A Tale of two OKC Offenses

The NBA playoffs have been a wild ride so far with a barrage of 4-point plays, 4^th quarter comebacks, and even game winning shots. Yet, perhaps the most befuddling story of the playoffs has been the inconsistent Oklahoma City offense. With two of the most capable scorers in the entire NBA in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, the Thunder offense has at times looked unstoppable, and at others looked like it didn’t even belong in the playoffs.

The late game offense in particular seems to lack significant rhythm and flow in crunch time, and when the first option is nullified by the opposing defense, one of OKC’s star players too often settles for a contested look. 

The assist is often a misleading statistic when considering the concepts of a potential assist (a good pass to a shooter who misses a shot, or gets fouled) and an accidental assist (a meaningless pass to a player who happens to shoot an unexpected shot, yielding a semi-unwarranted assist to the passer), but the Thunder’s offense has typically succeeded with better ball movement that spaces the floor and keeps the defense a step out of the paint for their stars to better attack. Posting up Westbrook and Durant and running the Westbrook-Durant pick and roll are two of my favorite offensive plays run by the Thunder, and these sets awarded them terrific success in games 2 and 3. Running these plays lures double teams, and Westbrook is an elite passer in these situations.

Yet, for a large part of games 4 and 5, Oklahoma City inexplicably went away from these successful offensive sets and resorted to one-dimensional basketball, relying on their athletic advantage to create a shot. It actually “worked” in game 5 (barely), but one has to wonder if this type of play is consistent enough to even get out of this second round.

Let’s take a look at some statistics. Using the “advanced” analytic metric of AST% (percentage of makes that were assisted), this figure can give us a relative idea of the type of ball movement OKC employed to get the ball in the basket. As one would presume, OKC’s AST% figure is 52.1% in wins, and 47.2% in losses – a significant margin. However, it’s important to dive even deeper when making the argument that the offense still sputtered despite the win in game 5. In games 4 and 5 of the L.A. series, OKC registered an AST% figure of 42.4% and 51.5% respectively. However, that figure is hiked up to 62.2% and 59.1% in games 2 and 3.

Here are a few highlights of some brilliant ball movement that created some open looks for Oklahoma City.

In the clip we can see some post ups, nice pick-and-roll sets between Westbrook and Durant, and some effective spacing by the Thunder as they are able to shift the ball to the weak side and throw off the defense. By my unofficial count, the Westbrook-Durant pick-and-roll works basically every time IF and only if, Westbrook makes the correct read. However, there are some times where Westbrook hesitates to thread the pass (which he is very capable of), and settles for a much lower percentage shot as shown below.

It’s always maddening when Westbrook takes matters into his own hands instead of making the correct read, but even worse is when OKC takes the ball into the half court offense with no plan, and resorts to jacking up threes.

It’s hard to watch sometimes, but OKC has proved that they can run sets to get good looks, and they have the talent to do so. There’s been a lot of heat on Scott Brooks lately, and rightfully so, but he has shown us in games 6 and 7 of the Memphis series as well as games 2 and 3 of the Clippers series that he knows how to run an effective offense. OKC just has to get in the rhythm, get their stars in the pick and roll to collapse the defense, and make the correct pass. It’s easier said than done, but it has been done before.

Skip Bayless often makes impulsive and critical remarks to gather interest, and often comments on intangibles in sports, rather than formulating effective statistical arguments. However, he has tweeted “the only team that can beat Oklahoma City is Oklahoma City” after nearly every Thunder playoff game this postseason. Skip may actually be correct on this one. Oklahoma City’s offensive stars breathe life and efficiency into the overall offensive unit when the ball is rotating and keeping the defense off balance. However, when the ball stops moving, the Thunder offense becomes one dimensional and easy to defend.

Which OKC offense will we see in game 6?

KD's Case in the MVP Race

If there were ever a year in which Kevin Durant could actually wrestle away the MVP trophy from LeBron James, it would be this one.

As expected, the Thunder offense has been wildly inconsistent post-Westbrook knee surgery, going 7-5 in the 12 games since the surgery December 27. Those 12 games have disclosed some harsh developments in the Thunder’s overall play including Reggie Jackson’s inconsistency as a playmaker, Serge Ibaka’s inability to create shots of his own, and requiring Derek Fisher to play extended minutes. However, number 35 is the only player on Oklahoma City’s payroll who has been consistent on both sides of the ball sans Westbrook.

In fact, consistent doesn’t even do him justice. Kevin Durant has been spectacular.

In the aforementioned 12 games, Durant has averaged 36.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 7.5 rebounds on 50% shooting from the field and fewer turnovers per game (2.8) than he averaged with Westbrook sharing the court (3.3). Oh, and while we’re at it, he’s averaged 4.2 more shot attempts, 3 more free throw attempts, and more minutes per game during this stretch.

It’s pretty obvious that if he can continue to put up these high volumes consistently, Kevin Durant will be the favorite to win the MVP award. No player in the NBA can score as efficiently as KD can, and very few have the extra level he has in the fourth quarter. But the MVP award isn’t necessarily awarded to the best NBA player, but the most valuable one, and there are a lot of intangibles KD will need to fall in place in order to effectively display the enormous value he provides to the Thunder in a way that will get him votes.

Define His Value by Production

Oklahoma City will need to win enough games without Westbrook to comfortably tread water around the top of the western conference record wise, and eventually finish the season strong with a healthy Westbrook and glide into a top 2 seed to add weight to the MVP credibility. A huge chunk of “value” comes from wins added from the roster, and to qualify Durant as the MVP, we must prove that OKC would be a garbage team without him, or at least try to.

Offensive and defensive rating statistics aren’t always indicative of a player’s true value on the court, but it is at least a good start. The offense scores at a rate of 107.3 points per 100 possessions when Durant is on the floor, and 103.2 when he sits per NBA.com. This is a substantial difference: about the difference between a 3^rd ranked offense and a 16^th ranked offense. There are many other factors that go into this discussion, but considering he has posted these numbers with over 1500 minutes played and understanding all of these minutes are meaningful minutes (Durant sits during garbage time), it’s at least somewhat conclusive that he elevates this offense from “lottery team” to “elite level”.

However, there’s even more that goes into it. To better prove this theory, we should hypothetically replace Durant with a mid-tier power forward (replacement player, someone along the lines of Trevor Ariza), reconstruct the offense such that Jackson accumulates a greater percentage of touches, consider the harsh disadvantages of thrusting Serge Ibaka into a second option, and factor in Scott Brooks’ reluctance to tinker with starting lineups.

These indemonstrable claims seem to add weight to the original claim that removing Durant from the roster would face OKC with catastrophic consequences. Even with Westbrook playing his expected 50 or so games this season, it’s hard to see this Durant-less offense cracking the top half in the league. The Thunder defense would still be good it seems, but in the ultra-competitive western conference, this would likely be a lottery/fringe playoff team.

Win Games

OKC is 30-10 currently (as of when this article is written). If they could finish the season on this pace with 60 wins AND Durant continues this dominant performance through the rest of the season, that should be enough to qualify him for his first MVP. Let’s talk about exactly why.

First off, the team struggled getting out of the gate without Westbrook. There was a nice win on the road against a decent Charlotte team and a dominating performance at home against Houston, but OKC has lost games to Portland, Brooklyn, Utah, Denver, and Memphis. Yes, most of these are western conference teams, but 5 losses in 8 games plants a substantial blemish on Durant’s record.

However, losing Westbrook to injury proved to be such an abrupt situation, and adjustments had to be made on the fly to account for his absence. “One night he played, the next night they said he was out for a few months”, said Durant about the injury. The Portland and Brooklyn losses were specifically a result of poor late game offense by OKC, but to harness Durant with responsibility for the losses to Denver (Foye’s fortunate long range shooting), Utah (poor first half defense), and Memphis (OKC just missed some open threes) would be unreasonable.

The point is that it sometimes takes luck to win NBA games, and takes even more luck to win consistently. The hiccups in the offense in the few games after the Westbrook injury are to be expected as adjustments are made on the fly, but as Durant continues to post these enormous stat totals, it is unfair to cast the blame for inconsistent offensive performance solely on his shoulders.

If we have effectively concluded that OKC would most likely be a lottery/fringe playoff team in Durant’s absence in the ruthless western conference, then it should be clear enough to distinguish the amount of value he brings to the team in terms of wins. MVP candidates bring value to their teams in different ways; Kevin Love may elevate the Wolves from a 25-win team to a 42-win team (just a rough guess). Durant probably adds a similar total; however raising a team from “borderline playoff” to “championship contender” establishes much more credibility. Also, factoring in the relatively relaxed attitude LeBron has been playing with thus far to conserve energy for the playoffs, and the much smaller (comparatively) role he plays on offense), I think that gives Durant the edge here.