The Side Part: Oklahoma Breakdown

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It’s only been six games. A team is a living and breathing thing that grows and adapts and evolves. It learns about itself and gets smarter about preventing pain. But these last few games have been frustrating. It’s like watching a bad movie starring really good actors.

This should be good. Why isn’t it?

If you want to panic, I’m fine with that, I guess. Not that it matters what I’m fine with. It so doesn’t. I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not ready to start up the sirens or anything, but then just because I think it’s not necessarily time to panic doesn’t mean I think it’s not time to do a little questioning. There are instances in these games where the Thunder look readable as a kid’s book. This is middle of the pack Accelerated Reader stuff. Something on the shorter side, written by Matt Christopher. They fall back on old, bad habits is what it is. The dribbling and the standing is still there. The solo creation, so fun at times, still comes too often. And yes, the ball is moving more, for sure. More than it has in years past. All that side to side swinging sermonized throughout the summer and the preseason has happened a bit, but there is something lacking.

Defensively we look stiff, and the repeated switching over and over and over had me watching the last possessions of the Bulls game with my hands over my face.

There’s some energy that’s missing, yeah? There’s no exuberance in the movement. Things aren’t snapping. Jeff Van Gundy’s always talking about spirit. So is Hubie. It seems like that spirit’s not there right now. At least to my eyes.

I’m not here trying to be helpful. I don’t have an answer for how to fix it. Me and my fellow #Garys are surely shouting that Mitch McGary is the answer, because if there’s one thing he brings, it’s feeling. Movement. He plays with joy and gets things to mixing. He’s active. And activity is what’s needed. But then there’s a reason he’s not playing, and it’s not like he was a stopper on defense (the main reason for these L’s) last year. Surely if he was effective in practices he’d have been given a shot. Maybe Donovan is feeling the pressure of needing to win and he feels like the time McGary missed on account of the concussion has him behind. But it would be good to see him get a chance. Just suggesting that, and knowing that means minutes are going to be taken away from The Present King Nick Collison and keeper of the hairstyle that is this column’s namesake, pains me to no end.

Maybe Morrow’s defense is just too bad to get him on the floor, but boy it would be nice to see him get extended minutes. Five minutes feels like a tiny amount of time for somebody that provides the (here comes that word we all love) spacing he does, but dear God a minus 13 in that amount of time is troublesome.

I’m not ready to bounce Augustine out of the depth chart. He was playing some of the best basketball of his career the first three games of the year, and generally looks good, offensively at least, in two PG lineups with Westbrook out there with him, but I echo what Royce said in his postgame piece yesterday. Payne’s just sitting there, and appeared capable in limited action during preseason. Maybe he’s worth a test drive. Put him out there with Russ and Durant, see if he can play in all that room they would offer him.

Right now this team seems like they’re walking around in the dark in a house they don’t know well. They’ve got their arms out and they’re feeling for furniture, for walls. It’s really, really early, and this team has talent. Cream rises, and Durant and Westbrook, when healthy, tend to figure it out. Frustrating or not, it’s still only been six games. But then I get it. There is something annoying about people saying to calm down. Maybe rage on and worry until they give you a reason not to? Or maybe try to relax for now and settle in for the longest season of your life. The scrutiny from all angles is only going to grow. The magnifying glasses are only getting bigger.

I don’t know. It’s Friday. Get tore up. Let’s get together Sunday for the Suns and pray for better tomorrows.