The Oklahoma City Thunder have a healthy Kevin Durant and a new head coach in Billy Donovan, but will it be enough to push them to the top of the Western Conference mountain in the 2015-16 campaign?
Last Season’s Record: 45-37
Key Additions:
Cameron Payne
Key Departures:
N/A
When you survey the Oklahoma City roster, everything looks like business as usual. That is, if business as usual is re-signing your offensive-minded center, having a fully healthy former league MVP in Kevin Durant, and switching out head coach Scotty Brooks for Florida Gators coach Billy Donovan.
There really isn’t a whole lot of mystery to the talent that the Thunder are going to put out on the floor this year. Pretty much any scenario that doesn’t include the evil “I” word – injury – puts Oklahoma City back into the playoffs for 2015-16.
The question of the Thunder this season is not if they will make the playoffs, but how high can they climb back into the hierarchy of the West. Missing the playoffs in 2014-15 was unfortunate and largely due to the foot problems that sidelined superstar forward Durant for most of the season. Despite that critical blow, the Thunder have enough talent beyond their star player to make it all stay afloat.
Two big reasons that OKC didn’t sink last year without Durant? When you lose a star player, one of the best in the league, it helps that you also have another star player who is also one of the best in the league. Russell Westbrook went nuclear for a huge stretch of last season, making triple-doubles and 30 point performances seem more like his averages instead of something out of the ordinary.
And it doesn’t stop with Westbrook. Durant will lift this team back into the title contender tier of teams, but he and Westbrook aren’t doing this alone. Serge Ibaka is still one of the best at all of the things that he does, bringing all-NBA defensive skills and the ability to space the floor, capable of shooting for average from a greater range than your average NBA big man. Steven Adams has been a fantastic role player for the Thunder, a big body with a high engine. And at the deadline last season, the Thunder complimented Adams physicality by adding a no defense, all offense center via trade with the Utah Jazz – Enes Kanter.
Even bigger than adding and then retaining Kanter, who they re-signed during the offseason after the player signed an offer sheet with the Portland Trail Blazers, was dumping Kendrick Perkins. With the rising of the salary cap, the hit on matching the Blazers offer to Kanter won’t be as limiting as it might have been as recently as last season. Similarly, if you asked any team in the league if they would rather have Kanter or Perkins on their roster, the overwhelming response would be Kanter. It may not be a like-for-like, but it is definitely an upgrade.
The challenge for OKC this season is going to be finding minutes for Kanter and Adams while maximizing their utilization of each asset. Is Kanter going to be happy with his big payday, or will he be discontented if his playing time is closer to 20 minutes per game than 38? How will those minutes be managed, given his severe defensive limitations and the how he is practically one-half of an inverse relationship with Adams. Fortunately, the tantalizing possibility of Kanter in a pick-and-roll paradise with Westbrook while Adams and Durant rest sounds like something that might actually work and make the Thunder more dangerous than ever before.
Presuming health, and everyone should be hoping that there are zero injuries anywhere in the NBA during this entire upcoming season, the biggest challenge for the Thunder falls on the coaching staff. Sure, Steve Kerr won the NBA Championship in his first season as head coach of the Golden State Warriors last year, but he had the benefit of a team ready to win and comes from a coaching tree that carries a pedigree that no one else in the entire world can touch. New head coach Billy Donovan is no slouch himself, winning two NCAA championships with the Florida Gators, where he coached a few household names in today’s NBA like Joakim Noah.*ed’s note: Al Hortford is no slouch either!*
Donovan’s adaptation to life in Oklahoma will clearly be eased by names like Ibaka, Westbrook and Durant. He will still have his work cut out for him, however, as the Western Conference response to a healthy Westbrook and Durant combination is more of a shrug than clear panic. If the Thunder struggle early, it will be hard to recover any lost ground with teams like the Spurs, Warriors, Clippers, Rockets, Pelicans, and the rest of the Western Conference. As a bonus, any struggles the Thunder experience will likely put scrutiny on new coach Donovan and fuel the voracious fire of the Durant to (insert every major market here) rumors that have already been circulating for over a year.
All things being what they are, the Thunder are going to be this year’s Cleveland Cavaliers. A team that we remember for their appearance in the lottery one year and their appearance as contenders the next. The Cavaliers got LeBron James back last season, and this year the Thunder return a healthy Durant. The real difference between the two teams is the likelihood of seeing them in the Finals in 2016.
While the Cavaliers took the back door to the Finals in 2015, a.k.a. the Eastern Conference, even a much better Thunder team needs to play best of’s with some combination of the Clippers, Spurs, Rockets, Warriors, and Grizzlies. A historic Warriors team barely made it out alive last year, being pushed much harder than anyone would have thought was possible heading into the playoffs.
Despite basically no roster turnover or major offseason additions, the Thunder will look much different than the 47-win team that barely missed the playoffs last season. Look for OKC to make major strides and return to the elite in the league this season.
Projected Record: 53-29
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