Do you think that the Oklahoma City Thunder’s offense will be the Russell Westbrook show? Think again.
It’s been nearly two months since Kevin Durant left Oklahoma to pursue new opportunities with the Golden State Warriors, and the Thunder are figuring out what they are going to do without him. Most people see Westbrook going bananas, and averaging insane numbers. I have even seen people predict him to average 30/12/10 this season, which would be absurd.
While it would be fun to watch Russell go off, Thunder head coach Billy Donovan has a different idea in his head. Recently, Donovan was with The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski, and told him that he plans to have a better system in place:
“I think if you go back two years ago when Serge (Ibaka) was out and Kevin missed those (55) games, and they’re on the cusp of making the playoffs, I think at that point in time when you set up a system and a style of play and everything is geared toward Kevin Durant and Serge and they’re such big priorities for you offensively, and now they’re not there, you’re not going to be able to just plug somebody in Kevin’s role or Serge’s role and they’re going to be able to just fill in that late in a season.”
Donovan’s thought is an offseason of planning will look a lot different than having to make up on-the-fly for the injuries that plagued the Thunder in 2014-15. While Ibaka and Durant are huge losses – a combined 33.3 percent of the offense from a season ago – their offseason exits give the Thunder more time to formulate a gameplan around Westbrook and his ability to create for the players around him. […] Arguably no one in the NBA did that better than Westbrook last season, who finished second in the league in assist percentage (he assisted on 49.6 of the Thunder’s field goals when in the game). Donovan said Westbrook understands that he’s “gotta make everyone else around him better.”
“I think for Russell, he tried to put the team on his back and say ‘OK, I’ve got to get us to the playoffs,” Donovan said. “I think because we’re starting out without those players available, we’ve got some time to evolve and develop a style of play and a system, and certainly he’s going to be the catalyst and the key to it.”
Whatever ends up happening next season, I know that Russell will have a field day against former teammate Durant and the Warriors when they play each other for the first time, and he will no doubt be an MVP candidate. Russell recently signed a contract extension, so you know he is loyal to this team and will do anything to win.
