OKC Thunder close gap on bottom 3: Tank wars Episode 4

The others:

TI focused on the five teams that the OKC Thunder are most invested in watching on the tanking ladder. However, the other eight clubs witnessed copious ladder shifts this past week.

Sacramento is on a four-game winning streak and despite losing Tyrese Haliburton for the remainder of the season is enjoying playing the role of spoiler. That’s great for OKC who’ll face them twice more before season end.

The Bulls got back Zach LaVine on Thursday promptly winning to end their four-game losing streak and will make their best effort to move up and take that 10th seed (though highly unlikely given the Wizards look to have that on lock).

The team who was playing a bit of cat and mouse was the Raptors. An overtime loss to the Wizards doesn’t remove them statistically from the play-in but it’s virtually a done deal. In fairness, they’ve faced a great deal of adversity this season being displaced in Tampa Bay, and constant injuries (including getting hit hard by COVID).

More from Thunderous Intentions

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

Their core four of Kyle Lowry (21), Fred VanVleet (15), Pascal Siakam (12), and OG Anunoby (24) each missed double-figure games and appeared as a full unit just 19 times. The latter three were all hit by COVID. Factor in their bench was also rocked with Chris Boucher missing the last eight games and Gary Trent Jr. just returned after missing six in a row.

The red flag warning Masai Ujiri was more invested in the tank than the play in was Kyle Lowry. He played just once in the last four games — and twice was out for rest (not injury) with other core players out. NO WAY he sits versus the Wizards on Thursday if the Raptors had any true intentions of vying for that 10th seed.

They faced a full compliment of Wizards without Lowry, Anunoby, or Boucher and still pushed them overtime. Similarly, they led each of the Nuggets, Jazz, and Clippers and in each of those games were missing three or more of their top eight players. Toronto gave us the hints — but because they were still competitive they went unnoticed.

Toronto drops to seventh via the combination of their loss to Washington in combination with the Bulls win. No doubt Masai Ujiri is banking on a repeat of the 2019 draft when the Pelicans nabbed the top pick despite being seeded with the eighth-best odds.

Closing:

The group the OKC Thunder are most closely watching are the Pistons, Wolves, Magic, and Cavaliers. Tiebreakers could become a factor with coin flips being the determining factor.

The Rockets are a moot point since they have five fewer wins and while statistically still possible aren’t likely to close out the season on a 6-0 win streak.

That wraps up episode 4.0 of the tank wars with one more episode to follow on the closing weekend of the NBA regular season.