Oklahoma City Thunder: Where NBA National Scribes Power Rank OKC in Week 19
By Cole Hixon
The Oklahoma City Thunder are still trying to find their footing after a trade deadline move. Consequently, they went 1-3 in week 19 with their second leading scorer Victor Oladipo missing every game.
The Oklahoma City Thunder started the week with a good win against a good Utah Jazz team. They were led by a 43 point triple double from Russell Westbrook, with Alex Abrines, Doug McDermott and Enes Kanter all having good games.
The rest of the week for the Oklahoma City Thunder was a complete disaster. They dropped all three of their road games. In addition, all of the games were against teams with a losing record. Not even a 48 point, 17 rebound and 9 assist performance from Russell Westbrook was enough against a young Suns team.
More from Thunderous Intentions
- Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
- Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
- 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
- Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
- Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder had a chance to make a big move in the standings and in the power rankings after a big win against Utah. However, they are now facing 3 straight bad losses. Let’s see how far they fell in everyone’s rankings.
NBA.com – John Schuhmann
Despite the road woes from the past week, John Schuhmann keeps the Oklahoma City Thunder in the eighth spot in his power rankings.
"The Thunder are 0-3 in March and have lost their last seven road games, scoring just 94 points per 100 possessions with Russell Westbrook shooting 35 percent. They’re missing Victor Oladipo (back spasms) and haven’t gotten much from Doug McDermott beyond one good game against Utah on Tuesday. They was their fourth straight win at home, where they’ll play six of their next eight games, with the next two against teams playing the second night of a back-to-back. Three straight nights of single-digit assists have Westbrook at 633 in 63 games, in danger of losing his triple-double average"
ESPN – Marc Stein
Marc Stein was less sympathetic to Oklahoma City’s bad week as he dropped the Thunder three spots to 13th in his rankings.
"We expected this week’s entry to focus on Russell Westbrook’s recent four 40-point games in a row and how impressively he was holding up in the face of all those folks who said he couldn’t possibly survive to the end of the season coping with the load he’s carrying (and that seemingly unfathomable usage rate of 42.6). Instead? Westbrook has suddenly gone three successive games without a triple-double to match his second-longest drought of the season. Woret yet, Oklahoma City has lost seven consecutive road games, six of those without the injured Victor Oladipo. Westbrook needs 151 rebounds (7.9 RPG) and 187 assists (9.8 APG) in the Thunder’s final 19 games to clinch a historic triple-double average for the season, but his seventh-seeded Thunder desperately need wins above all else now. They’re 24-6 this season when Westbrook triple-doubles and 11-22 when he doesn’t."
CBS Sports – Matt Moore
Matt Moore had a similar feeling to Marc Stein about the road woes of the Oklahoma City Thunder. He also dropped them three spots in his rankings having them fall to 12th.
"Thunder teams under Billy Donovan in the first week of March: 0-5. Now what does this mean? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. But the Thunder are having a bad time, the losses to Portland, Dallas and Phoenix were outright awful."
Sports Illustrated – Jeremy Woo
Woo drops the Oklahoma City Thunder one spot in his rankings to number eleven and was very brief on the teams awful week.
"It’s really just now hitting me that Russell Westbrook is probably, actually going to average a triple double this season. The Westbrook-Harden MVP watch is going to get annoying real fast, but also makes for one of the more intriguing award discussions in recent years."
The Oklahoma City Thunder will have a chance to rebound this week with three home games. The schedule isn’t easy as they face Portland, San Antonio and Utah. Moreover, there is also the possibility of getting Victor Oladipo back, which would be a needed boost.
With only 19 games remaining this season the Oklahoma City Thunder are in the home stretch with a home heavy schedule. Check back next week to see how they acquitted themselves and how it affected their rankings.