OKC Thunder player review: Dennis Schröder the second string spark
The more they stay the same
With his level of performance, this past season and $15.5M guaranteed for both the next two seasons, Dennis Schröder’s place on the team is simply not in question. Not to be forgotten, Oklahoma City also shipped a 2022 protected first-round pick to the Hawks in the Carmelo Anthony trade, so OKC has long since been committed to seeing Schröder become a staple in the team’s roster.
Unfortunately, USA Today’s HoopsHype provides some sobering statistics on just how much the Thunder need Schröder to elevate his game. To summarize what HoopsHype points out, Schröder was paid like an elite starter this past year, and he will be paid like an elite starter this next year.
Sure, there are plenty of other players across the league that put his salary to shame, but he still rakes in the moolah, so he needs to live up to his paycheck, plain and simple. The Thunder would have been stuck with a huge lump sum of dead money had Carmelo not agreed to waive his no-trade clause, and they’re only paying about $5M more than that amount in order to have Schröder on the roster. Perhaps, that speaks more to how lucky Oklahoma City was to escape Carmelo rather than how much Schröder may actually be worth.
To put his 2018-19 campaign in perspective it’s worth noting how he fared in comparison to his first five seasons in the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks. The table below reveals some interesting data points to keep in mind before next season as it compares what we’ve already seen in the previous table with the same categories averaged across his five years in Atlanta.
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/9/2019.
As can be seen above, Dennis, though consistent from year to year, did not make an exceptional leap in performance once picked up by OKC. He simply did more of the same, and that’s while averaging nearly six more minutes per game with the Thunder.
There are several factors that came into play that resulted in the comparisons we see above, so this should all be taken with a grain of salt, but they nonetheless raise eyebrows as to what Schröder failed to bring to the court this past year.