OKC Thunder need to push the pace offensively

The OKC Thunder are out to a struggling 8-18 start, with two straight losses and a 2-8 record in their last ten games. The Oklahoma City Thunder have broken the record for the largest loss in NBA history this season, and are fresh off a loss to the Luka Doncic-Less Dallas Mavericks.

Losing to the Mavericks is not the issue, even as the Mavs could not deploy Doncic. The problem comes from the fact the Thunder could not even crack 85 points against Dallas on Sunday in the Paycom Center. Dallas Mavericks bench boss Jason Kidd admits “We are not built to play defense” as the ponies entered Sunday 17th in Defensive rating, 23rd in net rating, and 28th in rebound percentage.

Despite playing a struggling defense, the OKC Thunder still could not get into an offensive flow. The team allowed the shot clock to dwindle and no one stepped up as a scorer on Sunday. This shows a bigger issue with the Thunder offense.

The OKC Thunder need to push the pace on the offensive end of the floor to fix woes

Mark Daigneault will try to find a way to improve the Oklahoma City offense which currently ranks last in offensive rating, they are tenths of a point behind the Detriot Pistons, 2.6 behind the Orlando Magic. The team barely turns in an offensive rating of 100.

The OKC Thunder are trying to work in a lot of new pieces to the offense. Regular rotation players that were not on the roster a year ago include Josh Giddey, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Derrick Favors, and Tre Mann. Giddey owns the third-most points per game on the roster while posting a 21.2 usage percentage.

Sam Presti has pieced this roster together with a few things in mind, the first and most obvious is player development and bettering draft odds. However, when you take in Presti’s roster from a pure basketball standpoint this is a young, fast, versatile, and position-less team that is playing without a traditional big man. Their starting lineup features a 6’9 wing as their tallest player.

With this position-less nature, and with so many ball-handlers/playmakers on the floor at a time, the Oklahoma City Thunder should be playing with a ton of tempo. The team has to counteract their lack of size and can do that by pushing the pace and gaining a numbers advantage down the floor.

Currently, the Thunder rank 16th in pace under head coach Mark Daigneault, who was the bench boss of last year’s squad that ranked seventh in pace during the 2020-21 NBA season.

Josh Giddey and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander slow the game down when they are in the contest. Giddey owns a 0.0-percent on/off transition frequency while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander turns in a +0.5-percent transition frequency percentage on/off the court according to cleaning the glass. The bench unit, for reference, sees Isaiah Roby (+2.4, a team-high), Kenrich William (+1.8-percent), and Ty Jerome (+1.8-percent) in the upper-tier of transition frequency.

With the rebounding ability of Darius Bazley, Josh Giddey, and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl it should allow the Thunder to push the tempo off a rebound, the starting unit should play faster and find the soft spots of defenses that in this scenario would not be allowed to get set in their shells due to the pace of play. Getting defenses on their heels and having Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, and Josh Giddey play downhill would do wonders for the team’s offense.