OKC Thunder Have Most to Lose in West's Wild Playoff Race
In one sense, the Oklahoma City Thunder should be glad they're locked in a fight for their playoff lives.
Not so long ago, fates much worse than this seemed likely.
Kevin Durant's 2016 exit was supposed to turn the organization into a basketball wasteland. Small-market doom was imminent. But Russell Westbrook stayed, Paul George showed up and disaster missed its chance to strike. Big picture, Oklahoma City is in better shape than it otherwise might have been.
Considered from another angle, though, OKC may have only postponed its demise.
After losing to the Houston Rockets on Tuesday, the Thunder are 7-8 since Feb. 1 and sit seventh in the West. Not so long after winning the offseason with flying colors and seemingly setting themselves up for fringe title contention, the Thunder face the possibility of missing the playoffs entirely...and all of the fallout that'll follow.
The Darkest Timeline
Suppose the worst comes to pass and Oklahoma City falls short of the postseason. In that scenario, Paul George could easily look at the Los Angeles Lakers—a team he's been overtly ogling for years and one that paid tampering fines for ogling him back—and view them as the objectively better option.
Think that's far-fetched?
L.A. is 17-11 since Jan. 1 despite trading away rotation players (Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr.) and paring salary. In that same span, Oklahoma City is 17-12. That's a two-month stretch in which a team that is actively rebuilding for the future has performed just as well as one hell-bent on surviving in the present. You might be shouting that George, a rental from the time he arrived, is leaving anyway, and that OKC's fate this year won't change that.
But think about it in the simplest terms possible: Is it harder for George to leave if the Thunder miss the playoffs? Or is it easier?
Future free agents might view what's happened this season in OKC as a deterrent to signing on. If George, theoretically purpose-built to fit alongside Russell Westbrook, couldn't help the Thunder reach one measly postseason, why even bother to follow in those footsteps? That's to say nothing of virtually every star improving upon his exit from the Thunder. Victor Oladipo is the latest, but there's also Durant and James Harden to consider. Both are better now than they ever were with the Thunder.
And in light of Patrick Patterson being underutilized to such an extreme degree this season, role players might proceed with similar caution.
Toss in the requisite concerns about market size, conference difficulty and all of the other ancillary factors players weigh, and Oklahoma City could soon find itself struggling to attract support for Westbrook and Steven Adams. Or, at least that'd be the case if the Thunder had the opportunity to pursue any.
With $88.9 million committed to nine players next year—excluding George and assuming Carmelo Anthony doesn't decline his $27.9 million player option, which he absolutely will not—the Thunder don't have the financial flexibility to meaningfully change their roster.
In this darkest timeline, the Thunder miss the postseason, watch George depart, suffer through a summer in which they can't retool, and then run it back in 2018-19 with a 30-year-old Westbrook flanked by Anthony, Adams and the worst collection of wings in the NBA.
Making the playoffs won't erase the possibility of this worst-case scenario. The Thunder could still get in, knock off a first-round foe and threaten the Warriors or Rockets in a tough series...and then watch it all fall apart this summer anyway.
But there's no denying the destructive, franchise-crippling impact of a potential lottery trip.
Disaster Preparedness
With the third and 10th seeds in the West separated by just four games, there are eight teams fighting for every inch...and only six playoff spots. The Thunder are operating with a nearly invisible margin for error. That's hardly ideal for a club that has had trouble showing up consistently.
Oklahoma City prides itself on performing when faced with a worthy foe, a confidence supported by a 4-2 record against the Warriors, Rockets and Raptors. But the Thunder haven't beaten a playoff team since their 125-105 drubbing of the Warriors on Feb. 6, which is now offset by the even more thorough beating Golden State later delivered, a 112-80 dismantling on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, the Thunder's last month includes single-digit wins against the bottom-dwelling Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Orlando Magic, Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns. They also lost to the Lakers (twice!) and pre-All-Star break Cleveland Cavaliers. Although the Thunder aren't dumping games to the league's dregs as often as they did earlier in the season, something even more telling is happening lately.
We're seeing Oklahoma City settle into what looks like its proper place: better than the worst, but not good enough to beat the best.
The upcoming schedule will test this team, with a brutal stretch starting March 16 likely determining the Thunder's fate. Eleven of the Thunder's final 12 opponents are currently over .500. They 'll see the Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics on the road early in that run, and then they'll face the Warriors and Rockets in the final week-and-a-half of the regular season.
The possibility of a playoff absence is very real.
The Thunder can still salvage this thing, and they must. The immediate future of the organization depends on it.
Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, Cleaning the Glass or NBA.com unless otherwise specified. Accurate through games played Tuesday, March 6.
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