Enes Kanter Gives Oklahoma City Thunder Exactly What They Need
In newly acquired center Enes Kanter, the Oklahoma City Thunder finally have the interior offensive force they've lacked for years.
Kanter was acquired Thursday in a three-team deal that sent point guard Reggie Jackson to the Detroit Pistons and center Kendrick Perkins to the Utah Jazz. The Thunder were initially close to a deal to snag Brook Lopez from the Brooklyn Nets, but they wound up calling an audible at the 11th hour.
Oklahoma City hasn't had a reliable offensive center since the days of Nenad Krstic, which might require the hot tub time machine to help fans jog their memories.
Steven Adams has shown flashes of being a weapon inside this year, but he has struggled with consistency—and most recently was lost to a broken hand. Adams was initially set to miss at least three weeks but was recently seen practicing without a splint on his injured left hand, per Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman. Before Adams, Perkins was the team's main pivot man for three-and-a-half seasons, but he was mostly a defensive presence.
With Adams sidelined, Kanter will fill in as the starting center. It will be interesting to see who gets the nod once Adams is healthy, and much of that might just depend on how the team fares with Kanter in the starting five.
The former Jazz big man was impressive in his OKC debut, scoring 10 points and grabbing 13 boards in a 110-103 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday. He followed that up with another double-double (20 points, 12 rebounds) the next night in a win over the Denver Nuggets.
By comparison, Adams has just four double-doubles in 50 games this season.
"Impressive," head coach Scott Brooks said of Kanter after the Hornets game, per Slater. "It’s good to see him picks things up quickly. Enes brings an IQ to the game. He has soft hands around the basket and is a good rebounder."
With the addition of Kanter, the Thunder have found the final piece of the puzzle. They have two of the league's most explosive scorers in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant (second and fourth in scoring, respectively) as well as an emerging stretch-four in Serge Ibaka (38.3 percent from three). Now, they have a new big man with the skills to raise the team's ceiling.
Inside Scoring
It would be an understatement to say Kanter's arrival brings a new dimension to an already-impressive Thunder offense.
According to NBA.com, the Turkish big man has an effective field-goal percentage of 59.1 from less than 10 feet away. Meanwhile, Adams was shooting 55 percent from that range.
The 22-year-old Kanter's 13.9 points per game are also the most by a starting center in the team's history. Since moving from Seattle after the 2007-08 season, Oklahoma City has never had a first-string center average double-digit scoring. The closest the club has ever come was Krstic's 9.7 points per game in 2008-09.
Once Adams returns, the Thunder will have two centers capable of going down low and getting buckets. There's also the possibility of the two playing together thanks to the many ways Kanter can score the basketball. Plus, given Kanter's lack of defensive skills, pairing him with a rim-protector like Adams or Ibaka would be a good idea.
After the trade went down, general manager Sam Presti spoke highly of Kanter's versatility and how he'll help the team going forward, per Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman:
"There’s so many different ways to play. All of it is probably how it fits together. And there’s different ways to score certainly and draw fouls. I don’t think that’s the only thing that he does. He’s skilled. He can shoot the ball facing. (Utah) had him shoot some 3s during the season. He’s an excellent free throw shooter. So there’s more to him than that. That is one of the things that we really like about the acquisition. It kind of rounds out the frontline in a lot of ways.
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While not a true deep threat like Ibaka or Durant, Kanter is shooting 31.7 percent from behind the arc. He's attempting less than one trey per game but—given how Brooks has used his bigs to stretch the floor this season—that could change going forward.
Kanter is also shooting a respectable 76.2 percent from the charity stripe.
He put his versatility on display in the Thunder's win over the Hornets. According to NBA.com's shot logs, two of his eight takes were from beyond 15 feet. He drained both of them. He also had a nice finish coming off the pick-and-roll for his first basket of the game.
It was just the start of things to come. As Kanter builds chemistry with his new teammates, he's going to become a bigger factor down the stretch.
Boost on the Boards
Even before striking the deal to add Kanter, the Thunder were the top rebounding team in the NBA. The team is averaging 47.2 total rebounds per game and ranks second on the offensive glass with 12.3 offensive rebounds per night.
By swapping Perkins for Kanter, the Thunder get a boost in their biggest area of strength. Perkins grabbed 5.5 boards per game with OKC this season, while Kanter tallied 7.8 rebounds with the Jazz. Kanter had 13 rebounds in his first night on the job, and Perkins hasn't had more than 10 in a single game at any point this season.
The rebounding percentages work in Kanter's favor as well.
| Name | Minutes Per Game | Rebounds Per Game | Offensive Rebounding Percentage | Defensive Rebounding Percentage | Total Rebounding Percentage |
| Kendrick Perkins | 19.2 | 5.5 | 9.0 | 21.2 | 15.3 |
| Enes Kanter (total) | 27.2 | 8.0 | 13.2 | 21.1 | 17.2 |
What does this mean for the rest of the Thunder?
One, Kanter's ability to keep possessions alive means more second-chance opportunities for the team. The club is already fifth in the NBA in second-chance points, averaging 14.6 per game, per NBA.com.
Next, it improves the frontcourt unit as a whole. Ibaka has 42 rebounds in his last three games. Rookie Mitch McGary has grabbed at least 10 boards in three of his last six outings, while Nick Collison had 18 combined in two games starting in place of Adams.
When you throw Kanter and a healthy Adams into that mix, you have a pack of wolves chasing after every ball that bounces off the rim.
The addition of Enes Kanter makes the Oklahoma City Thunder even more dangerous at just the right time. The team has won six straight and holds a two-game lead over the Phoenix Suns for the eighth seed in the West.
Kanter is the interior offensive threat the team has been missing for years. His ability to score in the paint or from the outside adds a new wrinkle to the Thunder's arsenal.
His versatility will also allow the team to go with a number of different looks up front. Furthermore, he makes the Thunder even tougher on the glass.
OKC will have to compensate for his defensive shortcomings, but the chance to finally have a scoring option down low is a fair trade-off.
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