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Still small sample size but Maynor has been better on both individual and team defense than on either of his offensive measures.

To be consistent I should probably turn one of Maynor's ok to fairly bad- shooting- into at least fairly bad, at least based on where he sits right now.

Westbrook would get two good and one fairly to really bad (his shooting).

By these 3 offensive criteria (pass well, protect the ball and shoot well), I'd say Durant gets a 2 good marks, one ok to fairly bad, Green probably one good, one ok, one fairly bad, Harden maybe 2 good, one ok, Krstic one good, two ok to fairly bad, Collison one good, two ok to fairly bad, Ibaka one ok, two really bad, Thabo one good, two fairly bad, Maynor one good, two ok to fairly bad.

@Keith
I'm aware of that. I'm saying that there were several opportunities for him to get easy buckets with lobs that weren't taken advantage of by our other players, which is their fault, not his. He only hurt us in that line-up twice, once on the and-1 with Manu, and the other when Manu dunked. Those are correctable mistakes that will come with experience, plus it was Manu and he seems to make those kinds of plays a lot. We saw way too little of B-Mul to make any certain statements about him. Clearly Brooks liked what he had seen in practice and gave him some time. He also decided against going back to him in the SA game later in the 2nd half. It's ok for him to get some looks in the 1st half of that kind of game. I'm perfectly ok with giving him experience when the game isn't on the line.

If they are doing what you describe Keith to try to damp down the turnovers, and they may be, then you have to address that too by designing better multi-pass plays or getting more guys who do at least two of pass well, protect the ball and shoot well (while being average or better on team defense).

The team should know what % of Russell's assists are going to the other top dogs (Durant and Green) and what % are going to the other guys who probably need more help. It would be fine to high on or increase either but I'd want to know how well he is helping each set.

And just noting another factor, surely playing with KD shooting so well is helping Westbrook's assist rate.

@Crow
It doesn't help that we are so dependent on one player for scoring. When Durant has the ball, he's expected to shoot, not pass. Westbrook gets the majority of the assists because our ball movement is terrible. Westbrook makes the first pass, and most times that is the only pass made before a shot. I think it's a major problem that we don't particularly feature passing, and instead rely so much on individual shot creation.

Mullens should be in the D-league clocking minutes and working on interior defense.

@Aenema
The main problem is that we are in the playoff race. We aren't the 3-29 Thunder that forced Westbrook into the starting lineup and needed immediate development. Playing Mullens appreciably hurts the team. Especially in a game as important and tight as the Spurs game, Mullens should not be playing. We have Etan (though I'd rather go small), we have White (now healthy). Mullens hasn't earned the minutes he's being given.

If the offense is too simple and too ineffective and perhaps too concentrated in Westbrook's hands how much of this is because of Westbrook's current capabilities and preferences? Have they gauged it about right to his capabilities so far and personality? What happens when they add new plays- more compicated or less focused on action from Westbroook? Does he run them well? Does he run them or break them?

A pass that leads to a pass that leads to a score is a good reflection on a PG even if they don't pick up the assist.

Also, I think it's too early to call him Thabust, though it is catchy.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/13804/t...

I would have been ok with trading down and drafting Curry, but not at #3. It will be interesting to see how Harden and Curry's careers shake out statistic-wise.

For those calling Mullens worthless in the line-up, he's in for development, which is much more important than playing Etan right now. On top of that, in case you all didn't pay attention to him when he was in, he was never put in a good situation to do anything offensively. And, btw, he was matched up with Dejuan Blair the entire time and kept him from getting a rebound in the 6 minutes they were matched up. I'd say that's a positive. Yes, he made defensive mistakes, but sometimes you have to make mistakes to learn from them. He's very athletic for a big guy. I'd absolutely prefer playing him over Etan right now.

Mohammed and Anderson are indeed examples of starting slow and then getting good, at least some of the time thereafter.

Yes Keith there are different paths to answers, including using your eyes on the game or the stats.

If they don't want to be like New Jersey on offense they better stay strong at offensive rebounding. If they want to move even further away from that particular comparison they should add some time on the court to more effective assist-makers, or change / improve the offense or at least get better shooter / scorers or do some of all three.

Of the guys I just mentioned here only Gadzuric was low minutes, low PER his first season. Biedrins was low minutes, moderate PER.

Brad Miller and Biedrins might also have some value as examples of what young bigs can turn into.

Raef LaFrentz might be a comparison name to think about, in several ways. Or gads, Gadzuric.

Not to continue to the Harden v. Curry thing, but... damn, that's a sweet move.
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/cur...

Here is a list of guys in the last 10 years, 6'10+ who have gotten to PER17+ in their 3rd or 4th season (while playing at least 500 minutes)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/tin...

You can easily argue Westbrook does not have enough help with making assists. But could you also argue that the system and his teammates that has fostered the probably league highest for all teams assist concentration stat have "inflated' somewhat his assist accomplishment?

@Mark!
Andrew Bynum comes to mind, though he was much more of a specimen than Mullens and a year younger. Terribly raw, though. Stuggled a ton rookie year, showed decent improvement and more minutes sophomore season, then turned it on in his injury-limited third year.

crick :
Wizards just signed Shaun Livingston to 10-day contract.
More here

Even though he was only a Thunder player for awhile, he has a compelling story. I wish him luck.

OKC and NJ are well above the others in the bottom 10 in terms of assist concentration. Wade and Miami are a pretty distant third. NJ is 30th on offensive efficiency and Miami is 19th. OKC 18th at the moment.

Mark! :
Can someone come up with some examples of players who fit Mullens’ description in year one (not good enough to earn play time, project, tremendous upside potential, blah blah) that actually turned into a solid player? How long did it take them to make the jump from garbage time and practice fodder to rotation or starter?

Another example would be Andrea Bargnani, which I think OKC fans might be really happy if Mullens starts turning into Bargnani. It is important though to realize that playing time is one of the biggest factors for improvement. Most of the players justin mentioned earlier didn't start "showing improvement" until they were really on the court more. Unfortunately, a lot of those teams were allowed to develop on a team that either blew out their opponents or were so bad they went with youth movements, which OKC isn't really in either position so it's a hard line to follow. Most bigs also tend to develop in the off-seasons between their rookie year and 3rd year as they're with the team and know the system so they can start to develop certain roles and areas of their game. Which with OKC's clear goals and what not it should be easier to focus on for Mullens. Just some thoughts.

@Keith
Curry is the only guard on that team that even tries on the defensive end. He's not asked or expected to. You don't think he'd be a more successful defender playing in Brooks system vs. Nellie's? Tyreke's a great player but of the three, I think he's the poorest fit. You can't space the floor when there's only one player on your team who can shoot from range.

Looking at the bottom 10 on team assists pace adjusted, the Thunder and Westbrook are indeed the highest in terms of concentration of those assists in the hands of the lead PG. New Jersey is second.

(While not part of the bottom 10 on team assists pace adjusted Davis and the Clippers would appear to rank pretty high on assist concentration level, though behind Westbrook and Harris.)

Wizards just signed Shaun Livingston to 10-day contract.

More here

@Mark!
I was thinking of a minute breakdown something like

Westbrook 36 / Curry 12
Sef 24 / Curry 12 / Shooter 12
Durant 40 / Shooter 8
Green 36 / Ibaka 12
Krstic 18 / Collison 24 / Ibaka 6

@Mark!

The bottom 5 (assist leader represents lowest % of team assists) are ATL, LAL, MIN, IND & HOU. That's two triangle teams and a princeton team. Dunno what ATL & IND run.

Your guess has a good chance of being right Mark!
I'll check at least some of the poor assist rate teams by % from the lead PG. Concentrated passing or at least assist-making might be a bit easier to guard.

@Crow
Is it sad that I was going to suggest the Nets comparison without looking at the numbers? And that's with Harris having a very down year from last. It's the effect of one-on-one basketball, similar to the Grizzlies, but with defense to make up for individual scoring deficits.

@Mark!

Ok, I was wrong. We're #5 behind NOR, PHO, BOS & DAL and just slightly ahead of CLE.

@Sammy
I think Curry isn't a great fit on a defense-first team, but that both players are smart and would have done something right. It can't be overlooked how Westbrook's bad defense is mitigated often by Thabo or even Harden next to him. That wouldn't be the case with Curry, ultimately forcing him into fewer minutes. I don't think you can project Curry into being much of a better defender when you realize Harden had an even bigger defensive adjustment (Arizona ran almost all zone) and was still a better defender than Curry from day one.

I'm not mad that we passed on Curry for Harden (though Curry could certainly make me rethink that in time - I don't hate him just because we didn't take him). If anything, I'm a little disappointed we passed on Evans. Sure, he's a ball-dominant guard without a three point shot, but he's the best this draft had. Westbrook is still a terrible shooter overall, and a lot of times I wish someone else had the ball in their hands because of it. Evans is actually a good defender, and his style of constantly attacking the basket would have come in just as handy as Harden's threes (since we often get stuck taking jumper after jumper after jumper for no reason).

Devin Harris and the current Nets are most similar in terms of being high on personal assists but low on team assists and team eFG%. The biggest difference between the two offenses overall is that the Thunder are very strong on offensive rebounding and the Nets are very weak on that.

Actually Baron Davis isn't the right comparison. His team is poor on offense overall but they are high on team assists and near average shooters. I'll look around for a better comparison.

He said on that DVD that he is not friends with lebron james or Dwayne wade there associates but not Friends

@Crow

I blame team assists almost entirely on the coach/offensive system.

I would be curious to see where OKC ranks as far as what % of pace adjusted team assists comes from the team's assist leader?

I would assume we would be #1 or #2

@Mark!
I don't really defend him, but I know three players with middling to non-existent rookie years who became decent-good rotation players: Chris Anderson, Darko Milicic, and Anrday Blatche. Anderson and Blatche both spent time in the D-league. Anderson couldn't hit a shot to save his life, but was a pretty good per minute rebounder and shotblocker. Blatche was horrible all around his first couple years, but has played pretty well the last couple with more minutes. Darko will always be an epic failure as a number 2 pick, but is a quality 10-15 guy off the bench.

I hope we can grab chris bosh this summer especially after watching the first ink DVD

Westbrook is getting assists but in a system that is very low on team assists and very low on team eFG%. That isn't Stockton like. That is more like Baron Davis. But how much is the "fault" of Baron Davis and Westbrook and how much is the other players and ultimately the coach and GM?

@Sammy

We definitely don't do the Maynor trade. But if we get a sharpshooter at the 2/3, it cuts into Curry's playtime. I don't see Curry taking much time away from Russ and I don't think he has the defensive chops against SG's to demand as much PT from Thabo as Harden does.

@Mark!
I think if we draft Curry, we don't do the Eric Maynor trade and instead shop around for a sharp-shooter 2/3.

@Sammy

Agreed.. I mentioned before if Harden doesn't improve on this stuff in the offseason then I'll start to hedge closer to you Curry-fanatics :)

Last season 8 of the top 10 teams in the west on pace adjusted assists made the playoffs. 4 of the top 5 of those advanced.

@Mark!

Chris Kaman played but was pretty horrible his first year. Bynum was 18 his rookie year and didn't play much.

There isn't really much precendent. Robin Lopez was barely productive last year and has gotten better. Joel Przybilla was horrible his first few years but it took him until age 25 to get 'decent'. Nazr Mohammed couldn't get off the bench his rookie year but exploded his third year at 23 and has been servicable ever since. If Spencer Hawes ever gets good he'd qualify here.

@justin

It's foolish to conjecture how he would have handled (or failed in) OKC's system. That's basically the same thing Portland's fans do in continuing to justify Oden vs. Durant ('He'd never have developed into nearly the same player playing next to Roy!').

Personally, I think Curry's bball iq would have allowed him to catch on to the defensive system quickly. Though he wouldn't be as good a one-on-one defender as Harden, that deficiency would be more than compensated by his high shooting percentages, ability to create his own shot (and finish), and much better ability to create for those around him. He'd be able to run the point or play the two next to Westbrook. But that's just my view, and I wouldn't pretend for a second that I know for certain how it would have turned out if we had picked Curry. I do know that I wanted him on draft night and I would rather have him than Harden now and in the future. If Harden can learn to finish and can regain his playmaking ability, I'll forget about the whole thing and call it a wash. If not, though, I'll always wonder.

@justin

I agree with justin.

There is absolutely no comparison between Curry and Harden on defense. Curry has decent anticipation and good hands, but he gets dominated by strong PGs (like Westbrook) who would be undersized at SG. If we drafted Curry, my guess is he'd be getting about as much PT as Harden does now, but Thabo would be getting a lot more. Curry would get the extra minutes filling in for Westbrook.

Instead of

Westbrook 36 / Maynor 12
Thabo 24 / Harden 24

It would probably look more like

Westbrook 36 / Curry 12
Thabo 36 / Curry 12

I don't think that arrangement makes us noticeably better on offense as a team despite Curry being better offensively than Harden.

I might have to post this again because I'm really interested in hearing a response...

I keep hearing certain statements repeated in Mullens' defense. He's a project, he has all the tools but needs more time, etc.

Can someone come up with some examples of players who fit Mullens' description in year one (not good enough to earn play time, project, tremendous upside potential, blah blah) that actually turned into a solid player? How long did it take them to make the jump from garbage time and practice fodder to rotation or starter?

From a recent article by Darnell Mayberry:

"The process is just every day to get better and focus on our core values. That is defense and sharing the ball on offense,” Brooks said.

We know the defensive part has worked great but what about part B- sharing the ball?

It depends how you define sharing the ball. Compared to the top 4 teams in the west only Denver is more top heavy than the Thunder in terms of the amount of possessions the top 3 guys use.

They are also 27th on assists and 23rd on eFG%. They've made progress on offense but "sharing the ball" and doing so effectively will be tested in the playoffs (and beyond).

If you have to face LA / Bynum or Denver / Nene you might want a extra banger on the bench. Perhaps with Utah / Boozer as well.