The Biggest Takeaways from the Oklahoma City Thunder's 2014-15 Regular Season

The 2014-15 season didn't go quite as the Oklahoma City Thunder or their fans hoped it would. Instead of preparing for its sixth straight trip to the playoffs, the team is planning for the NBA draft lottery. 

The Thunder finished the year 45-37 and needed just one New Orleans Pelicans loss down the stretch to make it back to the postseason. 

It never happened. 

In essence, the final outcome summed up Oklahoma City's entire season perfectly. When the club needed something to break its way, the basketball gods refused to let it happen. The team scratched and clawed all year but couldn't overcome the flaws exposed by a constant rash of critical injuries. 

However, there were plenty of bright spots to celebrate from this disappointing campaign. We saw the evolution of Russell Westbrook from Kevin Durant's sidekick to a bona fide MVP candidate. Enes Kanter left the Utah Jazz and became the Thunder's main man in the middle. Young players such as Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Mitch McGary took the next step in developing into quality role players. 

Those are just some of the takeaways from a Thunder season that turned out to be more about growth than championship gold. 

This Team Has Heart

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

What if I told you Russell Westbrook would miss the first month with a broken hand, Kevin Durant would play just 27 games all year, Serge Ibaka would go down in March and the Thunder would still be in the playoff mix going into the regular-season finale? 

This year, Oklahoma City showed the moxie of Little Mac trying to punch out Mike Tyson. The entire Thunder season could have been set to Chambawamba's "Tubthumping." The team got knocked down, but it got up again. You never were going to keep it down. 

OKC didn't have a ton of able bodies, but it had plenty of heart, as DailyThunder.com's Tyler Parker points out. 

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They battled, and fought, and kept swinging all year. All the injuries to key guys, all the games missed, all the close games almost won, still they kept on coming back, trying to rage against the night, trying to blind themselves to the inevitability that darkness was coming. They banged their heads all year against the stone wall of fate that kept getting in their way. The wall with pictures of broken metatarsals and feet and knees and ankles and hands and masks and screws and other screws. It just wasn't in the cards this year, and everyone could see it, but almost every game — maybe only that stupid Knicks game, excepting — they showed up and gave what they had.

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After a 3-12 start, the Thunder went 42-25 the rest of the way despite KD spending most of his days in a walking boot, Westbrook needing to rock a face mask and Ibaka generating more spring buzz for his awesome documentary than his play on the court. 

Westbrook, who averaged 28.1 points, 8.6 assists, 7.3 rebounds and 2.1 steals, did most of the heavy lifting, but head coach Scott Brooks deserves credit for keeping his team together when it had every reason to raise the white flag. 

The Thunder refused to back down in the face of adversity, and while the club inevitably came up short, the stage is set for an incredible bounce-back year.  

Oklahoma City Stole Enes Kanter and Dion Waiters

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

The Thunder's two biggest steals of the season won't show up on a highlight reel, but they can be found on the roster. Dion Waiters and Enes Kanter were midseason additions acquired for very little who came up big for Oklahoma City. 

Waiters was acquired on Jan. 7 in a three-way trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks. The cost to acquire the Syracuse guard's services: energetic forward Lance Thomas and a future first-round pick. Making the deal even sweeter, the draft pick was top-18 protected for this season, which means OKC keeps this year's selection and Waiters while only losing a guy who averaged 5.1 points in a Thunder uniform. 

Next season, the pick becomes top-15 protected, but the club is unlikely to make a return trip to the lottery if it manages to avoid the injury bug that crippled its 2014-15 campaign. 

Much like his career in Cleveland, Waiters struggled with consistency and poor shot selection, converting a career-low 39.2 percent of his field-goal attempts. 

Fortunately, Waiters started to show some growth toward the end of the season, averaging a respectable 12.7 points per game as he fluctuated between a sixth-man role and the starting lineup. He never missed a game with Oklahoma City, which was huge with his teammates dropping like flies.

More importantly, the 23-year-old matured with the Thunder and learned a valuable lesson, per Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: "It's not about how many shots you get up, it's about the quality of the shots," Waiters said. 

While the Thunder pulled off a robbery with Waiters, they committed grand larceny with the Kanter deal.

The team gave up Reggie Jackson, Kendrick Perkins and Grant Jerrett—three players who were unlikely to be in the rotation next season—as well as a protected 2017 first-round pick and the rights to Tibor Pleiss in exchange for a big man who averaged 18.7 points and 11 rebounds in 26 games. 

After years of playing without an offensive threat down low, Kanter's presence on the block was like a breath of fresh air. The 22-year-old's scoring became especially important once Ibaka went down in March. During 17 games without Ibaka and Kevin Durant in the lineup, the Turkish Tower averaged 20.6 points and 12.2 rebounds. 

Defensively, Kanter still has plenty of work to do to match his efforts at the other end. He allowed opponents to shoot 61.2 percent from within six feet and finished with a defensive rating of 106. However, head coach Scott Brooks thinks Kanter's defensive shortcomings are fixable, per Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman.

"A training camp will help him understand what we do defensively. He has to improve in that area," Brooks said. "You can get guys to do that [play defense] a lot easier than you can get guys to get you 20 points and 14 rebounds night in and night out."

Kanter is a restricted free agent, and it will be interesting to see how much the team is willing to spend to keep a one-dimensional center. Regardless of the cost, it won't be close to the value the team received in the deals that brought Kanter and Waiters to town. 

Scott Brooks Deserves Another Shot

AJ MAST/Associated Press

A day after the Thunder's season came to an end, Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reported the team is pondering Scott Brooks' future as the embattled head coach enters the final year of his contract. Brooks is signed through next season with the team having the option to retain him for 2016-17. 

Not long after the news broke, a number of Brooks' key players came to his defense, but the biggest show of support may have came from Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, per Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman.

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For you guys to be without the MVP basically all season and still almost make the playoffs, I don’t know what more you all want in Oklahoma City. I really don’t. The notion that you all are even thinking about firing your coach has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

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While Oklahoma City fell way short of its championship goal, it is unfair to make Brooks the scapegoat after the club had some of the worst luck with injuries the sport has ever seen.

All things considered, notching 45 wins in a tough Western Conference with your three best players all missing significant amounts of time is a pretty impressive achievement. The Thunder were a fluky Anthony Davis double-clutch three at the buzzer away from making the playoffs with Anthony Morrow as their third-best player. 

Over the years, Brooks has earned his share of criticism, as ProBasketballTalk's Kurt Helin points out:

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The knock on Brooks is his offensive sets are simplistic and common, lack good spacing or weakside movement, and if you blow them up the Thunder just fall back to Durant or Westbrook isolations. It just works because those guys are so good. While his critics concede Brooks was good at player development bringing up this Thunder core, they don’t think he’s the guy who can take them over the top.

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Still, Brooks' lack of offensive creativity and star dependency have been issues for years. If the team wasn't willing to get rid of him for those reasons in the past, it doesn't make sense to use something Brooks couldn't control as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. 

Next season, assuming Enes Kanter re-signs and everyone is back healthy, the Thunder should be considered one of the favorites to win it all. Judging by the quick reaction from the team's biggest names, it's clear he hasn't lost the locker room. 

Brooks deserves another chance to push all of his chips to the center of the table and place his fate one more time in the hands of the players who would hate to see him go.

There Are Now Two MVP Candidates in Oklahoma City

Alonzo Adams/Associated Press

Last season, Kevin Durant put on enough of a show in Russell Westbrook's absence to earn MVP honors.

This year, with Durant playing the role of spectator for 55 games, Westbrook put together a season for the ages with the same tenacity he uses to drive into the lane, forcing himself into the discussion for the league's top individual honor. 

Westbrook's heroics won't be punctuated with a trophy, but he established himself as more than just the Robin to KD's Batman. When the team takes the court next season, there will be two MVP candidates in Thunder uniforms. 

While Russ is unmoved by his statistical achievements since the Thunder still missed the playoffs, it's hard to ignore the video game numbers he put up this season. He took home his first scoring title, ranked fourth in assists, led all point guards in rebounding and trailed only Stephen Curry in steals per game. 

He put up at least 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in the final three months of the season and earned Player of the Month honors for each of those efforts. He's one of only three players ever to average at least 27-7-7-2 in a single season. The other two? LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

He was second in the NBA with a player efficiency rating of 29.12, led the league in usage rate at 38.4 percent, placed third in Value Over Replacement Player and finished with his third-lowest effort in turnover percentage (14.3). 

Next season, he'll reunite with a four-time scoring champion who managed to average 25.4 points and shoot 51 percent from the field despite injuries keeping him from getting into a rhythm. It will be interesting to see how Durant and Westbrook coexist now that the latter has risen to new heights, but the rest of the league suddenly has an even bigger problem on its hands. 

This Team Could Be Special Next Season

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Prior to this season, the Thunder have had a winning percentage of at least 61 percent in the last five years, including above 70 percent in the previous three. This season, despite injuries depleting the roster, the team still came within spitting distance of the playoffs. 

So, what about next year? 

For starters, Kevin Durant will be back with a vengeance and will be motivated both by his pending free agency and the disappointment of this season. Russell Westbrook will be coming off the best effort of his career, and Serge Ibaka will return to make life miserable for anyone attacking the basket.

On top of that, Dion Waiters and Enes Kanter (if he re-signs) will have the benefit of their first training camp with the Thunder. Prospects such as Mitch McGary, Steven Adams and Andre Roberson will have a season of experience under their belt. Anthony Morrow will hope to keep the momentum going after finishing the last two seasons in the top seven in three-point percentage.

One other underlying advantage is that the team will have another lottery pick on the roster. OKC has the chance to bolster the rotation by adding a wing like Kentucky's Devin Booker or Wisconsin's Sam Dekker, a big man like Dekker's teammate Frank Kaminsky or a point guard like Duke's Tyus Jones.

While a lot can happen between now and October, the 2015-16 Thunder could have the deepest and most-talented cast in the franchise's history. A fearsome foursome of Kanter, Ibaka, Durant and Westbrook will be a nightmare for opposing defenses, while Waiters, Adams, McGary and Morrow can all provide a spark off the bench. 

With Durant's future in Oklahoma City uncertain past next season, there will be an enormous amount of pressure and a greater sense of urgency to end the year with a championship banner. 

From 2010 to 2014, the Thunder were great. This season, they were cursed. Next year, they will be special.