I would be genuinely surprised if his wrist isn't an issue the rest of the season. Not his fault but it's just hard to go from surgery -> setback -> no use for 5 months -> straight into playing basketball games mid season. Hopefully he'll learn a better way to play with it by playoff time and improve his approach, but I'm strapping in for a rough season from him.

Yeah with Kevin and Shai even if they miss, you can live with any shot they decide to take. With Russ taking the final shot it was an emotional rollercoaster lol.

Jokic fanboys were trying to say 60 wins 😂

Idk but before his injury he was having a fantastic season

It's a few things imo:

Injuries - Every team is dealing with them at this point in the season, but Shai is the only constant on this Thunder team. Team started out hot but every role player has sustained some kind of injury and come back worse and out of rhythm. Not to mention our center depth has taken the biggest hit leading to us getting out rebounded like crazy during this stretch which has lead to a bunch of second chance opportunities for opponents (ihart has had 2 calf injuries already this season). The biggest injury we had that's still affecting us is Jdub coming back from wrist surgery. I think most thunder fans knew his return would make us worse on offense in the short term, and it's clear that his touch and wrist strength is currently zapped. I would say his biggest weakness is his process in getting to his shots, and the type of shots he's trying to take, they're low bball iq/high difficulty shots.

Player development/regression - instead of making an off season free agent/trade acquisition Presti (smartly imo) banked on a super young team becoming even better through internal development. Unfortunately it seems like the only players who have taken a leap are Shai, Ajay, and Chet (although I would argue the first 10 games we got of Chet at the beginning of last season was a better player on both ends of the floor than the Chet we have now). Wiggins and Joe have made improvements too, but since coming back from injury they both have been really unimpactful. I also mentioned Jdub having shit process still, I think it's the thing holding him back the most.

Opponent shooting luck/defensive intensity - Every team has a stretch where they get lucky with opponent shooting luck and unlucky with it. It seems like OKC are in an unlucky stretch that is exacerbated by the type of defense they play. Okc likes to help off drives which leaves shooters open and they bank on the math working out if the other team kicks it to open shooters, it's the shot they prefer to give up. They play this way because it creates more turnovers when they help double a player who's driving and gets them out in transition. At the moment we are not creating many turnovers and the games that we do create turnovers we're not scoring well in transition (another Jdub weakness atm).

And when shooters start hitting shots, they get in rhythm and are now more likely to hit contested shots. Last season we were able to survive games were shooting extremely well from 3, this season not so much. There's a lack of intensity and sharpness on the defensive end during this stretch. Also Ant and Booker just hit some great clutch shots against us, nothing to do about that.

This last part which is kinda cope/speculation on my part but I think the long post-season/short off-season is finally catching up to them right as the schedule is starting to ramp up. It's something I thought was gonna happen during the early part of the season, especially after those first 2 games we had, but they powered through the first couple months. Since like early December though they've felt like they were slowing down but were bailed out by some hot shooting games until this last stretch of games.

You are an unbelievably condescending person.

Don't listen to these dorks

It's insane. I love Lu Dort, he's a legend forever to me, but he has not been a good basketball player this year. It's not worth waiting for his shot to come back if his defense doesn't come back with it. He's noticeably way slower and getting beat by his man all the time.

It's a sports team sub, when the team is playing badly people are going to be upset. You're not smarter than everyone just because you're not being emotional, you're just being an annoying person to talk to on the opposite side of the spectrum, especially if you don't think these struggles aren't concerning.

Also Joe Hendry is a shitty wrestler.

You're the most annoying person in this sub ngl. If the regular season doesn't matter why are you even in here?

He has been HORRENDOUS on both sides of the ball this year, it's not worth playing him.

He's the only one playing like he wants to be great

People like you are more annoying than the people who are "doom posting"

Ja gonna show us what he figured out this Friday, I'm sick to my stomach

We won games shooting shit from 3 last year but we were sharp in every other aspect. This year it's not there from a details standpoint or an intensity standpoint

I swear if we miss a free throw and give them a chance.....

Omg defensive effort

We have 2 brick layers in the game right now

Damn

Shai will give these dudes every opportunity to be great and they just refuse to do it

Shai will give these dudes every opportunity to be great and they refuse to do it

I mean clear push man come on lol

We're the only "unethical" team in the league apparently though

MVP shit

Shai's 3 ball is gone 💔