APBRmetrics

Dort, raw on court vs. off, team defensive efficiency gets about 3 pts worse. Team offensive efficiency gets about 3 pts better. Net change of just a small fraction.

RAPM and LARAPM estimates him at about a +1. Agreeing with the raw data that the better half of his impact is offense.

At factor level, he is positive on offense because of team turnovers and team getting to ft line. Might be some multi-collinearity because of heavy partnership with SGA. About 75%of his minutes with SGA.

At factor level, he is positive on shot defense and opponent turnovers but way below average on opponent rebounding impact and scoring at the ft line. Could be some multi-collinearity here too but he is probably a heavy direct source on these issues. He and SGA are among the worst on team and in bottom 20% of league on these factors.

SGA and Dort together, raw +/- of about +2. SGA, no Dort +4. Dort, no SGA -2. Their subs need to be accounted for and RAPM tries, but Dort's impact might be worse than RAPM indicates.

Is Holmgren going to have more impact on defensive rebounding than JWill? I doubt it. Thunder were 29th last season.

With Sarr on court, defensive rebounding was well below last place team.


Can they advance without fixing defensive rebounding, own shooting or fouling (all bottom 7 in league)? Will be hard.

Summer turnover saw 3 of 5 best defensive rebounders leave and 3 of the 5 best on efg%.

SGA was barely 53% on efg%. 10th on team, 294th in league.

SGA and Dort lead team in fouls per game.



Weakness at defensive rebounding is partly due to significant position upshifting and is barely helped by presence of Giddey.

Weakness at own shooting is largely a function of talent selection and trait priorities. Talent selection affects depth. Play design & calling is probably also below average. 3 straight years in bottom 10 on team efg%. Not much sign of player development or change in talent selection criteria.

Fouling is heightened by position upshifting and heavy emphasis on forcing turnovers.

May not change these factors without changing roster design and coaching philosophy.

Thunder should have made a play for Gary Payton Jr. Injury concerns and last name not withstanding.



They should try for Caruso if given a chance. Maybe Capela.

I'd try real hard to be better, more consolidated and veteran in 2024-25 and 2025-26

Comparing last season's team to the last conference finalist in 2015-16, almost all the factors are very different.

3pt fga rate rank was fairly close as was shots at rim frequency but ft rate was very different. Dribble drive offense is less powerful if they aren't fouling / most of team can't get an average amount of calls.

Why is shot distribution fairly similar while just about everything else is different? Different coach, somewhat different / older age, lots more weight / strength back then. Change in underlying philosophy? Change in league? Lots of reasons, intentional or not

There are a couple more similarities to the 2010-11 team but still more differences than similarities.

Can they win big the current way? Initial indications are that this is a mostly new, unproven way.

Will team trend back to more like earlier successful Thunder teams? We'll see. Probably not that much anytime soon.

If Holmgren evaluates to be a "scoring big man" style player, then his interior partner should be a non-scoring big man or a 3pt specialist as analysis suggests 2 scoring big men together have negative synergies.

That direction should fit with current roster choices and should inform future roster moves

If Holmgren does not develop as a clearcut scoring big, then the advice would be different. How good his 3pt game becomes would be a factor in selecting that partner. A non-scoring big might fit alright and better if Holmgren's 3pt game is strong than not. Another strong 3 shooter is generally good option . if Holmgren doesn't develop as a scoring big, they'll probably need to find one.



A 3 pt specialist is well above average on 3pt fg rate and 3pt fg% or at least the combination.


In recently read paper, very best lineups had a star scorer and generally two 3pt specialists. A scoring big man sometimes present, sometimes not. Fifth man is more diverse. How many of Thunder's 10 most used lineups last season met the first two criteria? Zero. For lacking a true second 3pt specialist or in most cases even one.

Who did Coach D start next to SGA in the backcourt? The 14th and 15th ranked players on team for 3pt fg%.

What a design farce.


For different reasons, but Thunder did not retain 4 of the top 7 on team for 3pt fg%.

Team results with Giddey on court improved by almost +6 pts / 100p season to season but the raw on / off declined by about -9. This is about Giddey, the frequently bad lineups that were heavy with starters but also about I Joe, K Williams and the relatively good bench lineups without Giddey.

There are more data points involved in his assessment but this part is worth a reminder and checking next season.

How do the Thunder put two 3pt specialists on court alongside SGA?

Probably by giving emphasis to lineups with Joe or Waters and K Williams or Bertans. To emphasize such lineups will probably mean de-emphasizing more common coaching choices with Dort and Giddey.

If JDub improves his 3pt shot, the number of lineup options with two 3pt specialists increases greatly.

Same if Micic can hit the longer 3 well against better defenses. But the huge difference between his 3pt fg% in Turkish league and Euroleague increases my skepticism about that.

JWill and Poku did well and pretty well from 3pt line last season but I'd say it is too early to count on that. JWill's was low volume and so was Poku's when you account for games played.

Dieng and almost everyone else will 0lay some role in team results. Dieng is the most important of those remaining variables.

They achieve this desired triad when two 3pt specialists play with SGA. Maybe it works with Micic at PG as the star scorer rather than a spot up shooter. Something to watch. Giddey did not really fit that definition last season. I don't think he will often this season either but another thing to watch.

I don't know where Wallace (or Mann) fit in to plans and roles. But this is the design I want to see a lot more of, filled however actually works.

Whether and how much everyone believes in the hot hand and how that works out relative to broad sharing of opportunities will play a role in the product of results.

Better or worse than league average? Based on last season I'd expect near average but how much improvement? It would be bad if 3pt fg% declined because of random variance or bad shot selection / distribution but that can't be ruled out as a possibility. Nor can reaching the top 10.

Where will 3pt game rank as a team priority compared to continuing to emphasizing getting shots near the room or trying to draw more foul shots? Either it stays a middling secondary priority or they jolt it to 1B.

SGA - Joe - K Williams, 191 minutes at almost +22 pts / 100p.

SGA - Water - K Williams,53 minutes at almost +15 pts / 100p.

Neither in 20 most used trios. Probably not close on first and certainly not on second.

Both lineups far far better performing than any in the 20 most trios, 14 of which were negative and none better than +4. Stubborn, misguided coaching.

With Saric instead of K Williams was as amazing or moreso but in even less minutes. Saric not retained.

How about this season? Probably even more distant from the top. Will see how Bertans works out in general and with the best other 3pt shooters & SGA.

People say that anyone can get a rebound. Uncontested sure. Contested, there was only 1 non C or PF in top 50 on contested rebound % in NBA and not much more than 5 in top 100.

On Thunder, no rotation player won 50+% of contested rebound opportunities and no starter won over 38%. 3 starters below 28%.

It is too early to know the final roster, but here is a first cut on minutes. My preference, not predicted actual.

SGA 32
Giddey 24
Dort 22
JDub 28
Holmgren 24
Micic 20
Waters 6
Joe 12
K Williams 16
Dieng 10
Poku possibly 0
K Johnson 2
White 2
Bertans 10
JRE 6
Mann 0
Oladipo, probably 0
Sarr 0
Wiggins 6
JWill 10
Wallace 10

Oh hey, Thunder owners have apparently agreed to a sweetheart deal for us of a $900+ million arena for a 5.5% contribution.

That probably doesn't include interest. Is the $50 million real or pass back of naming rights?

Who controls other events?

I assume the city will bear all maintenance costs and do future upgrades.

Will they pay rent? Wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no or minimal.

Does team get all arena revenues (concessions, etc.)?

Who gets the naming rights money?

If you want to pay $1500 (or more) per person in city, go ahead.


More on Twitter.

So far no one has signed H Diallo for next season, not even Troy Weaver.

And yet... Diallo's career BPM is 30% better than Dort's and last season BPM was more than 50% better.

Both hurt team on this metric; but Dort more and on a gift contract by Presti, who probably sees Dort as a somewhat similar defense first player to himself.

Diallo is estimated at -0.3 on current Darko projection, never better and rising pretty steadily and strongly relative to where he was. Dort, -0.8. Improving but not as fast.

Diallo also slightly less negative on DRIP.

Diallo again slightly better on RAPTOR, with that metric estimating both quite positive.

The generally poor 3pt shooting is holding Diallo back, even after he finally abandoned it. Some team might have some lineup / role fit for him.

Dort? There is perceived fit and reality...

Caveats: player impact can change, player impact in lineups can change in lineups, coaching and execution matters.

That said, looking at RAPM factors, the quad of SGA Dort KWilliams JWill looks good on paper. Major estimated strengths on offensive rebounding, ball protection and opponent turnovers. Moderate plus on own ft rate. Moderate negative on foul rate. Overall that quad by simple RAPM factor summation might be near a +5 group.

I'd finish it with Holmgren, at PF. No NBA experience to judge impact but hope for net positive. Hope mainly resting on shot defense and defensive rebounding.

Giddey had the worst RAPM factors of the 6 biggest minute guys from last season. 1 strength and 4 negatives, especially negative on team ft rate. As mentioned at top, players can change. He better.

Micic may or may not play much with starters. If he does, the main hope would be he favorably impacts team efg%.

On notable RAPM factor strengths and weaknesses for the other main guys:

SGA 3 strength 0 weaknesses.
Dort 4/2 (bad impact on rebounding, would not play with JDub)
JDub 2/4 (horrendous estimated impact on both boards as used last season)
KWill 3/2
JWill 3/2

This analysis suggests another weak performance on team fg%.

KWill or JWill needed for offensive rebounding success.

SGA and / or Dort needed for FT rate help with nobody else in top 6 helping.

Dort or JDub needed to offset Giddey's negative impact on turnovers.

Dort and / or KWill needed for shot defense but likely to be neutral at best unless Chet helps.

JWill only plus on defensive rebounding unless Chet helps.

On foul rare, main help is KWill, main hurt is JWill.

Forcing turnovers will probably be a strength whoever they play, given it's strategic priority.


SGA Giddey Dort JDub is a much worse quad by RAPM. Will Holmgren? We'll have to wait and see. With JWill? We'll also have to wait and see, but it was a mild negative last season. Need better to be better.


Made an initial 5 lineup rotation that has a few final tweaking options. I know Coach D will be running hundreds and hundreds of dink lineups. But will compare performance eventually IF he plays my lineups (probably unlikely given last season).

10 questions about Thunder (that I don't recall asking previously):

1. How many players will actually get PG minutes?

2. Will Thunder target siblings of Sarr and Jalen Williams in draft? Have they already pumped them for inside info and access?

3. Will Thunder make any further cuts before training camp or wait it is halfway over or more?

4. Any changes to assistant coaches?

5. Will there be any surprises to new official heights & weights?

6. Will Selloutcrowd site writers get more independent and feisty in their reporting?

7. Of good or elite shooters, more foul drawing drivers, rebounders and defenders, which if any will Presti trade for?

8. Fwiw, is the main "rival" the Rockets, Griz, Spurs or Pelicans?

9. Will team 3pt fg% reach league average?

10. Will attendance stay relatively very low, rise or fall?