The OKC Thunder are now losers of 10 straight following Sunday night’s game against the Toronto Raptors.
It was expected.
Nothing about the Thunder’s 10th consecutive loss comes as a surprise to any fan following the team’s current rebuild. It’s not even unheard of to see tweets from the fan’s boisterous base cheering on the tank.
This is what we want.
While there are plenty of fans who aren’t on board with losing, there are plenty of others who are ecstatic about what losing means for the Thunder’s draft position. And it’s not like the players want to lose, but they understand what it means for the team’s future.
Luguentz Dort did everything he could to give the Thunder a win. His 29 points led the team on Sunday, and second-leading scorer Darius Bazley wasn’t even close with 16 points.
So how did the Thunder go from one of the league’s biggest surprises to one of the worst teams in roughly two months?
It helps that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Al Horford are sidelined with no timeline for return for Gilgeous-Alexander. It helps that the Thunder shipped off George Hill and Hamidou Diallo. It also helps that the players that are spending time on the court for the Thunder are mostly inexperienced players who are still finding their way in the league.
While players like Dort and Bazley will continue to give the Thunder everything they have with each second they spend on the court, there just hasn’t been another consistent scorer getting time with them. That has played a part in the losses.
With that being said, let’s go over how each starter did in the game.