OKC Thunder: The talent and fit of Markieff Morris
The fit
The fit isn’t perfect. Even if Morris takes all of Patterson’s minutes, will 14.7 be enough for him? He’s not the type to stay quiet if he’s unhappy. The only route I see to going over that is to either decrease one of Adams, Noel, or Grant’s minutes (no, thank you), or to play some minutes of Adams/Noel, Morris, and Grant together (Eh, could work I guess).
It will put something like four of our best nine players in two positions – not ideal.
Still, Morris is a clear upgrade over 2Pat – especially if he can bring more focus and effort on the defensive end than he has so far this season. And I’m hopeful that will be the case.
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Joining Schröder and Noel, he’s yet another player on the OKC Thunder’s bench who could be a starter for several other NBA teams and has been a starter very recently. He can create his own shot, taking some pressure off of Schröder, and he can shoot adequately enough to force respect.
In fact, over the past three seasons, he’s actually shot better than Patterson from above the break (37 percent to 35.3) and the left corner (38.6 percent to 35.7). All of those are perfectly acceptable numbers. The only issue, it turns out, is from the right corner, where Morris is shooting 26.9 percent over the last three seasons for some reason.
Keep him out of that corner, and he’s a 37.3 percent shooter. We’ll take that and run to the bank.
He’s a player who can win OKC a playoff game by going off for 20 points. As a matter of fact, he scored 22 in one of Washington’s six games last year. He’s got that same dog in him as Russell Westbrook, and OKC just got him for free.
Oh, and we won’t have to count his dunks (Sorry, Pat.), because we’ll run out of fingers.
In the postseason of 2018, Morris demonstrated how committed he was to winning. And, clearly, he wasn’t happy in Washington this season. It stands to reason he would welcome a return to a competitive team with a shot at a deep playoff run and embrace a role within that environment. I mean, anything has to be an improvement upon the chemistry challenged Wizards.
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Hmm. If only he could find a team who could last deep into the postseason, who competes day in and day out, who has superstars who famously lead by example who could drive him into effort and practice and focus. If only.
Oh, that’s right. He already did.