OKC Thunder: Future of team’s frontcourt is blindingly bright

The OKC Thunder frontcourt project – Aleksej Pokusevski

The unicorn among the bigs is obviously Aleksej Pokusevski. Through the early stages, he’s struggled. Again, at 19 he’s a player who will need to grow both on the court as well as physically.

Even when Poku has a horrible shooting night the positive to pull from those matches is he’s not shying away from taking another shot.

That may seem like a throwaway comment – but look at the rookie season of Markelle Fultz and how his poor shooting efficiency suddenly turned into an injury and the total reprogramming of his shot.

Granted, Fultz was dealing with an unusual injury but there are numerous players we can point to that prove how precarious a player’s psyche is and how confidence is far more important than stats.

He reminds of Chris Boucher of the Raptors who like POKU has a slim, lengthy build. From the start, Boucher has had no conscious when it comes to getting up shots. The joke in Toronto is CB never saw a shot he didn’t like. Like Pokusevski there were nights with copious air balls and even this season there are games where he’s gone 1 of 6 from deep. Yet, he’s improved from 32.2 percent on 1.9 attempts last season to 44.9 percent on 3.6 attempts this campaign.

Plus, Pokusevski projects to have a greater skill set than Boucher.

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To wit, the fact Pokusevski seems unfazed by his misses is something that should be embraced. It’s a given he’ll add muscle and hopefully his range will become more consistent. The more difficult thing to fix would be if he stopped having that unabashed ability to shake off numerous bad or missed shots and still fire away when he’s open.

Arguably, the main takeaway through the quarter season is positionless ball will take time to integrate and develop. It will require specific skill sets and players who’ll best benefit in the scheme and likewise compliment those around them.

Given the 8-10 record the Thunder are performing better than expected. As for the scheme it’s as expected — some nights there are signs of how it will be both exciting and successful. The 27th ranked offense and 24th ranked defense however speaks to the growing pains.

Notably, the outlier game versus the Nets who put up 147 points made a dramatic impact on the Thunder placement knocking them down three spots defensively. Granted, the Nets allowing OKC to score also bumped them up a spot offensively.

With 54 games remaining, there will be other nights the Thunder holds teams to less than 100 points and the cumulative result should offset that big hit.

Looking ahead, eventually, Sam Presti will tweak the roster to include draft prospects and young assets who’ll thrive in positionless ball. In the interim, while there are growing pains this Thunder squad and the new schemes offer an exciting and entertaining brand of basketball