The knee injury to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander puts the Oklahoma City Thunder in an undesirable situation.
Beyond the fact that he’s the leader of their offense and the best player on the team, Oklahoma City is now down to just one true point guard and two true guards on the team.
Rookie point guard Theo Maledon and third-year shooting guard Hamidou Diallo will start in place of Gilgeous-Alexander and George Hill, who is out with a thumb injury.
The Thunder now have 10 active players. Coming off the bench will be some combination of Justin Jackson, Kenrich Williams, Darius Miller, Isaiah Roby and Mike Muscala.
None of those players are guards. There’s minimal NBA ball handling experience in that group.
When asked who would lead playmaking in the second unit, head coach Mark Daigneault said Jackson will get an opportunity and Williams will get an expanded role.
Jackson is probably the wingiest, most experienced ballhandler of that group. Now in his fourth year in the league, he plays more of a perimeter role than the other four, with the exception of Miller, who is primarily a catch-and-shoot guy on offense.
The Thunder will find ways to take that load off Jackson, though.
“And then we’ll try some things rotationally that kind of do a little more staggering than we’ve done to get different guys from the first unit playing with the second unit,” Daigneault said.
It may not even simply be staggering the minutes of Maledon and Diallo — the Thunder want to see how wing Lu Dort and forward Darius Bazley can handle playmaking roles.
“It allows us to see what our style of play looks like without our primary creator, and it allows us to learn about our system a little bit,” Daigneault said.
The starting lineup against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday will be Maledon, Diallo, Dort, Bazley and Al Horford.
Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
This post originally appeared on OKCThunderWire. Follow us on Facebook!