Lightning Report: The OKC Thunder couldn’t adapt and the Blazers ate them

Rigidity

I don’t want to sound like a pessimist but it’s hard to believe in Oklahoma City as a viable playoff team next year, let alone a title contender if they can’t figure out how to adapt their team to the way the game is played in the postseason.

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Ever since Kevin Durant left, they haven’t been able to win much in the playoffs largely because, as an organization, they haven’t put themselves in positions where they can be flexible. Where they don’t have to rely on two inconsistent stars to carry everything on offense. Where they have the money to go out and get high-end role players. Where they can change up their strategy after whichever guard they’re playing rips them apart on defense. All of these things are what winning teams do. Particularly those in small markets.

The inflexibility and rigidity that’s plagued this organization from top-down for years aren’t going away, even if they wanted to. They have this core locked up until at least 2020-2021 for what feels like a billion dollars and Russell Westbrook locked up until 2022-2023 for almost $50 million a year, at which point his game probably won’t look too pretty. The market for aging point guards on supermaxes and near-max centers who can’t really play in the postseason probably isn’t going to be very good. So this is where they’re at.

To reel it back for a second, though, this isn’t all Sam Presti or the franchise’s fault. Adams was an elite prospect at the time he signed that deal and they weren’t going to give Westbrook a chance to walk after all he’d done for them following the KD saga.

They were understandable deals that always had the chance to backfire. They just so happen to be in a small market where you can’t really afford to make mistakes. One bad contract here or one draft bust there can be crippling – just ask the Memphis Grizzlies about Chandler Parsons or Deyonta Davis.

Upgrading on the fly in a market where nobody wants to go is hard in and of itself. Doing so without cap space or high-level draft picks is damn-near impossible. If I were Presti, I wouldn’t be writing an obituary for this iteration of the team and its future quite yet, but I’d have a will and a press release ready to go.