How Much Longer Is Oklahoma City Thunder's Championship Window Open?
Kevin Durant's injury will have a profound effect on the 2014-15 NBA season, but the Oklahoma City Thunder remain a team with ample time to collect a title.
Per Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman, Thunder general manager Sam Presti released a statement on KD's condition:
There's a significant "if" attached to the above proclamation about OKC's still-open title window, and perhaps it'll surprise you to know it doesn't pertain to Durant returning to full-on MVP super-duper-megastar form. Given the requisite recovery time, that feels like a foregone conclusion.
B/R's Will Carroll is optimistic about Durant's long-term health, though he also suspects significant games lost this season as OKC's training staff takes a conservative approach to recovery:
This is an injury players routinely recover from without long-term complications. According to Jeff Stotts of InStreetClothes.com, only about a quarter of recent Jones fractures in the NBA have caused recurring issues down the line.
So the aforementioned "if" isn't related to health. It has to do with how much longer Durant plans to stick around in OKC.
Greener Pastures?
KD will become a free agent in the summer of 2016, and the already churning rumor mill keeps spitting out his hometown Washington Wizards as a possible landing spot.
Per USA Today's Sam Amick, Durant did all he could to squash the speculation:
"We'll keep dancing around (the topic), and by the time it comes it's going to be even more awkward than it was, so it's not a surprise (that people ask him about it) because everybody wants to know. ... I enjoy being here. I enjoy my teammates. I like the direction we're going in, and that's not just a cliché (expletive) answer. That's real.
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The Thunder can offer Durant more money than any other team and an extra year, and we've seen how tempting that can be to free agents of Durant's stature. At the same time, LeBron James' homecoming shook things up in a big way. It's not crazy to think KD will follow suit by returning to the D.C. area for less money.
Still, that's all speculative, and we've got two full seasons to think about before Durant's free agency becomes a topic worth discussing seriously. Just know that it's the only significant threat to a championship window in OKC that will otherwise remain open.
Not Going Anywhere
It's hard to find a team better constructed to compete for the foreseeable future than the Thunder.
Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka are in their primes and under contract through the 2016-17 season. Jeremy Lamb, Andre Roberson and Perry Jones are also inked to deals that will keep them with OKC for the next three years. There is no shortage of young, promising talent on this roster, and the presence of fully formed superstars like Durant and Westbrook should provide motivation for that talent to develop.
Kendrick Perkins' $9 million comes off the books after this season (finally!), which will free up cash and give Steven Adams, who is signed through 2018, the starting center gig he already deserves. And if you subscribe to the idea that added pressure can sometimes fast-track the development of young players, KD's injury might provide it:
Even Reggie Jackson—whose "will they, won't they" extension situation could make the final two weeks of October a little prickly for the Thunder—will still be under team control for two more years. Remember, even if no deal is struck, OKC can just match any offer he receives as a restricted free agent next summer—or pay him the qualifying offer of $3.4 million if Jackson wants to become an unrestricted free agent in 2016.
Put simply, all of OKC's core pieces are going to be around for at least two years, and the main supporting guys (like Jackson) can't go anywhere unless the Thunder let them. And if Durant decides to stay after 2016, you can bet the supporting cast will want to hang around much longer in pursuit of a few rings.
This team is stable and, unlike a lot of other contending squads, has very young players who should continue to improve.
Windows Elsewhere
Just for comparison's sake, consider the questions surrounding other contenders' title windows.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are the current championship favorites, according to OddsShark.com, and their trio of James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving is good enough to place them in the title conversation as long as it's together.
But who's to say how long that union will last?
James and Love can both be free agents after this season, and with the cap in flux and the CBA uncertain due to a possible lockout in 2017, according to Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated, perhaps both players will be wary of signing long-term deals.
Plus, James will turn 30 this season. Nothing lasts forever.
The San Antonio Spurs are and have been a year-to-year proposition for what seems like a decade. At any time, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili could suffer a significant injury or simply go over that proverbial hill, changing the entire team's makeup.
The Los Angeles Clippers depend entirely on Chris Paul to prop their title window open, and he missed 20 games due to injury a year ago. Not only that, but he'll be 30 at the end of the upcoming season. That's not ancient, but when you consider that Westbrook is 25 and Durant is 26, it's not hard to make the case that OKC's window will stay open longer.
The rest of the league's potential threats are either upstarts (the Golden State Warriors), health risks (the Chicago Bulls) or unproven (the Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers and Washington Wizards).
The teams that figure to be competing with the Thunder for rings over the next few years lack the combination of stability, youth and talent Durant's club possesses. In other words, even if there are questions about KD's future, the Thunder's title window looks as wide open as any of their main competition's.
Open Indefinitely
There's no question Durant's injury changes things for the Thunder this year. They'll have to make some adjustments, as a prolonged KD absence has never happened before:
Those 15-20 games won't result in the Thunder sliding rapidly downhill, out of the playoff race and into the lottery. They'll be tough, though, and even a small standings slippage could make Oklahoma City's playoff road more difficult.
But this isn't a disaster.
The young players might grow up faster than they otherwise would have, and we've got evidence indicating Westbrook can handle things on his own, per Grantland's Zach Lowe:
"Westbrook logged a hefty 280 minutes without Durant in the 2012-13 season, and the Thunder were monstrously good in those minutes. They destroyed the league on both ends of the floor, outscoring opponents by nearly 9.5 points per 100 possessions—a margin that would rank first or second overall in most seasons.
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In sum, the Thunder are still a legitimate title contender this year—albeit one with a few more question marks and difficulties to navigate than they would have preferred. Going forward, all of the key pieces of the roster are locked in through next season, with all but Durant inked for a year beyond that.
With the cap jumping, it's possible OKC will be able to max out Durant and have plenty of cash (its financial commitments in 2016-17 range from $34-$41 million depending on options) left over to add another big name when the time comes.
That means we can reasonably expect Durant to play out his entire prime in Oklahoma City, probably with even more talent around him than he currently has. And if you have prime Durant and decent supporting players, you are a contender, full stop.
Nothing's certain, and we can only guarantee the Thunder will contend this year and next. But it sure looks like OKC's title window is going to stay open for a long, long time.
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