The NBA season is right around the corner and the Oklahoma City Thunder 2013 NBA Championship Odds are currently at 5-1 ($100 bet pays $700). They are 5-2 to win the Western Conference and their over/under season win total projection is 60,5. Below is the overall season preview by Pregame Pro André Gomes. 

2011-12 Lost in the NBA Finals
2010-11 Lost in the West Conference Finals
2009-10 Lost in the West First Round

The evolution of Oklahoma City has been phenomenal over the past years, with the team always improving their performance season after season. Last season, they confirmed their favoritism in winning the Western conference, but they lost in the finals against the Heat.

2011-12 Regular Season Numbers:

As expected, Oklahoma City was one of the best offensive teams in the league – with only the Spurs being better than them, with the particularity of having excellent FG%’s while being also very aggressive by being #1 in the league in FT/rate. They had an amazing start of the season with a 29-7 record, but surprisingly, they couldn’t keep the same level throughout the whole season. 

Oklahoma City month-by-month record:

The Thunder had a mediocre April, while at the same time the Spurs were unstoppable and this inconsistency from Oklahoma City cost them the first seed in the playoffs, but this didn’t shake their confidence at all.

Their Playoffs Run:

In the first round, they had a favorable matchup against the reigning champions Dallas and they got revenge from their loss in the previous season’ postseason by sweeping the Mavericks by 4-0. Their first two wins were very tough and Dallas got some of their own medicine, as in the previous season they had defeated the Thunder mostly due to better execution at the clutch moments, a part of the game where Oklahoma City got the upper hand this time.

The fact that they eliminated Dallas in just four games gave them a huge physical advantage against a veteran team like the Lakers, who was coming from a tough series against Denver that only ended in a Game 7. Oklahoma City crushed the Lakers in the first game of the series and then, even though it was a series closer than expected, the Thunder had more composure and fresher legs at the final minutes of the games.

In the Western conference final, the Thunder faced the team that was playing the best basketball in the league over the previous two months and Oklahoma City started the series by losing the first two games, both on the road, including a blowout in Game 2. At the time, there were talks that Oklahoma City needed to play small ball against the Spurs to have a shot at winning, but Coach Scott Brooks made the excellent decision of changing… nothing! They did indeed make some minor adjustments, but the truth is that he didn’t change the team’s structure like most analysis were asking him to do and the Thunder won four games in a row against a team that had won 20 games in a row, before losing against Oklahoma City.

In the NBA Finals, the Thunder made an excellent comeback in Game 1, just to lose four games in a row. Scott Brooks could have made some adjustments, especially looking at the way Miami used Lebron James in the PF position and Oklahoma City just couldn’t stop the best player in the NBA, who was amazing in all parts of offense, in both attacking the basket and finding a teammate with an open look at the right timing.

Offseason moves 2012-13:

The biggest goal of GM Sam Presti for this offseason was to trust in all the work they’ve developed over the past few years and hope that their players keep improving. Serge Ibaka signed a new contract, after both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook having done the same and now it’s just James Harden who is missing for this plan to continue being very successful.

The biggest news were the return of the PG Eric Maynor, who suffered a serious injury last season, the draft of Perry Jones III, in a risky choice due to his potential physical problems and the signing of Hasheem Thabeet in the free agency.

Is Russell Westbrook a “problem for the team”?

Russell Westbrook was continuously criticized throughout the last season due to his attitude, for his lack of maturity, for shooting more than Kevin Durant and some other things. The truth is that with him on court, the team was more efficient both on the offensive and on the defensive end.

The difference is that Coach Scott Brooks apparently changed his role a bit on the team. He started being “less PG” and more a SG who plays in the PG position. After having 8.0 and 8.2 assists per game in the two previous seasons, Westbrook had “just” 5.5 assists per game last season. At the same time, he increased even more his volume of shots to 19.2 FGA/Game – the #5 highest in the league, while more than doubling his number of 3pts attempts, from 1.3 3pts/game to 3.0 3pts/game!

Westbrook’s Perimeter Evolution:

If we exclude a poor percentage from Westbrook in the 3pts, he has been clearly improving his outside shooting. His performance in the Game 4 of the finals was memorable, as he scored 43 points while shooting 8-11 FG from 16-23 feet. Having in account that the Thunder won’t make any changes on their system, I believe the version that we saw of Westbrook last season will continue, but with him being even more efficient in long range shooting.

Kevin Durant’s Rise to the Elite

Kevin Durant showed the world last season that he is the second best player in the league, right behind Lebron James. There are no doubts about his level on offense, where he is the best player in the league, but it was on other areas that he showed an interesting evolution.

He had career highs in rebounds per game with 8.0 and also in blocks per game with 1.2! In fact, even in one of the areas where I’ve been criticizing him, Durant managed for the first time on his career to average more than 3 assists per game by having 3.5 assists/game!

For this season, we can expect more of the same from him and perhaps he might win his first MVP award this season.

Is the Thunder Frontcourt good enough to face the Lakers?

Last season in the Finals, the Heat took advantage from the fact that the Thunder had little offensive production coming from their frontcourt to play small ball against them by using Lebron James in the PF position. Occasionally, Serge Ibaka managed to have good offensive games, but he wasn’t consistent enough to force the opponents to give them the extra attention the Thunder would like to see.

With the Lakers entering this season as Oklahoma City’s main conference rival and with Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard in the frontcourt, it will be essential for the Thunder to have the right weapons to defend these two players.

Last season against Gasol and Bynum in the playoffs, Oklahoma City limited the Lakers to 86-143 FG at the rim (60.1% FG). Perkins has some reputation in defending Howard 1*1, when he was playing in Boston, while Ibaka is still developing and it is expected that he can improve more on offense soon. But If that doesn’t happen, then the Heat won’t have any problem in repeating the same strategy they used last season in a hypothetical repeat of last season’s NBA finals.

Final Thoughts

The Thunder basically kept the same roster from the past two seasons and these are good news of the team. They only need to resign James Harden to make sure the Thunder have all their vital pieces secured for the following seasons.

But Harden has been developing very well and he will surely be one of the main targets for other teams, who will surely be willing to offer him a max contract. Harden was the best 6^th player of the league and offensively, according to mysenergy, he was the #9 most efficient player in Pick n rolls – ball handler plays with 0.99 PPP and #7 in isolation plays with 1.03 PPP. It will be up to Scott Brooks to maximize his offensive ability, especially in the last minutes of the games.

The offensive management between Durant, Westbrook and Harden will surely be one of the biggest challenges for Brooks as well. He will have to keep everybody happy, but it won’t be easy. However, Brooks is very respectable by everybody and therefore, he looks to have the right conditions to manage to achieve that.

Oklahoma City will be one of the best offensive teams in the league once again and barring any injury from one of their best players, they won’t have problems in securing one of the best records in the league. In the playoffs, their challenge will be very different, but looking at the roster and their continuous improvement, anything but the NBA title will be a disappointing season for the Thunder, something unthinkable for them three seasons ago!

Follow Andre Gomes on Twitter @GomesCapper 

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