On Friday night in Orlando, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder took an inbounds pass with his team down three and 16 seconds left. In the space of less than a second he caught the ball, turned to the hoop and let fly a game-tying shot.
After another Orlando go-ahead three, with four seconds remaining, Durant’s superhero sidekick Russell Westbrook took the ball from a quick inbounds pass. In the space of less than a second he probed up the floor and let loose a shot of his own from nearly half-court that drilled off the backboard and in to send the game to a highly improbable, to say the least, overtime.
This sequence, in its speed and its ruthlessness, might be representative of a title worthy quality this season in Oklahoma City.
This game, won hectically by the Thunder 139-136 after two overtime periods, more broadly might represent a nagging dissonance that could undermine Oklahoma City’s long-frustrated ambitions to claim a championship behind Durant and Westbrook.
The question of whether it’s one or the other, the former or the latter, might be the single most captivating question in the NBA this year.
The basketball analytics guru Kirk Goldsberry wrote an incisive story for the dearly-departed Grantland last month about the noticeable shift in the way points are most effectively scored in the NBA.
In the last 15 years, there’s been a steady transition from individual excellence dominating the NBA landscape, embodied by the legendary likes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and their dynastic teams, to collaborative team-wide movement winning the day. Think the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.
One stat Goldsberry noted stood out in particular – last season there were 200,000 shot attempts total across the NBA. Of those attempts, 53 per cent were assisted (coming soon after a pass) and 47 per cent were unassisted.
The 53 per cent of assisted shots – that is, the ones that could generally be seen as having been a function of teamwork – were successful 51 per cent of the time.
The 47 per cent of unassisted shots – the result of individual playmaking attempts – were successful 38 per cent of the time.
There’s a clear gulf in the quality of shots produced from synergistic play and shots produced from singular play. The Warriors and Spurs haven’t won the past two titles by mistake.
Which brings things back to Oklahoma City. They have two of the very best players alive, one the MVP from two seasons ago and the other a worthy MVP candidate last season. With Durant and Westbrook alone the Thunder can consider themselves well in the title picture.
But, in employing two of the most effective talents through which “hero-ball” can function, it means the Thunder tend to irresistibly use it as a crutch. What the Thunder do all too often flows through moment-to-moment individuality. It’s like short-term memory loss basketball. The “Memento” offence.
It’s hard, basically, to often times see an overarching style to Oklahoma City, beyond keeping everyone out of the way so Durant and Westbrook can do amazing things. And they can very much do amazing things, and it can win them basketball games – they’ve started 2-0 after all, and beat none other than the Spurs in their season opener. There will be many, many nights where the Thunder, through Durant and Westbrook, reach a level that other teams simply can’t.
But Goldsberry had another interesting stat in his piece about basketball’s shifting offensive trends – the top five teams in assists per game last season were also the top five in shooting percentage.
Four of those five – the Warriors, Hawks, Spurs and Clippers – were among the top seven in points per 100 possessions last season. The Thunder were 11th, despite ranking 24th in assists per game.
The year before, with a healthy Durant, Oklahoma City ranked seventh in points per 100, and 13th in assists per game. In 2012/13, when they reached the NBA Finals, they were second in points per 100 and 21st in assists per game.
Clearly, the Thunder can employ a successful offence despite increasingly running counter to league-wide trends. But it also feels like they’re making it an uphill battle – the last two actual title winners led the league in assists per game, and Miami in 2012/13 were tied for seventh. That’s territory Oklahoma City don’t even really approach.
In Friday’s game against Orlando, Durant and Westbrook accounted for 91 points, astoundingly shooting nearly 50 per cent (32-of-66) and going 23-of-27 from the free throw line. You can’t do much better than that.
And yet they needed all that because they went into the fourth quarter down 18 and still required two overtimes to escape against a talented but young and mostly unfancied Orlando Magic team. They had 19 assists to Orlando’s 25.
Because of Westbrook and Durant, it genuinely feels like this team’s potential is astronomical.
But maybe that’s just the potential of Westbrook and Durant being astronomical. Maybe this team, as a whole, actually has a very solid ceiling.
“Is that sustainable?” asked Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan after Friday’s game, sounding the right kind of note about how he wants his team to play. “It’s going to be hard for Kevin and Russell to do that night in and night out.”
It’s one thing to correctly identify an issue – it’s another to address it. In reality, it’s hard to envision any team with Durant and Westbrook playing any other way.
And that may be an unsolvable conundrum for Oklahoma City. Durant and Westbrook can lead the Thunder toe-to-toe with the ghosts of Jordan’s Bulls and Bryant’s Lakers. Can Oklahoma City in the here and now be more than Durant and Westbrook, though?
That’s the question lingering over the future of two of the game’s best players. The question keeping a franchise that will have to account for those players’ impending free agencies the next two summers in limbo. The question that could very well decide the NBA title this year.
jraymond@thenational.ae
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