OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

Info on how the Thunder offense has been so far:

http://www.insidehoops.com/blog/?p=11547

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

they lost Harden

not Durant :confusedshrug:

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

+ Westbrooke is not playing under NBA finals pressure and Ibaka is always improving, Collison is always solid, Maynord is back and Kevin Martin has always been a efficent bucket filler. No real suprises

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

That's what stuck out the most to me. I knew our ball movement and passing looked a lot better than last year, but I didn't know we were top 10 in the league in assists.

And Ibaka's improvement can't be understated. He's flying under the radar a little bit right now, and I'm fine with that, but he's been an integral part of the offense staying roughly the same (efficiency wise) after the Harden trade.

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

their starting 5 is actually their worst offensive line-up, of their 5 most used line-ups

http://www.82games.com/1213/1213OKC2.HTM

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

Dang that's weird.

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

is it possible that getting rid of Harden a ball handler has freed up the offence with players passing more? Bu...bu...but people said we would miss his 3 assists per game :confusedshrug:

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

The thing they're going to miss are those times when they would have Harden on the court with Westbrook and Durant. Freed up Durant and Westbrook. The points i would think would be the same.

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

Meanwhile HardGAWD is averaging 25/4/5/2/1 :bowdown:

Re: OKC offense still efficient without Harden
 

I think that's precisely why ball movement, assists, spacing, etc. are all improved. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to still have Harden, but Martin doesn't constantly need the ball in his hands to get his 17-20 points. He's not totally incapable of getting his own shot but he's obviously not as good as Harden in that department.

However, there's already been 4-5 games this year where I thought the ball movement on offense was as good as I've ever seen in the Durant/Westbrook era. Of course I thought we started seeing glimpses of that in last year's WCF, so this could just be an extension of that.

But yeah, the offense is just as efficient as last year (for now) but it looks a lot different.