The Oklahoma City Thunder are knocking on the door of contention in the West. Here’s what Mark Daigneault is working with as OKC looks to take the next step.
The Oklahoma City Thunder don’t tend to draw a national audience, but that could change in the near future. Mark Daigneault has emerged as one of the best young coaches in the NBA and the Thunder look much closer to perennial contention than many expected coming into last season.
OKC finished with the No. 10 seed in the West, sending New Orleans home in the first play-in game before being sent packing by No. 8 seed Minnesota on the doorstep of the postseason. It was a bumming note to end the season on, but the Thunder won 40 games as the NBA’s youngest team — with their No. 2 pick and potential franchise pillar missing his entire rookie season to a foot injury.
Now, Chet Holmgren is set to make his NBA debut in August. OKC also added another top-10 pick over the summer in Kentucky’s Cason Wallace, a talented defensive guard who provides more valuable connective tissue within one of the league’s best backcourts.
OKC is the real deal. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a borderline top-10 player. Josh Giddey, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams all project toward varying levels of NBA stardom, or at least upper-level starterdom. Lu Dort could’ve been an All-Defensive player last season and nobody would’ve batted an eye. Wallace was an excellent use of a lottery pick, and OKC’s wide pool of young talent harbors plenty of high-upside contributors who could break out at a moment’s notice.
Let’s dive into the rotations for Mark Daigneault’s squad entering 2023-24.
Oklahoma City Thunder starting point guard: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
There’s a semantic argument to be made about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Josh Giddey in the point guard spot, but SGA will generally defend “point guards” (when the assignment doesn’t fall to Lu Dort), so he gets the nod here. Giddey will have the ball plenty and probably lead the team in assists, but he’s pretty much exclusively guarding two through four.
Gilgeous-Alexander quietly climbed the ladder to NBA superstardom last year. He’s right there in the running for the top 10, if not already a member of the exclusive club. NBA stardom is all about creating advantages against your defender and the defense at large. Few do it better and in more ways than SGA.
At 6-foot-6, Gilgeous-Alexander is one of the craftiest ball-handlers in the world. He doesn’t have an explosive first step, but he keeps defenders grasping at air by constantly shifting gears and changing speeds. He’s the master of funky, off-beat floaters and pull-ups. He averaged 31.4 points and 5.5 assists on 62.6 TS% last season. His at-rim finishing is better than all but a few at his position, and he’s also one of the most impactful guard defenders in the NBA, for good measure.
OKC has its star of the future — a player that can genuinely lead the charge for a championship contender one day. With the volume of young talent around SGA on the roster, as well as the mountain of draft picks OKC can trade, it won’t take the Thunder long to vault to the top of the league when Sam Presti decides to make it happen.
Primary backup point guard: Cason Wallace
OKC traded up from No. 12 to No. 10 to select Kentucky’s Cason Wallace. He’s the perfect fit for OKC: an elite guard defender and connective playmaker who doesn’t really force the issue or make mistakes. He doesn’t have the most explosive game — he can struggle to create separation and to generate his own looks — but he’s a steady hand who looks ready to contribute in the NBA from day one.
Wallace’s defense really can’t be overstated. OKC will have to pay all its young players eventually, but Wallace has the chance to be a standout member of one of the best young cores in the NBA. He will have to scrap for minutes behind SGA, Giddey, and Lu Dort, but he’s more than capable of sharing the court with all of them given the nature of OKC’s long and tall group.
Other players who could receive minutes at point guard: Vasilije Micic, Tre Mann, Josh Giddey, TyTy Washington Jr.
OKC finally awarded European superstar Vasilije Micic with his first NBA contract. The league has been waiting on Micic for years now; the 29-year-old was originally drafted by the Sixers, but his rights were traded to OKC as part of the Al Horford trade. He’s a genuine star overseas, with ample playmaking craft and shooting punch to carve out a role in the NBA. If OKC wasn’t so flushed with depth, it would be easier to guarantee minutes for him.
Then there’s Tre Mann, who dominated his Summer League minutes for OKC. The third-year guard out of Florida has become something of an afterthought with all the depth on the Thunder’s roster — a side effect of acquiring so many picks and hitting on all of them — but he looks the part of an NBA role player. Just maybe not with OKC long term.