OKC Thunder: Moses Brown mic drop career-best night

Although the OKC Thunder lost to the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday there were highlight performances within the loss. Specifically, Moses Brown delivered a career performance in his second consecutive starting lineup appearance.

In the previous match, Brown drew his first starting assignment as the replacement for Thunder big man Al Horford. Big Al sitting wasn’t surprising as the team has consistently rested Horford in second games of back-to-back situations. However, Isaiah Roby has typically served as his replacement.

In the match versus the Bulls, the choice to use both Brown and Roby made sense given the size and youth of the Bulls’ frontcourt.

Moving forward, Brown will be afforded lots of opportunities to shine as Daigneault hinted in his pregame presser Horford will sit more. Read what you will into that tweet, but if we assume Horford is a trade deadline target and he stays then he’ll still be rested on ample occasions.

OKC Thunder big Moses Brown has career-best performance versus Bulls

While some could read into Brown starting as part of the tanking effort by the OKC Thunder his career-best night proves just how talented the youngster is. In our three keys preview, we noted how important paint protection would be and the presence of Brown did help  (although both clubs scored more than 60 points in the paint).

Brown has demonstrated he’ll be a positive performer for the club in his prior appearances and he offers something no one except rookie Aleksej Pokusevski can match — HEIGHT!

Demonstrating just how impressive his performances have been since returning from the G-League check out the variance:

In seven prior games (before heading to the G-League bubble to play with the OKC Blue) he posted averages of 3.0 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 0.6 blocks. The major caveat here is he played an average of 4.5 minutes (read: garbage time).

Since returning he’s played in four games getting an average of 25 minutes and thriving in his role with per-game statistics of 12. 5 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.0  blocks.

Those numbers were bolstered by his career-best performance in Chicago where he delivered a massive double-double of 20 points and 16 rebounds plus blocked five shots. Brown completed this performance on an efficient 9 of 16 field goal shooting and half those 16 boards were on the offensive glass and amassed a double-double by halftime (14 points, 10 rebounds).

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As my counterpart Mark Nilon noted in his article he’ll need to figure out the NBA officials as he fouled out for the second straight game.

Brown may not fit the typical new era of basketball featuring bigs who hit 3-point shots and are skillfully adept playmakers. But he does provide the OKC Thunder a player with size who can offer rim protection, rebound, and get you an easy bucket in close.

Every team would love to have a Nikola Jokic type of center but odds are most teams would also love to have a Rudy Gobert type center (or Steven Adams).

Moses Brown has room to grow particularly defensively as do all young bigs. Brown should become a sponge around Horford asking him to download his wealth of experience. And spend ample time with coaches viewing the film to figure out opponent (and officials) tendencies.

Ultimately, there is a lot to love bout Moses Brown’s game and abilities. Let’s start by reveling in that mic drop standout performance in Chicago. TI looks forward to watching Brown develop with this group.

Moving forward, the big question is — will Moses Brown be the next Luguentz Dort? We may have to wait to see what happens with Horford at the deadline, but if Sam Presti can lock up Brown on an economical contract he’d be wise to do so. If not, more than half the league could use his services right now!