OKC Thunder: Grading Mike Muscala’s injury-shortened season

The OKC Thunder blew up their roster prior to the season starting. One of the few older players they kept was Mike Muscala who is in the second year of a team-friendly contract. He took up the player option for this season, probably knowing full well that the Thunder were going to rebuild.

Muscala has commented that he feels at home with the professionalism of the Thunder, which certainly helped his game. He had a rocky start to his career as a member of the OKC Thunder last season where he struggled with his shot, falling out of the rotation as Billy Donovan chose to play Nerlens Noel instead.

Then Muscala got his groove back and finished the season shooting the 3-ball at a 37.8 percent clip. That is pretty good for a 6’10” mid-second round draft pick from the 2013 NBA draft. Muscala then carried this form into this season and played really well.

The OKC Thunder benefitted from Mike Muscala’s best NBA season numbers.

In his second year with the Thunder, Muscala averaged a career-best 9.7 points per game to go along with 3.8 rebounds in 18.4 minutes. Unfortunately, Muscala only played 35 games thanks to injuring himself just after the All-Star break. This is when the Thunder shut him down for the season, along with Al Horford.

Prior to this, he took 5.3 attempts from 3-point land per game which was a career-high. He hit them at a very respectable 37.0 percent which is right on his career number of 36.8 percent from deep. Now, let’s look at Muscala’s season highlight for the 2020-21 season.