End of Season Review for the Oklahoma City Thunder

OKC overachieved hugely and should be in good shape to kick on in October

Now that the dust has settled on the season, it is a good time to take stock of the 2022-23 season and think about the next few months for the Thunder.

There is no denying it, the loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves was disappointing. Minnesota appeared to be an easy opponent due to their recent turmoil. If you were going to pick an opponent for the Thunder to play, the Timberwolves would have been close to the top of the list.

Unfortunately, the game did not go the Thunder’s way and Minnesota stormed into the playoffs with a blowout victory. Oklahoma City lost the game for one reason.

The size disadvantage in the front-court finally caught up with the Thunder. The combination of Towns and Gobert meant that the Timberwolves were able to control the interior and take away a lot of the Thunder’s inside scoring.

Oklahoma City have been able to stifle large, physical centers by sinking down to the painted area and crowding the space. This approach worked for the regular season as it made interior passes difficult and reduced the opposing center’s shot diet to the occasional putback.

Karl Anthony-Towns is a skilled, mobile big who moves around the court with speed and agility. His shot-making is good enough that he can move out to the mid-range or the perimeter and still influence the game. The Thunder’s strategy of trapping the big is less effective against this sort of player.

Gobert’s height and wingspan were used to stretch the Thunder’s defense whenever Oklahoma City collapsed on the painted area with three or four defenders. Mike Conley or Kyle Anderson would simply throw the ball over the top of the defense and Gobert would have easy scoring opportunities at the rim.

The return of Chet Holmgren should make the Thunder’s interior defense more sturdy. Holmgren was an accomplished shot-blocker at Gonzaga and this ability should translate at the NBA level.

Holmgren did not rely on length alone to accumulate blocks in college play, he was adept at controlling scoring angles and forcing the opposing team into difficult shots.

Chet will lead to changes in the Thunder’s system on defense. At the moment, Coach Daigneault’s defensive setup involves protecting the painted area and then relying on the perimeter-based players to use their athleticism to contest open shooters.

When the Thunder were fresh and had a few days’ rest, this approach worked quite well. J-Dub and SGA had the length and stamina to contest shots adequately.

Towards the back end of the season, we saw the Thunder’s perimeter defense collapse and this collapse is related to workload. The likes of J-Dub had to cover so much distance on a nightly basis that their gas tanks were running on empty by the time OKC played the Pelicans.

In that game, Brandon Ingram would swing the ball to the corner and more often than not, you would see the Thunder struggle to contest the shot. Oklahoma City were just spent physically and had no energy left.

The issue was even worse in the Timberwolves. Minnesota shot 40% from downtown as a team on 32 shot attempts. Kyle Anderson shot 41% from three in the 2022-23 season and he had quite a few clean looks in Friday’s game.

Adding a rim protector like Chet should allow the Thunder to be less dependent on perimeter-based help defense and should reduce the workload on the Thunder’s wings.

Although losing against the Timberwolves sucked, I was incredibly happy to see the Thunder play resilient basketball even when the odds were against them.

Gilgeous-Alexander took a meaty elbow to the face which left him with a black eye. He went to the back and we all worried if that would be the season. It was a heavy, errant blow from Gobert but Shai showed steel in returning to the court and completing the game.

Even when OKC were down by 20 points, they still tried to win the game instead of merely just accepting their fate.

The next step of Thunder basketball is much harder to decipher, $30m of cap space this summer adds a layer of complexity into team-building discussions that previously did not exist.

Do the Thunder stay the course with their current group and focus on adding another highly-rated young player in the Draft? Or does Sam Presti go out and swing for the fences?

We should hopefully get some answers later today in Presti’s end of year press conference. These media sessions usually outline the Thunder’s future and we should have a better of idea of what direction OKC will pursue.