The Oklahoma City Thunder’s season hasn’t quite gone the way it was expected from the outside. With a 6-7 record, they continue to hover around the eighth seed 13 games into the season.
For Bleacher Report, that’s the lone blemish on the season. And when the problem is you’re winning too many games, that’s not an actual problem.
B/R graded the Thunder an A- in an article published Thursday. Oklahoma City is one of just eight teams to be graded in the As.
Grant Hughes wrote:
“The only imperfection in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s performance shows up in the win column; they’ve got too many for a rebuilder focused on draft picks. OKC has so many incoming selections from other teams that it doesn’t really need its 2021 first-rounder to be great. but that’d still be nice in what’s supposed to be a deep draft.”
Hughes also notes, though, that with a bottom-five point differential, their record will start to dip.
“As that balances out, the welcome losses will come. Hooray!”
What Hughes likes more than the Thunder’s wins is the growth he’s seen from the players. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is putting up numbers that are only matched by James Harden, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving and Nikola Jokic (21.0 points, 6.0 assists and 5.0 rebounds on at least 60% true shooting).
Lu Dort’s improved shooting from deep has been noted, and the improvement of Hamidou Diallo and Darius Bazley has impressed.
“OKC’s longtime preference for rangy athletes it hopes to mold into actual basketball players is paying off.”
Oklahoma City may be in the early stages of a rebuild, but the team has continued to impress outsiders.