The Thunder’s flameout was an apt end to a disappointing season
During the summer of 2017, the Oklahoma City Thunder parlayed Victor Oladipo, Domantas Sabonis, Enes Kanter and Doug McDermott into Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. The moves were shocking at the time. Although George and Anthony had been involved in trade rumors for months, the Thunder were never considered as a serious suitor for either player. Given their relatively limited assets, a trade for a star player never seemed to be in the cards for Oklahoma City.
And yet just a year after losing Kevin Durant in free agency, the Thunder pivoted despite their limitations. Seemingly overnight, they transformed from a not so frightening playoff team into a dangerous dark horse in the Western Conference. Trading for George on an expiring deal was a huge risk, but Oklahoma City gladly took it in order to raise the upside of its roster. And just as significantly, the Thunder offloaded the contract of Victor Oladipo, which was increasingly looking like an onerous overpay that would hamstring the Thunder’s future cap flexibility. We all laughed at Kevin Pritchard and sang the praises of Sam Presti, who got back his GM mojo in emphatic fashion.
Just a few months later, Oklahoma City swapped Enes “Kant Play him” Kanter for Carmelo Anthony. A move to a new contender would be just what Carmelo needed to reinvigorate his floundering career. Finally we would get Olympic Melo in the NBA. Anthony would play to his strengths, without having the burden of carrying a team’s offense by himself.
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A week later, Russell Westbrook signed the designated player veteran extension. He would be staying in Oklahoma City for the foreseeable future. GM Sam Presti pulled off a coup. He was back on top of the world and seemed like the clear favorite for Executive of the Year in October. If the team he assembled properly gelled and a few things broke their way, perhaps the Thunder could even challenge the mighty Warriors for control of the West.
Less than a year later, the optimism that so many of us harbored for this Thunder season has ignominiously fizzled out. Even after an unbelievable Game 5 comeback against the Jazz, the Thunder never really gelled as a team. They lost in six games and were thoroughly outplayed by Utah for most of the series. Worse still, Victor Oladipo’s contract looks like one of the best in the league. The Pacers have an All-NBA guy locked up for four more seasons at a bargain price. At this point, you can’t help but feel that the palm trees of Los Angeles are beckoning to Paul George. This Thunder team doesn’t look like it will be competing for a title any time soon even if he stays. Leaving in free agency will allow him to decide his own fate and potentially team up with a guy like LeBron in a more attractive situation.
The Thunder’s first-round loss serves as a disheartening microcosm of the issues that plagued the team throughout the year. The team never felt right. The pieces never fit seamlessly. The offense was efficient throughout the season from a statistical perspective, but the Thunder never truly passed the eye test. In the Jazz series, Rudy Gobert barricaded the rim and disrupted the Thunder offense. They were erratic from 3-point range all year, and they were not able to convert efficiently enough from the mid-range to survive. The Jazz ultimately ground the Thunder offense to dust.
Carmelo Anthony’s wild inconsistency from 3-point range was a huge contributor to this stagnancy throughout the season. Anthony went from Olympic Melo to Paleolithic Dino Melo, fossilizing before our very eyes. For a guy that was once such an effective mid-range shooter and a rock-solid 3-point shooter, his rapid decline in those areas was legitimately frightening. The Thunder bet on talent to get by on offense, but it never truly coalesced.
Oklahoma City had all the tools to be one of the NBAs very best teams at the defensive end of the floor. Again the Thunder had moments of brilliance throughout the season, particularly in their two routs of Golden State earlier in the regular season. But the defense curiously fell apart in the playoffs and was on a downward trend even before April. Teams attacked Dino Melo all year, abusing his inability to guard basically anyone.
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In the Jazz series, Oklahoma City implemented a gameplan that didn’t make much sense. The Thunder aggressively helped off Utah’s shooters in the corners in Games 3 and 4, which led to a hailstorm of 3-point bombs raining down on them. They went to a switching scheme midway through Game 5 and turned around a huge deficit, but it was too little too late in the series. And then Steven Adams wasn’t good enough on the glass, a rare criticism indeed for one of the league’s toughest rebounders. Gobert won that battle and the Jazz took the series.
Oklahoma City went down like many failed superteam experiments before them. The Thunder wilted under the pressure and a unified, better team put them away. Westbrook shot 43 times in the closeout game and the ship went down with its captain. It seems utterly bizarre to say, but things look bleak for the Thunder at this point. Even if Paul George’s cap hold comes off the books this summer, the team’s cap sheet is extremely clogged. Melo will presumably exercise his player option, in what should be one of the least surprising moves of the offseason. With little flexibility and fewer assets, the Thunder have far more questions facing them than they did when this season began. What a difference a year can make.