Why Oklahoma City Thunder Are the NBA's Most Unsolvable Puzzle
The spectrum of possibilities for the Oklahoma City Thunder's future is broader than ever—which isn't necessarily a good thing.
The talent-laden roster, led by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka—all, theoretically, in their primes—means that the highest end of that spectrum is still visible. A championship is very much a possibility.
The difference now, after a half-decade of near misses and ill-timed misfortune, is that the low end is more plausible than ever.
Things could go badly for any number of reasons.
And that leaves you looking for someone to blame, which is a weird thing to look for on a team that currently has the fourth-best odds to win the 2015-16 championship, according to Odds Shark.
You want to blame general manager Sam Presti and the front office.
They made the now-infamous James Harden trade right before the start of 2012-13 season, they hobbled the offense with Kendrick Perkins for so many years, they added Dion Waiters to a mix that didn't need him, they signed Enes Kanter to a massive deal his production doesn't warrant and they stuck with Scott Brooks and system-less basketball for too long.
You want to look at that group's clear miscalculations and posit that even their good moves were the products of luck. After all, the no-brainer selection of Durant at No. 2 in the 2007 draft was the move that kicked off this team's run of success, and he was available there because the Portland Trail Blazers made the mistake of taking Greg Oden first.
But any team that has the evaluative skill to draft Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka and Harden in a three-year span has to be doing something purposefully right. And the luck argument cuts the other way, too.
Pick any of the last three seasons, and you'll find the Thunder's championship hopes derailed by misfortunes beyond their control: Westbrook's torn meniscus in 2013, Ibaka's calf injury in 2014 and Durant's lost season a year ago.
A historically dominant LeBron James dispatched them in the NBA Finals in 2012, and while luck didn't have much to do with that, King James' performance that year felt something like fate, which is close enough.
If not for bad luck, we could be talking about a Thunder team with two or three rings by now.
Only we're not, and because the Thunder are so maddeningly complex, we can pivot back the other way and blame some of that bad luck on an organization that not only failed to maximize the return on its gaudy collection of stars but also may have actively (if unwittingly) dimmed their brilliance.
Letting Harden go a year too soon for a paltry return (jury's in on that one now, folks: The deal was a disaster) was one thing. But running Durant into the ground at a time when smart teams were appreciating the value of rest was another, quieter self-destructive move.
From 2009-10 to 2013-14, KD played almost 1,000 more regular-season minutes than James, the NBA's second-most-taxed workhorse, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
And let's not forget that those minutes came under Brooks, whose much-derided system-less approach required stars like Durant and Westbrook to create offense for themselves without the benefit of diagrammed help.
The back-and-forth analysis of how the Thunder have reached this point of simultaneous strength and frailty is exhausting, and it's even more of a head-spinner to figure out what might be ahead.
Durant, seemingly healthy after two surgeries to repair a Jones fracture in his foot, is the be-all, end-all for this small-market franchise. If he hits the floor in full-on 2013-14 MVP form, OKC's basement might be 55 wins.
"There is no reason why Kevin Durant should not be like the Lopez twins (Brook and Robin), Pau Gasol, Michael Jordan and many other folks who've had metatarsal fractures and gone back and played and never had a problem again," Robert Klapper, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, told Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding. "The data supports that he should come back stronger and should never have a problem with this again."
"That's the answer that you have to give. But nobody knows for sure," Klapper concluded.
Assuming Durant comes out at a dead sprint this season, there's still the terrifying possibility that he might walk away next summer.
Durant will be an unrestricted free agent in 2016—when just about everybody will have cap space and his hometown Washington Wizards will lead the charge in pursuing him.
Another setback with Durant's foot will cost the Thunder their season. Losing him as a free agent could destroy the franchise's entire future.
Of smaller though still significant concern is the health of Westbrook, who played last season as though his entire diet consisted of ghost peppers and Superballs. He bounded into the MVP conversation without Durant around to share shots, and a more equitable split between the two superstars could get awkward.
The old "there's only one basketball" cliche is tired, but it's clear Westbrook's need for the rock has steadily increased, spiking last year partially out of necessity. Durant's usage has been fairly steady. What happens next is anybody's guess, but there's the potential for some tension because, you know...there's only one basketball.
Health is an issue for Westbrook as well. He's already had three knee surgeries, and his style of play is as reckless as any we've ever seen. Self-preservation is not among Russ' instincts.
Toss in Kanter's big contract and net-negative on-court value last year and the potential of significant minutes for Waiters at shooting guard, and you've got the recipe for a potentially disastrous defense. Nothing stalls a contender like a lack of stopping power, and though the Thunder ranked in the top 10 in each of Durant's last three healthy seasons, their D slipped to 16th in the NBA last year.
Kanter, if given the minutes his contract suggests he'll get, is bad enough to make the Thunder a below-average defensive team again.
Healthy Durant or not, that's on the table.
And the guy charged with juggling all of that, with organizing this complicated situation and preparing for so many variables, is rookie head coach Billy Donovan. With his signature uptempo collegiate style, Donovan shouldn't clash with the athletic, offensive-minded Thunder. But you also have to assume that because so much of the criticism surrounding Brooks focused on his apparent lack of offensive sophistication, Donovan was hired partly because he had some semblance of a system to implement.
That'll take time, and time isn't something the Thunder have—not with so many health questions and Durant's possible exit looming in a year.
But the Thunder's overwhelmingly talented top three could stay healthy, and the system could fit like a glove.
Steven Adams could take the next step. Mitch McGary could prove his worth as a quality rotation big man. Andre Roberson might improve his shot just enough to stay on the floor as an elite defensive stopper on the wing. All of those things could happen.
And, as a result, so could a championship parade next June.
No team's range of possibilities in the short and long term is more confoundedly vast than the Thunder's. No team has trickier variables, and no team is harder to solve.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise indicated.
Follow Grant Hughes on Twitter @gt_hughes.
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