Can Thunder Tread Water in West Until Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook Return?
It's time to adjust expectations for the Oklahoma City Thunder's 2014-15 regular season.
While everything should be in order by the time playoff competition rolls around, head coach Scott Brooks' team will spend at least the next month without its two most prominent stars.
According to ESPN.com, "Point guard Russell Westbrook had surgery to repair the broken bone in his right hand Saturday and will be sidelined at least four weeks."
The 25-year-old suffered the break during the second quarter of Thursday night's 93-90 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
He's already joined on the sidelines by reigning league MVP Kevin Durant, who was diagnosed in October with a fractured bone at the base of his right small toe. Injuries like these generally require 6-8 weeks for recovery, so Durant probably won't see action until the first week of December at the earliest.
And while that's also the best-case scenario for Westbrook, firm timetables haven't been established. The safe bet is that both will return at some point in December.
Together, the two franchise cornerstones averaged a combined 53.8 points and 12.4 assists per contest.
There's no way to replace that production in the short term.
But after crawling to a 1-2 record Saturday night with a seemingly unlikely 102-91 victory over the Denver Nuggets, the question is whether OKC can at least stay afloat, perhaps salvaging its ability to again claim one of the top seeds in a highly competitive Western Conference. The Thunder nearly forfeited a 55-33 halftime lead in the fourth quarter, but there's no denying this was a positive sign given the circumstances.
The win may be the blueprint for weathering a seemingly insurmountable storm. And it may just be an outlier that softens the blow of what's to come.
Either way, general manager Sam Presti recently told reporters this next month will be an opportunity of sorts.
"The circumstances that we're being presented with right now are temporary.
It's our job to eliminate the dramatics and harness our mentality and make sure that we're productively using the time so that when those guys do come back and we start to get our full complement of players, we have built a collective mentality and momentum that's only going to be accelerated when we get our group together.
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If nothing else, the setbacks will certainly test Oklahoma City's mental fortitude. This is a club that's consistently relied on Durant and Westbrook to be jacks-of-all-trades. They score, make plays, rebound, push tempo and are responsible for the lion's share of on-court leadership.
That translated into 59 wins a season ago and another 60 in 2012-13.
Matching those heights this time won't be easy.
Perhaps this roster will grow all the stronger because of it.
"It's unfortunate the way it is right now, but we have to figure out how to get better from all of our experiences," Brooks told reporters after the Clippers game. "Good teams and good players bounce back from adversity, and our guys understand that."
Bouncing back is one thing, but what about competing in the meantime?
OKC has another 14 games in November alone, and there's always the risk Durant and Westbrook miss a portion of December as well.
Only six of those November games come against teams who qualified for the playoffs last season, so there will be some opportunities to stop the bleeding. Oklahoma City will play the young Utah Jazz twice this month, and there are also meetings with Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons—all in various stages of rebuilding.
Even with a few winnable games in the offing, it would be surprising for the Thunder to emerge from this stretch with a .500 record.
That kind of showing would require firepower this skeleton crew just doesn't have.
Combo guard Reggie Jackson will return from a minor ankle injury in short order, but he won't have much help. Valuable as his production will be in fantasy circles, it probably won't be enough to carry a rotation otherwise bereft of reliable scorers and playmakers.
After averaging a career-high 15.1 points per game last season, there's some hope power forward Serge Ibaka could adopt a more prominent role on the offensive end.
Unfortunately, many of Ibaka's scoring opportunities come from plays made by others—namely Westbrook and Durant. He's not the kind of big man who puts his back to the basket and creates from the low block. While he'll make the most of some pick-and-pop opportunities (especially when Jackson returns), he probably won't score 20 points every night.
Consequently, Oklahoma City will turn to unconventional options such as Perry Jones.
He scored a career-high 32 points against the Clippers, making 10 of his 17 field-goal attempts and showing off the kind of inside-outside versatility that once made him such an intriguing prospect. Coming off a forgettable 1-of-9 performance in his season opener, Jones' eruption certainly qualifies as a sign of life.
He added another 23 points Saturday night, matching Ibaka for team-high honors in the 11-point win. Until swingman Jeremy Lamb recovers from back problems, the Thunder may need more from Jones.
And even then, buckets won't fall like they typically do for this club.
Its survival ultimately hinges on what it accomplishes at the defensive end.
That's where Ibaka will make an even greater impact. As one of the game's premier rim protectors, he joins 21-year-old center Steven Adams to form one of the league's most active interior duos. For all of OKC's current problems, preventing easy baskets in the paint shouldn't be one of them.
Keeping scores low could give the Thunder chances to hang around and grind out some close games. It won't be pretty, but it may be this team's only hope. Holding the Nuggets to 33 first-half points on Saturday shows it's possible.
Even before Westbrook went down, Oklahoma City knew November would be about getting stops.
"One of the ways to improve your team and make up for loss offensively is to play even better defensively and reduce the net rating between the offense and the defense," Presti told reporters in October, per Darnell Mayberry of NewsOK.com. "That's always been a focus for us.
"We need to be good on both ends of the floor, but clearly, in Kevin's absence, continuing to build a defensive identity is going to be really important in making sure that we are as balanced as ever offensively."
In the best of circumstances, OKC's defensive identity probably still isn't enough. Not enough to win more than five or six games this month. Not enough to guarantee Oklahoma City the superior postseason seeding to which it's become accustomed.
But if the Thunder flex some defensive muscles that they aren't used to using, that could be valuable in the long run.
Ugly as November will be, it's the months to come that matter most.
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