OKC Thunder: Re-Grading the Terrance Ferguson Draft Pick
By Rylan Stiles
How has Terrance Ferguson performed to this point?
The 21-year-old Tulsa native has played in just 185 NBA games to this point in his career, with 2020 being his worst season to date.
In his rookie season, Ferguson was hesitant, and showed flashes–so basically he played like a rookie–his sophomore season was when things started to click a bit.
After a slow start to the 2018-19 season, we thought maybe Ferguson was going to be a wasted first-round pick. Throw him in a pile with Mitch McGary, Cameron Payne, Josh Huestis, and Perry Jones. That was until Russell Westbrook came and saved the day, as he often did for the organization.
On an early November night, after yet another disappointing performance from the second-year player, Ferguson was headed for the gym. Not only did he have a tough go of it that night, but the team lost to add fuel to the fire. When Westbrook got wind of it, he dropped everything and met Ferguson on the hardwood.
Westbrook told Terrance Ferguson “We are going to talk, and we are going to get through this together.” The very next game, T-Ferg went 3-for-5 beyond the arc.
After that early November exchange, Ferguson clicked offensively, which gave him even more confidence on the defensive end to pick up some of the league’s best in the absence of Andre Roberson.
Ferguson finished last season stroking the trey ball at a career-high 36 percent clip, with a career-high eFG of 55 percent, while turning in 6.9 points a night. Not to mention his stellar defensive showings. It looked as if he was turning the corner. This is the upside, this is what we had been waiting from the at the time, 20- year old to turn into.
Coming into year three, we expected Ferguson to be the OKC Thunder’s shooting guard of the future. He had proven enough to feel confident in that at least, with more room to grow!
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The soon to be 22-year old has played 50 games so far in his third NBA season and has battled a ton of adversity on and off the court. No one could’ve predicted this kind of fall off from TFerg. From losing his starting gig to Luguentz Dort, to only shooting 29 percent from 3-point land, this season spiraled out of control fast.
So, what does the future of Terrance Ferguson look like?