Bring The Thunder, Feel The Thunder
Bring The Thunder, Feel The Thunder
At long last, we are finally back in business baby! The first part of my grad school program is complete and I am on a two week break. You know what that means, new content! We tip off round three of our coverage dipping into the NBA storylines. I’ve wanted to talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder for a while now and how they could be on the verge of something special. It started with drafting Chet Holmgren second overall. He should have gone first, but I digress. In the playoffs, the Warriors “death lineup” was discussed in detail with the three guards. OKC has a chance to do something just as dangerous.
Size Matters
Let’s take a look on what a potential death lineup of tall people would look like for OKC:
Small Forward Josh Giddey - 6’8
Point Guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - (also known as SGA) 6’8
Power/Small Forward Ousmane Dieng - 6’10
Power Forward Aleksej Pokusevski (going to call him Poku the rest of the way) - 7’0
Power Forward Chet Holmgren - 7’1
Folks, this is like having five Bill Russell’s and Robert Parish’s on your team blocking shots. Let’s start with that. They wanted to add Bol Bol to the mix since he is 7’2, but he opted to stay with the Magic. Secondly, you could do a lot of damage with this untraditional lineup. SGA averaged 24.5 points and 5.9 assists. Holmgren was averaging 14.1 points, and 9.9 rebounds at Gonzaga. Giddey averaged 12.5 points and 7.8 rebounds. Dieng overseas was averaging 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds. Poku would need to pick it up a bit since he averages under 10 points, but this is a young core that can and will only get better. Poku is 20. Dieng is 19. Chet is 20. SGA is 24. Giddey is 19.
Golden State at one point was going with Steph, Klay, and Jordan Poole as a three guard lineup with Draymond and Andrew Wiggins. It helped propel them to a championship. Someone would have to play center in OKC’s case, but you get the idea. Thinking outside the box in terms of a lineup worked wonders once before. That tells us it could work again with a different configuration.
Can They Compete?
Yes, but there will be some growing pains. Chet will need to bulk up to make it in the NBA. His skillset is unique, but it won’t be enough by itself at the next level. Young teams make mistakes and young cores need time. Take Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for example - they only just helped get the Celtics to the finals. OKC has a chance to to have a good team in the next two or three years. They need to learn how to play together, share the ball, and ultimately they need to learn to win - which is something that has been tough for the team these past few seasons.
Coming up next, we have a lot of catching up to do in the NFL!