Oklahoma City Thunder Making Mockery of Battle for West's No. 8 Seed
Kevin Durant's latest injury is a setback that will not prevent the Oklahoma City Thunder from moving forward.
Per a team announcement on Sunday, Durant underwent a procedure to replace the screw in his surgically repaired right foot. He is expected to miss at least one week.
Cursory looks at the standings suggest Durant's absence couldn't be more untimely. Though the Thunder have assumed control of the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot, their hold on it remains insecure.
Both the New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns are in hot pursuit of eighth place. Just 2.5 games separate the Thunder and an unforeseen lottery appearance with 25 left to play. Losing Durant, who has missed more time this season (30 games) than his previous seven combined (16), threatens to leave Oklahoma City playing catch-up yet again.
Except it won't. The Thunder control their own 2015 postseason fate and, by default, that's not going to change.
Shared Misfortune
Direct competition has never looked more oblique.
Of the two other challengers for eighth place, the Pelicans and Suns, neither one is properly positioned to remove the flag Oklahoma City has staked.
The Pelicans are only two games behind the Thunder and working off a thrilling victory over the Toronto Raptors on Monday night. They've been underestimated and misidentified at every turn, the expectation being they would fall out of postseason contention long before now.
But the Pelicans are missing their own key pieces. Jrue Holiday remains sidelined with a stress reaction in his right leg, and Anthony Davis is out with a shoulder injury and will miss the next one to two weeks, the team announced on Sunday.
Playing without Davis is nothing new for the Pelicans. He missed 33 combined games through his first two seasons and has rode pine for eight contests in 2014-15.
It's just that when he's off the floor, New Orleans is less of a playoff candidate and more of a Denver Nuggets doppelganger:
| With Davis | 1692 | 107.8 | 5 | 103.3 | 15 | 4.5 | 5 |
| Without Davis | 1006 | 101.7 | 19 | 109.5 | 30 | -7.9 | 27 |
Defensive regression is chief among the Pelicans' Davis-less concerns. Their offense isn't anything special without him, but they have enough scorers to get by. (Nods to Eric Gordon, Tyreke Evans and, apparently, Norris Cole.)
Surviving on defense without Davis is an unfathomable task. The Pelicans are a mediocre unit that can barely protect the basket with him on the floor. They rank middle of the road in rim protection and 28th in points allowed inside the paint, per TeamRankings.com. Removing their best—and only consistent—shot-blocker, for however long, significantly damages their postseason hopes.
Meanwhile, Phoenix is dealing with a different kind of dilemma.
After holding down eighth place for most of this season, the Suns have dropped to 10th—three games behind the Thunder—in the wake of impromptu roster-finagling. They traded away Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas, two of their top three scorers, for returns comprising mostly draft picks.
Brandon Knight is a nice backcourt consolation prize, but the Suns were having problems locking up that No. 8 spot prior to shipping out Dragic and Thomas. They've lost 10 of their last 13 tilts, including five in a row. Their demise has been weeks in the making.
| First 44 Games | 26-18 | 107.2 | 5 | 103.8 | 17 | 3.4 | 10 |
| Last 13 Games | 3-10 | 102.0 | 16 | 106.3 | 26 | -4.4 | 21 |
At best, the Suns will end up making a lateral jump this season, in which case they still won't be good enough to usurp the Thunder.
At worst, they'll continue ebbing in the wrong direction, in which case they're a more imminent threat to the Utah Jazz's ping-pong-ball swag than Oklahoma City's postseason position.
Mutant Ninja Westbrook
If only the Thunder employed another superstar who could help them weather Durant's most recent stay on the sidelines.
Ah, that's right. They do.
Russell Westbrook has always been the superstar behind the bigger superstar. Now, without Durant, he is the only superstar.
Said the point guard himself, per Fox Sports Southwest's Andrew Gilman: "My job is to come out and lead the team to victory."
And so he has.
Through the 16 games Westbrook has played without Durant, the Thunder are 10-6. That record, when extrapolated, would be enough to net Oklahoma City a playoff berth in the West's concentrated bloodbath (aka the West's playoff bracket).
On every level possible, Westbrook is having a fantastic campaign, averaging 25.9 points, 6.5 rebounds, eight assists and two steals per game. Exactly one other player has eclipsed those statistical milestones in the same season. His name is Michael Jordan.
In the face of an NBA- and personal-high usage rate (37.3), Westbrook's true shooting percentage—a collective measurement of two-point, three-point and free-throw accuracy—is the second best of his career (53.9). And not only is his player efficiency rating (29.1) second to just Davis, but if it holds, he'll become the fourth guard in league history to record one north of 29, joining Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Jordan.
Westbrook's potency has not suffered when bilked of Durant's partnership, either. In the 689 minutes he's logged without him, Westbrook has actually been more efficient on an individual scale:
Sample sizes this vast cannot be dismissed. Nearly 50 percent of Westbrook's minutes have come independent of Durant, meaning his numbers aren't some anomaly. Only his assist percentage dips when Durant is off the floor, and that's to be expected given the decline in surrounding talent and Westbrook's uptick in shot totals.
This is not to imply Westbrook is better off without Durant. His net rating is higher when playing beside the reigning MVP. At the same time, Westbrook, in a way, has proved to be more indispensable than Durant this season:
Looking at the numbers, the Thunder have suffered more without Westbrook than they have without Durant. That's not a knock on Durant. Rather, it merely attests to the job Westbrook has done, validating the MVP case he's gradually built.
Previous injuries admittedly suggest Westbrook is only a blip on that radar. Allen Iverson (2000-01) is the only MVP winner since 1979 to miss more than seven contests, and Westbrook has already sat 14 times.
Still, as Welcome To Loud City's Chris Hanneke drives home, it's becoming awfully difficult to discount his candidacy:
"Which brings us back to Westbrook. The injury to Durant is huge for the Thunder for so many reasons, not the least of which being HE'S THE REIGNING MVP OF THE LEAGUE AND A ROBOT SCORING MACHINE. But while we're crafting narratives, if the Thunder keep running over opponents the way they have been, and Westbrook keeps leading the charge with outrageous numbers like this, it's going to be harder and harder to write him off simply because he missed 15 games [sic] due to injury.
"
Although the Thunder's postseason well-being ostensibly has nothing to do with Westbrook's MVP claim, it actually does. They're down a reigning MVP, but they're still being commandeered by an MVP-caliber talent.
Regardless of schedule strength and the length of Durant's absence, that makes all the difference.
Sitting (Semi-)Pretty
The Thunder are going to be fine.
Even without Durant, the West's final playoff slot is theirs for the taking. If all else fails, look not at their performance thus far without Durant or Westbrook's all-world ascension.
Instead, play the odds.
Already with a 2.5-game cushion, the Thunder have an easier remaining schedule than their two closest threats, per NBA.com's John Schuhmann:
After taking that in, now consider all we've talked about. The struggles of New Orleans and Phoenix. The rise of Westbrook. The team's record without Durant.
No, that eighth spot isn't a good place to be. Not with the Golden State Warriors likely waiting in the first round. But it doesn't matter how the Thunder get to the playoffs. It only matters that they get there. And, in spite of all that's happened, all signs point to them getting there for the sixth consecutive time.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com and are accurate leading into games on Feb. 25 unless otherwise cited.
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