love from the refs when he's defended by lesser known players.

[Pillendreher]

And if you are going to run mostly postups and isos for Melo he doesn't benefit much from Westbrook's presence on offense anyway, let him do it against the backups and maybe then get more love from the refs when he's defended by lesser known players.

That's a very good point. Whne we isolate Melo like that, it basically takes Russ, Adams and George out of the play. There's no need to do that, especially since we don't move off the ball.

[Osirus89]

Russ being traded went out the window when he signed his DPE. Those contracts were designed to go to players that you don't foresee moving. DPE might as well be a no trade clause with how much money they would require to be moved in a trade.

Why? The per year salary on a DPE is the same 35% as any other max for a 10 year veteran. It's the same money LeBron will sign for this off-season with whatever team he signs for.

In a hypothetical trade Russ would want to go to a team that is basically title ready. Houston had to cobble together salary for the Chris Paul deal and that was just around 24 million. Russell will be making around 38 mill next year with it only going up after that. OKC would also not just take dead money. It would have to be expirings or really good players coming back which would make the receiving team worse. Too many hurdles, and also factoring in how bad the optics would be and it seems like a nonstarter.

[Pillendreher]

Since Robes went down:





Offensively, Melo's struggling big time as well. 43.5 TS%/90 ORtG.

How long until we make adjustments?

[EnragedThunder]

In my opinion, these charts don't say much. Patterson is not a better offensive player than Carmelo Anthony, they're not even in the same league, not even close in comparison.

Melo can create offense, and the Thunder could survive without Patterson (just like they've been surviving without Roberson). Just a month ago, he went off for 29 against Cleveland.

[Pillendreher]

In my opinion, these charts don't say much. Patterson is not a better offensive player than Carmelo Anthony, they're not even in the same league, not even close in comparison.

Melo can create offense, and the Thunder could survive without Patterson (just like they've been surviving without Roberson). Just a month ago, he went off for 29 against Cleveland.

He's at 50 TS% on the season. Any offense he creates is - in the grand scheme of things - not pushing this team towards contention, but rather in the opposite direction.

Let me put it this way: For ~ 33 minutes a night, we are worse than the worst defensive team in the league by 3.3 points per 100 possessions. To put that into perspective: That's the difference between 30th and 19th in DRtG league wide. So we're basically 40th (DRtG rises by ~3 points per 100 possessions every 10 spots) in DRtG with Melo on the floor since Robes went down.
How are we expected to win games like this? For 70 % of the game, we can't defend anybody. The other 30 %, our defense is at a level that would rank 2nd in the league.

Roberson ain't walking through that door. George and Adams are our best defenders. And Russ is untouchable. The only guy who's available for adjustments is Melo and the data screams for it. That doesn't mean that he should be benched. But the rotations need to be adjusted. We're in danger of missing the Playoffs because of our defense. The time for not caring is over. After the next 6 games, we're playing 11 straight .500+ teams. Things could get ugly pretty quickly.

[EnragedThunder]

I hear you, but I'm in the camp of I prefer Melo's offensive potential over the one way defensive player.

How many #1 defensive teams have won it all over the past 10 years?

If we get into a 7 game series with Houston with a healthy CP3 and it turns into a shootout (it likely would), I'd rather have Melo on the floor for 30 plus minutes than Patterson. To me, the defensive statistical analysis goes out the window against elite offensive teams (Warriors, Houston).

[ThunderBolt]

Oh boy. This is going to get ugly.

[Dn4sty]

I hear you, but I'm in the camp of I prefer Melo's offensive potential over the one way defensive player.

How many #1 defensive teams have won it all over the past 10 years?

If we get into a 7 game series with Houston with a healthy CP3 and it turns into a shootout (it likely would), I'd rather have Melo on the floor for 30 plus minutes than Patterson. To me, the defensive statistical analysis goes out the window against elite offensive teams (Warriors, Houston).

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the best game OKC has played all season was when Melo rolled his ankle and 2Pat played basiscally the whole game against GSW.