The Oklahoma City Thunder Are Out, And Just Getting Started

The Golden State Warriors are better than all the other teams in the NBA. So good that conversations about them tend to converge upon the question of how they can be beaten, as if there were some intricate Ocean's Eleven-style blueprint to stealing four of seven games against them. Without it, no team stands a chance. The house always wins. If the Warriors are not perfect, they do at least feel inevitable.

So teams work on it. Maybe, the perfect amount of ball movement and player movement can counteract their league's best defense. You know, pace and space. Maybe you need some battle-hardened, physical, confident personalities with the playoff moxie to go to work at the psyche of the less experienced Warriors. You know, grit and grind.

Or maybe you need Russell Westbrook rising to the basket, reaching a hand down to Steph Curry on his way, inviting him to a view from the top. Combine Westbrook with a healthy Kevin Durant, surround them with shooters, and mix in an elite shot blocker and a legitimate scoring center. You know, the Oklahoma City Thunder. In theory, anyway, this is maybe the most convincing way to beat a team like the Warriors. But the Thunder, as you have probably noticed, are not in the playoffs.

It's a testament to the exciting consolations of the Western Conference playoffs that we are not still mourning the lost potential of this season's Thunder. This is a team that was without the reigning MVP for nearly the entire season due to a foot injury. They lost their defensive anchor, Serge Ibaka, for the final stretch after he suffered a knee injury. Westbrook, the last of the team's stars standing at year's end, suffered an outrageous array of dings, including but not limited to a caved-in face.

The final iteration of the Thunder was a limping befuddlement transformed into must-see TV by the comically unearthly efforts of Westbrook. In the Thunder's final game against Minnesota he managed 34 points, six rebounds and four assists…AT HALFTIME. That, and a scoring title wasn't enough to get the Thunder to the postseason. "Good job," Westbrook said after the season ended. "Hooray. I'm at home."

This season's disappointing record understandably overshadows that the Thunder management made all the right moves during the season, and put together what's probably the deepest roster in team history. It was only bad luck that took their season and it made it an experiment in avant-garde Russ-ness. Shrewd trades for Enes Kanter, Kyle Singler and D.J. Augustin added contributors who showed potential as stellar complements to a healthy Westbrook and Durant. The signing of sharpshooter Anthony Morrow stretched defenses and provided quick chemistry with both superstars. The banishment of Kendrick Perkins was long overdue, but still valuable. With rumors gathering that universally maligned coach Scott Brooks may be on the way out, this lost season may wind up looking like a transformative one in hindsight.

The Thunder superstars can do nearly everything on their own; Westbrook spent much of the season doing things no one can recall seeing done before. They now have role players who can do specific things to fill in the blanks and do them deliberately: shoot, finish layups, block shots. For all the (urgent) health-related questions that will follow their three stars, the Thunder have never looked scarier from top to bottom.

They will have to make decisions in the offseason. Singler and Kanter will both be free agents. Kanter will be the tougher decision as he may warrant a deal that the frugal Thunder doesn't feel like hashing out. They famously traded James Harden over a difference of $7 million dollars. Will they overcompensate with Kanter, who is an offensive revelation and a defensive nightmare? It's easy to argue that they should, because a healthy Thunder team would have the length and wingspan—if Ibaka and Durant held hands and formed a circle, Westbrook could do layup drills inside of that circle—to compensate for Kanter's defensive limitations. Pairing him with Ibaka would allow Kanter to hide on defense and thrive on offense.

And then there is Scott Brooks, a perpetual question mark who treats his roster in the way most people treat semicolons: as foreign objects of unclear use. He has been the worst in-game coach with the best team for four years now. He deserves credit for helping to shape the skills and attitude of his young players, but there is the sense that it may be time to move on. The Warriors were in a similar position last year, and any team would be glad to trade places with them now.

Oklahoma City making an upgrade on the sideline could turn a relative weakness into a strength, which is a scary proposition for a team with this much talent. Coaching speculation is a mug's game, but it's hard not to fantasize about a sustained relationship between Westbrook and Jeff Van Gundy that involved pre-game pep talks and dad-trying-to-fit-in-with-youth-slang press conferences. From a basketball standpoint, Van Gundy would know how to leverage the elite athleticism and length into the best defense in the NBA, similar to the championship years of the Miami Heat. At the very least, a new coach might make the obvious move of staggering Durant and Westbrook's minutes—and mitigate against any potential power struggle—so that one of them is always on the court

That the Thunder are watching these playoffs from home makes this season an undeniable disappointment. It also doesn't change the fact that, next year, the Thunder will feature two dominant players and a deep, promising roster. The NBA Playoffs will be a blast without them, of course. But next year could be an even better show.