Defining what each OKC Thunder rookie needs to work on in 2018-19

Biggest points of emphasis:

• Feel for the game
• Shooting
• Defense

Where Hervey will play in 2018-19:

• G-League

Depending in the prism through which you view the NBA, Kevin Hervey can either seem like the next great scoring forward or a theoretical big who can’t really do anything at a high level. That kind of ambiguity makes projecting his next year a tad difficult.

Will the Thunder throw him into the fire in hopes of beefing up their front-court and try to kick start his development? Or will they let him marinate in the G-League for a year before slowly bringing up along at the NBA level?

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As of right now, no one really has the answer because his potential impact at the NBA level isn’t very clear. In his three years at the University of Texas-Arlington he showed every offensive skill in the book and everything culminated to a 20.5 points per game performance he put on last year, but the way he scores doesn’t really seem translatable to the Association.

He was the classic dominant scorer in a weak conference who has a few skills that’ll translate to the league–namely some shooting and some ball-handling–but whose overall ceiling taps out at seventh man spark plug. To reach that spot though, he’ll need to become a better shooter and defender while minimizing his turnovers and out-of-control plays.

Throughout his tenure in college, he never quite seemed to understand the complexities and nuances of either side of the ball that big men need to master before they can become reliable contributors. Offensively, he commonly found himself barreling towards the rim without any semblance of a plan for what to do once he gets there or throwing up wild shots from the perimeter that had almost no chance of going in.

Meanwhile on defense, he wasn’t quite strong or engaged enough to be a reliable rim-protector inside and that could force any team he’s on at the NBA level into a situation in which they might just bench him in order to save themselves the headaches of figuring out who to put around him. However, even with his obvious flaws, he should be able to make considerable improvement this year in the G-League.

With a clearly defined role and organizational investment in his development, he should be able to make enough leaps to establish himself as a semi-reliable role player next year.