Three bold predictions following OKC Thunder preseason

In honor of NBA tip-off, we’re going to make three bold predictions about the OKC Thunder based on the preseason.

Welcome to the first day of the NBA season, folks! It’s officially the time of year for hot takes;

wild predictions;

and irresponsible use of stats!

To kick things off here at TI, we’re going to make a few wild predictions of our own based on the month of meaningless basketball we just saw. Some are just for fun, some are legitimately bold, and some of them are just miscellaneous takes I have that don’t fit in anywhere else. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at three bold predictions for the 2019-2020 season based exclusively on the preseason.

Shai’s usage eclipses 25 by April

I’m going to be careful here because there are always a million caveats when you’re talking about preseason, but with that said, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was an absolute monster in the postseason in a bigger role. In four games, he averaged 18.8 points, put up a 60.1 true shooting percentage, and used 28.7 percent of the team’s possessions in the 26.5 minutes a game when he was on the floor.

Extrapolated that out to 36 minutes, and he was averaging 25.5 points per game. For a 21-year-old point guard who was a fourth option last year, those are pretty ridiculous numbers. Of course, all of them will probably fall to a degree when he’s facing up against real NBA players – sorry, John Konchar – but he looked like he’d taken a substantial leap since we’d last seen him.

This kind of aggression was fairly new:

If he can keep it up, the Thunder will have no choice but to keep giving him more responsibility. Even if he can’t stay at this level, it’s still worth seeing what he can do.