Andre Roberson’s injury is a huge loss for OKC

The Oklahoma City Thunder lost Andre Roberson to a season-ending injury. On the surface his loss may not seem that big, but in reality it’s a major blow to OKC.

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Andre Roberson suffered a torn patellar tendon on Saturday against the Detroit Pistons. The injury required season-ending surgery, and now the Thunder will be without their best defender for the rest of the season.

This injury sucks not only for the team, but for Roberson himself. He was well on his way to a first team all-defense selection, and a possible candidate for defensive player of the year along with his teammate Paul George.

In today’s NBA every team wants a “three and D” guy. Someone that can hit the three ball and play defense. Roberson was still somewhat of an old-school player. He has never been a good shooter prompting teams to essentially leave him by himself behind the three-point line. He would even pass up wide open threes because of the lack of confidence in his shot. He made his money on the defensive end.

Even though he couldn’t shoot Roberson found baskets by doing the little things. Back door cuts, getting involved on the fast break, offensive rebound and things of that nature got Roberson his points. While his movement off the ball will be missed the Thunder will almost assuredly survive his absence offensively. His defense is where the Thunder are going to miss him the most.

As mentioned before Roberson was well on his way to some defensive accolades, and he’s the knot at the end of the string defensively. Roberson single-handedly takes the Thunder starting five from an awful defensive team to probably the best in the NBA, and that’s even with an elite defender like George in the lineup. When Westbrook, George, Anthony and Adams are all on the floor at the same time their defensive rating is 96.6 with Roberson, and a whopping 114.5 without him.

The Thunder will at some point figure out how to get the job done defensively without Roberson. Unfortunately it might be a while before they do so. The team’s ultimate goal this season is to win a title, and they have the star power to make it happen. In terms of playoff matchups this injury would really be noticeable should they play Houston Rockets.

Out of all the great defenders in the NBA, Roberson seems to be the only one that James Harden struggles against. You don’t stop Harden, you can only hope to contain him, and Roberson does that and more. He keeps Harden out of the paint — which is borderline impossible to do — and every shot he shoots Roberson is there to contest it. During the Thunder’s postseason matchup with the Rockets last season Roberson spent basically the entire time defending Harden, and still remained the most efficient defender in the postseason.

The Thunder are going to be tested defensively in the early stages of Roberson’s absence, but they’re not dead. They still have Paul George who is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate and Steven Adams who is also a candidate for and All-Defensive team, so they’re not dead. It will have to be more of a collective effort defensively rather than having Roberson clean up a lot of his teammates mistakes.

The Thunder will face the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday in their first game. While not particularly deadly from the guard position the Sixers are still a top-15 team in offensive efficiency so they will be tested.

Oklahoma City will still be one of the better defensive teams in the NBA, but they will miss Roberson for everything he does that doesn’t show up in the box score.