OKC Thunder: Grading the Dennis Schröder trade over a year later
By Aidan E
How does the Dennis Schroder trade look after a little over a year? Did he have a successful season with the OKC Thunder? Let’s take a look.
On July 20th, 2018 the OKC Thunder agreed to a three-way deal with the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers where Carmelo Anthony would go to Atlanta in exchange for Dennis Schroder and a 1st round pick.
On the heels of another first-round exit, General Manager Sam Presti decided to shop Carmelo Anthony around the league after a horrible playoff series by him. Averaging 11.8/5.7/0.3 on 37.5/21.4/73.3 and an on-court rating of -15.7, it was clear it was time to get Carmelo out of Oklahoma City.
Rumors started floating around about a Melo-Lin swap involving the Brooklyn Nets:
Oklahoma City looking to get something for Carmelo Anthony and talking to Brooklyn about a deal, with Jeremy Lin potentially going to OKC, per sources. Nets looking to get pick(s). Want to move Lin and would buy out Melo.
— Mitch Lawrence (@Mitch_Lawrence) July 11, 2018
Ultimately the Thunder decided to do a similar deal, acquiring Dennis Schroder from the Atlanta Hawks instead.
After being drafted 17th overall in 2013, Schroder played the next three seasons coming off the bench for Jeff Teague in Atlanta. With his quickness and playmaking ability, it was inevitable that Schroder would replace Teague in the starting lineup.
Then in the summer of 2016, Schroder signed a four-year, 70 million dollar extension with the Hawks. Shortly after he became the starting point guard for the Hawks after Jeff Teague was traded to the Pacers.
Schroder had a career year in 2016, then a breakout playoff series in 2017 where he averaged 25 and 8 vs the Wizards in the first round.
During the 2017-2018 season, however, Schroder was having problems on the court and in the locker room. It later came out over the summer that he was on the block.
Many questions were raised after the deal. Was Schroder willing to come off the bench? Could Westbrook and Schroder play together given their lackluster perimeter shooting? Would this work after the Reggie Jackson experiment ultimately failed?
Did the Thunder win this trade? Let’s examine what’s happened since the deal went down and determine if it was a success or not for Sam Presti.
*I’ll only be focusing on the Hawks-Thunder deal, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot was a non-factor for OKC