How Long Can OKC Thunder Survive Without a Healthy Russell Westbrook?

The Oklahoma City Thunder are going to be able to get by without Russell Westbrook during the first few weeks of the regular season, but the long-term effects of the All-Star point guard's second knee surgery could very well destroy the team's future.

According to an official release from the Thunder, Westbrook underwent an arthroscopic procedure on his surgically repaired right knee in order to reduce swelling. He'll miss the first four-to-six weeks of the regular season.

Westbrook is a player whose game depends on raw athleticism as much as any other in the league, which is what makes the potential worst-case scenario—a chronic problem with his knee—so hard to accept. When any player has complications or secondary problems after a surgery, it feels like a punch in the stomach.

But given the pure joy that results from watching Westbrook bound and dart around the floor, this hurts a little extra.

Toss in the fact that the guy was practically indestructible in the past, and the pain of his rotten luck is even more acute.

It's not fair to presume we're dealing with a doomsday scenario for Westbrook here. The Thunder went out of their way to report that the torn meniscus that required surgery in the first place had healed.

And Westbrook has certainly never shown any signs of frailty during his career, so it's reasonable to assume we're dealing with an anomaly.

But it doesn't take more than one surgical procedure to rob a player of his peak form, and Westbrook has now had two. Whether Westbrook's glass is half-empty or half-full, everyone can agree that there's less juice in it than there was before.

What's on the Menu?

Let's move past the gut-punch sensation and turn to more practical matters. OKC now has to face the prospect of an early-season run without its No. 2 option. And considering how the team floundered in the playoffs without Westbrook last year, there should be a ripple of concern making its way through Oklahoma City right now.

In fairness, the Thunder ran up against a vicious Memphis Grizzlies defense in their second-round defeat last postseason. Marc Gasol, Tony Allen and Co. mauled OKC in a way that most NBA teams wouldn't have been able to, so nobody should be expecting the Thunder to be quite so badly manhandled during their Westbrook-less stint to start the regular season.

Fortunately for OKC, the first six weeks of the 2013-14 campaign present a relatively favorable schedule.

Yes, the Thunder will have to face off with those same Grizzlies on Dec. 11, but the overall slate of games won't be nearly that rough. OKC has 23 games on its schedule between Oct. 30 and Dec. 15, and of those contests, just 10 will involve opponents who made the playoffs last season.

There will be a dozen home tilts and best of all, the first six games of the season come against clubs that were in the lottery this past June. If OKC needs a couple of weeks to work out the kinks in its makeshift offense, it'll get that chance by opening the season against the Utah Jazz, Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.

Durant Under Fire

No player suffered more during the Thunder's shorthanded postseason run last year than Kevin Durant. With Westbrook watching from a luxury box, the ruthless Grizzlies focused the entirety of their defensive wrath on KD, forcing him into difficult shots and physically beating him into submission.

He played a whopping 45.7 minutes per game and managed to hit just 42 percent of his field goals against the relentless Memphis defense. He was plainly out of gas down the stretch, a natural result of having to shoulder the entire offensive load in a painfully uninventive Scott Brooks offense.

The conditions of the Grizzlies series were uniquely difficult for the Thunder, nearly a perfect storm of bad matchups and bad luck.

The Thunder faced an elite defense and had to do so without much time to make adjustments to compensate for Westbrook's absence. Granted, Brooks was badly exposed for his inability to make tweaks on the fly. But overall, Durant and the Thunder's performance in that ugly defeat shouldn't be what we expect from them to start this season.

After all, Durant was still pretty darn good last year when he took the floor without his high-scoring teammates alongside him.

Plus, OKC showed that it could perform at a high level as a team when Westbrook sat last year. Admittedly, the Thunder weren't elite without both of their stars on the court. But they posted a net rating without Westbrook that would have ranked third in the league, per NBA.com.

But that tiny sample of minutes can't tell us how Durant—or the Thunder—will fare over a prolonged Westbrook absence. In other words, we're going to get a long look at whether KD can retain his remarkable efficiency without one of the league's best wingmen to share defensive attention.

The Other Guys

Everyone knew Jeremy Lamb and Reggie Jackson would have to step up this year in order to compensate for the loss of Kevin Martin, the team's primary bench weapon in 2012-13.

It's safe to say the expectations for Oklahoma City's two reserve contributors have been elevated.

Now, Jackson becomes the full-time starter for a month or two, and Lamb becomes one of the only viable wing options on the bench. Suddenly, OKC's reserves are going to be critical pieces.

For his part, Jackson showed flashes of solid play during his abbreviated postseason cameo last year. In another good sign for the Thunder, he put up a pair of summer league games in which he morphed into an aggressive alpha dog.

As a matter of fact, he did a pretty fair Westbrook impersonation.

Lamb, though, is as unproven as they come. After looking solid during summer league play in 2012, he laid an egg for the Thunder last year. So you'll forgive the critics who dismissed his excellent play this past offseason. Until he proves he's ready to perform in games that actually count, Lamb can't be relied upon to fill Martin's important role.

The forgotten man in all this is Serge Ibaka, the third wheel in OKC's professed "Big Three" who simply hasn't shown the ability to reach the next phase in his development. As a catch-and-shoot big man who collects plenty of help-side blocks, he's fine.

But there's just not any evidence that he'll be able to take on a much larger role to compensate for Westbrook's absence. Nonetheless, OKC now will have to look to him as a second option on offense.

Good luck with that, Thunder.

The Real Issue

Chances are, Oklahoma City will take advantage of an early schedule that falls somewhere on the difficulty spectrum between "cushy" and "average." That should put them in respectable standing by the time Westbrook makes it back into the lineup.

But the real issue here—the one that could determine far more than OKC's record in mid-December—is that it's possible Westbrook will be hobbled when he returns.

From what we've heard of this latest procedure, there's not necessarily a reason to panic.

We can't yet assume that his problems will be chronic, or that they'll turn him into this generation's Penny Hardaway—another unconventional point guard with otherworldly talent and athleticism who lost his career to recurring knee injuries.

Still, there's just no way to feel good about a guy who had a relatively minor procedure result in complications and a second surgery.

The Thunder can survive the early season without Westbrook, but they're simply not a title contender unless he's playing at full strength. We've seen how his absence degrades the team from "great" to "good," and with the bevy of improved Western Conference contenders, "good" simply isn't going to cut it.

The fact is that OKC could care less about how it performs during Westbrook's early-season absence. Its goals are far bigger than a decent record over the first few weeks of the 2013-14 campaign. The terrifying thought that has to be floating around the Thunder front office and locker room right now is that Westbrook might never be the same player he was.

And that's something the Thunder can't survive.