3 takeaways after OKC Thunder lose on the road to the New Orleans Pelicans 114-118

Terrance Ferguson has to be more aggressive

I want to start this one by saying that Terrance Ferguson’s development defensively has been nothing short of remarkable. Going from a rookie season in which he wholly failed to show any signs of making a consistently positive impact to a sophomore campaign where he’s been a key component of one of the best defenses in the league is pretty impressive. That being said, he just has to be more aggressive offensively.

Coming into his rookie year he was supposed to be the best shooter from his class, which seemed like an awesome fit for a team desperate for any kind of shooting. But so far, it seems like the guy that Sam Presti drafted isn’t there. He took just four shots in 22 minutes tonight, and that falls in line with the way he’s been since he joined the team.

If TFerg isn’t going to let it fly from deep, we need more of this:

As I’ll outline in a column on Saturday–smooth teaser, right?–the Thunder need more offensive production from their reserves than they’re currently getting and that starts with Ferguson. He doesn’t need to be an All-Star out here, but he at least needs to shoot more than four times and present himself as some kind of a threat offensively–especially in a game like tonight.