Journey of the OKC Thunder Bench to Find an Identity – Video Analysis

The OKC Thunder bench started a journey at the beginning of the season to carve out roles for new players and may have finally found an identity.

The Start

At the start of the season the OKC Thunder had six new players on the roster and just three games in, exchanged one of those new players for another new player. Two of those players (Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis) are in the starting lineup. The other four (Jerami Grant, Semaj Christon, Alex Abrines and Joffery Lauvergne) were fighting for minutes off the bench.

With so many new players and the departure of a superstar, it is difficult for a team to find an identity. Having Russell Westbrook helped the starters find theirs fairly quickly, but things have been more difficult for the bench units.

After an injury to Cameron Payne in the preseason, Semaj Christon was thrust into a role he was not prepared for in his rookie season. Having never played an NBA game he was now asked to lead the bench heavy units. To help mitigate this responsibility Billy Donovan would play Oladipo next to Christon most of the time to share the ball handling duties. This role isn’t unfamiliar to Oladipo, as it has been forced on him virtually since he entered the league, with little success.

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While Billy Donovan tried to figure out his new roster additions and players tried to figure out their new teammates and establish roles, the bench struggled.

As the Thunder tried to navigate the early season struggles of the bench, Donovan would tinker with the lineups trying to find the right combinations. This led to inconsistent playing time for all the bench players outside of Christon and Enes Kanter. The inconsistent playing time made it difficult to carve out a role and get into a rhythm possibly exacerbating some of the struggles.