The Oklahoma City Thunder faced what was, on paper, a better test for their talent on Friday against the Houston Rockets than their first game, which was against the Utah Jazz.
And maybe the results do show their talent: OKC lost 124-91 to a team similarly developing young talent and similarly expected by many to be near the bottom of the NBA standings this season.
It was a brutal matchup for the Thunder, who saw star point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander score just 13 points on 6-for-15 shooting and Rockets power forward Christian Wood break the 30-mark.
There were a lot of negatives for Oklahoma City, but let’s dive into couple positives in our grades before getting to the improvements that must be made.