OKC Thunder: the shots will fall – the math guarantees it

The offense is quietly humming

Statistical note: All shot tracking data is courtesy of NBA.com. All historical data is compiled from the 2016-2018 seasons for sample size, to be compared against the four games of this OKC Thunder season. Enjoy!

The offense has actually been good. No, really, I swear. I mean, I have the numbers, and I don’t even have to swear. I can prove it.

How would you define a good offense in this day’s NBA? I think the usual way can basically be boiled down to “Open Threes.”

And that makes a ton of sense. It’s been a few years since various teams began to figure out the fact that 3>2, and the statistical divide between that shot being worth 150 percent of this shot, and the balance between playing people who can push the boundary of that number versus the value of a player who can be ignored outside the line.

The Thunder, unfortunately, have been constantly on the back end of all overall league trends, and this one in particular. It’s very, very easy to look at the Thunder’s three-point numbers this season and to lay it all at the feet of Mr. Presti. There’s been a series of Thunder rosters that tended toward length and athleticism and bricks, running all the way back to the OKC Thunder’s infancy.

And those are things we, as fans, have gotten used to. And those are things, as fans, we may have to say goodbye to.

Hidden evolution

Alright, time for the methodology of this study. To be perfectly honest, the goal of this article is to prove that the Thunder’s horrific, ridiculous, absurd shooting percentages to start the season cannot be sustained.

So, in pursuit of that idea, I took a deep dive into stats from the 2016 season to the 2019 season on exclusively open (nearest defender 4-6 feet away), wide open (nearest defender 6+ feet away), and free throws (nearest defender infinity feet away).

As we covered in the beginning, we do not expect 90 percent shooting to make up for the what-felt-like 10 percent that happened to start the season. We just expect averages. But, in anticipation of Thunder detractors leaping in front of this train of reasonable Thunder Math and saying “of course they shoot bad. RUSS!!!,” let me share our first graphic with you.

What you see there is a graphic depicting, for each rotation player, percentage of Field Goal Attempts that resulted in an open or wide open three. Full disclosure: I gave sincere consideration to closing with this graphic, anticipating a chorus of “Of course they’re shooting bad! Russ! Billy!” Maybe even a leftover “Scott Brooks!”

And I get it. The Thunder are currently 28th in the league in points per game. That’s… not very good. But the entire point of this article is to demonstrate that the culprit is not the offense, or the coach, or Russ. The culprit is good, old-fashioned, bad luck. And the above graphic sets the table for that argument.

The Thunder are getting good shots for their good shooters. It’s a simple fact. In fact, if you look at the numbers, the Thunder are getting better shots for these shooters than these shooters have ever gotten (with the exception of Patrick Patterson. Good job, Toronto).

The percentage of total Field Goal Attempts that have been open threes is up a full seven and a half percent (!) from the past three years. And the Wide Open shots account for the most of that.

So, just to get that out of the way, the Thunder are generating good shots – maybe better than ever. So, what’s going on?