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Tonight's starting lineup contained a horrible performing quad and I Joe, together for first time. First stint, about -60pts / 48 min against 2nd worst team in league.

And then things got much worse after the first substitutions.

Lots of time left of course.

Fuller bench units make up some ground from early lineup failures.

Cue 3rd quarter surge...

Cue 4th quarter fallback...

Take a step back to 12th place in West.

The Thunder should probably take frontline players in both first and second round of upcoming draft, if the draft goes by consensus and they generally follow consensus or they don't.

SF, PF or C picks? I could live with any combo of those positions... of the right players.

With Laker win, Thunder are now in sole possession of 13th place in West.

If season ended right now, they'd be tied for 7th best lottery position, which is far far less to get a top 4 pick than if they had tanked harder.

Thunder currently -3 on actual wins - expected after being up a couple earlier in season.

Long time to start of '23-24 season but what would be a realistic projection for Thunder? 9th to 11th in West?

Some would not be bothered by that. Some might. SGA?

Tonight's starting lineup included Giddey - Jaylin Williams. By far Williams worst pair partner at -11pts / 100p. (Williams also negative with all typical starters but still being used with starters.) Starting unit goes -50pts / 100p and this pair does slightly worse overall. Without that they would have won by more than twice as much.

Giddey with a team worst -15 +/- on court in a 9 point win.

Lineup had been used 1 minute previously. But what the f, use it this late in season over more tried, more proven because that is how Coach D rolls.


Will hit 600 lineups used within 10 days. Almost all dink.

Thunder in 10th in West at moment. Does it last? Would be a disappointment now if it didn't after striving for inclusion.

Last 10 games, Blazers 6-4, Thunder and Jazz 5-5, Lakers 4-6.

Sarr is a mixed bag. Shooting and offensive rebounding. Low on defensive rebounding, very low assists, probably be low average defense.

Will be interesting to see who gets dropped this summer and how many new are added thru draft or otherwise. Beyond Waters it isn't clear who else goes. Maybe Mann or Poku. Keep both draft picks or not? Maybe not. I guess Omoruyi and / or Sarr would be easy enough to drop or return to Blue after funneling some NBA money to them.

Thought it was a bit strange when Thunder waived Sarr last season given the promising marks in some areas. I don't know if he'll stick or not. If he does, the team defensive rebounding weakness would like it be exacerbated unless very carefully with lineup construction (always with Giddey and selective on the PF).

Before game thought: Let's start a lineup that is -14pts / 100p with bad shooting and horrendous rebounding against a good team.

First stint: about -60pts / 100p.

Giddey, worst raw plus minus on team at half. About -65pts / 100p. 15th for season for both on court and on / off +/-.

Starting lineup first stint was more than enough to lose the game.

Giddey - Jaylin Williams pairing was awful again, -20pts / 48 min this time.

Back to 11th place. 12th if Blazers happen to win as they are currently.

Just 3 Thunder trios used over 10 minutes per game. 1 +1 / 100p, 2 negative. Combinations of 4 players. Nothing remotely special there.

5 best over 4 minutes per game all have K Williams. Coach D starts him just 17% of time. SGA in 3 of 5, Dort 2, Giddey 3, Jalen Williams 2.
Lineup specifics appear to matter. I pushed for very heavy use of K Williams with starters in pre-season. Better retain.

No non - K Williams lineup over 4 minutes per game tested better than about +1/100p.

3 of the 4 horrendous performing lineups have Pokusevski... and 2 of the big 3. Absolutely discourage Poku with the big 3 in future.

Almost 600 different trios used. Less than 30 for over 200 minutes. Can pretty much say nothing reliable was learned about 400-570 of them.

Best pairs near or over 500 minutes all involve SGA... and typical bench players. Some starter pairs are mildly positive but nowhere near the best.

This is part of why I criticize the lineup management.

9 most used Giddey quads were negative in October. Now it is 5 negative, 2 gone, 2 positive. Modest improvement.

SGA - no Giddey was 30 pts / 100p better than together in October. Still -11.5 pts better now for season.

SGA-Giddey is +4.7 in February. But even that is less good than SGA without Giddey for season.

Only 1 lineup over 1 minute per game and still possible is positive. With you guessed it, K Williams. But if they barely use it 1 minute per game I don't think you can say they really learned much.

Had to play with nearly 600 lineups. Just 12 more a measley 25 minutes, just 1 barely over 100 minutes. ZERO reliable learned at 5 man level.

If you want (not me), maybe you can excuse or even defend Coach D's lineup management this season (mainly based on dink lineups with substantial bench presence). But I really can't see it as a suitable model for future lineup management.


Mon Nov 07, 2022 10:35 pm

DARKO impact projection for Giddey is 479th of 500.
Today he is 269.

In mid-November, SGA was projected as 55th best performer on Darko. Now 34th. But where does 34th best as your #1 take you in regular season or playoffs? On other hand his Darko curve is mostly up across career and his rate of improvement has never been higher. But what is the peak and when?


More could be reviewed & said. Maybe later.

Talk up relatively high Thunder SRS and / or mention their net actual wins compared to "expected", which is -3 and tied with 2 others (Raptors and Bulls) for worst in league. Unclear how much is noise vs. signal but it is still negative variation from norm.


"They compete", often with the outcome pretty much decided.

With a couple recent wins. Thunder up to 13th best against the Sagarin top 10.

BRef predicts 79% chance in top 10, 58% in playoffs. 4th easiest remaining schedule in west. Within reach, better go do it.