Where do the Thunder go from here?
Aside from the two teams currently headed to The Finals, there's not a team in the league that wouldn't trade their long-term outlook for that of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Even the Spurs and Heat would have to think long and hard about it if offered.
They have two top-10 players in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, both of whom have barely even started to enter their NBA primes, another burgeoning two-way star in Serge Ibaka, an impressive collection of further high-upside young talent, and a relatively clean cap sheet for a contending team. The Thunder should be able to contend for a title for at least another half-decade, if not much longer.
Of course, the Thunder have already been contending for a title for nearly a half-decade - they first made the Conference Finals in 2011, and have been one of the preseason favorites every year since - and still have just one Finals appearance and zero championships to show for it. Bad luck has played a part in that, as has playing in the far superior of the NBA conferences, but as we'll soon start Year Seven of the Durant-Westrbook pairing and OKC has still to win it all, every ringless year from here on will be seen as a progressively bigger disappointment.
OKC has long been a team reticent to make significant moves for short-term improvement - the only really noteworthy deals they've made during the Thunder's window of contention have been the core-shaking trades of Jeff Green and James Harden, both of which were far more about the long-term structural and financial health of the team than any kind of go-for-it single-season push. The Thunder value consistency as much as anyone in the league, which is why their starting five has stayed almost entirely static since the Perkins trade four seasons ago, and why head coach Scott Brooks' position has never really been in jeopardy, despite increasing fan impatience with his gameplanning and minutes distribution.
However, if there ever was a offseason for the Thunder to make those kind of all-in moves, this might be the one. The team still has more than enough trade assets to put together a deal for a difference-making player or two, and they have a couple roles that are going to badly need filling. But before we go about cutting up next year's roster, let's look at how things ended up with last year's squad:
The Good
When the story of your regular season can end with one of your players winning MVP over LeBron James, things can't ever be that bad. After finishing second to LeBron three out of four years, Kevin Durant finally got over the hump this season and snatched his first MVP trophy - and deservedly so, considering Durant put together a regular season for the ages, stunning in both its volume (32 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 5.5 APG) and efficiency (over 50% FG, 39% 3PT, nearly a 30 PER), especially considering the absence of his primary sidekick Russell Westbrook for half the season. For arguably the first time in his career, Durant had a legitimate argument for being the league's best overall player.
Around Durant, Westbrook was typically brilliant once he returned to full health, Ibaka took another step offensively, and young players like Reggie Jackson, Jeremy Lamb and rookie Steven Adams all made some very encouraging contributions early in the season. The Thunder cruised to a 59-23 record, second-best in the entire league, despite only getting 46 games out of Westbrook for the season, and just managed to outplay the better-than-their-seeding Grizzlies and Clippers in the postseason, perhaps the toughest road to the Conference Finals any high-seeded NBA team has ever had.
And as previously mentioned, the team certainly has the means with which to improve their roster, both internally and externally. More minutes should be available for Lamb and Adams in next year's rotation, who could help the Thunder take the next step with their own development. Between those two players, Perry Jones III, Andre Roberson and their two first-round picks in the upcoming draft, OKC has an embarrassment of assets with which to pull off a potential trade for a veteran to help this group reach their next level, should they choose to do so.
The Bad
Despite Durant proving himself LeBron's equal, if not outright superior, in this year's regular season, he proved this postseason that he still has some distance to go before matching LeBron's production and resume against the highest level of competition. KD's numbers sagged across the board in the playoffs, particularly his efficiency stats, as he shot under 35% from three, averaged nearly as many turnovers as assists, and saw his PER drop over seven points to 22.7. He also missed a number of shots and made a number of critical errors in late-game situations, earning the infamous "Mr. Unreliable" tag from the Oklahoman paper and leading fans to wonder if he would soon have his overall "clutchness" questioned, as LeBron did in his early years before winning his first two championships.
Durant was hardly the only Thunder player to struggle in the postseason, however. Aside from Westbrook, whose production was more spectacular than ever - though even that assistance comes with its own questions about OKC having two alpha dogs and a point guard who usually seems to think attack-first - the Thunder struggled to find consistent offense from anyone on their team, with both their veteran rotation players (Derek Fisher, Caron Butler, Thabo Sefolosha) unable to hit or create shots and their younger players (Jackson, Lamb, Adams) not quite ready to produce against the highest competition either.
The Thunder's roster concerns also invariably lead back to coach Scott Brooks, whose dismissal many fans and analysts have started to call for. Brooks' offensive system often appeared too reliant on the spectacular talents of Westbrook and Durant to bail the team out in isolation sets, and his rotation continued to lean heavily on veterans like Sefolosha, Fisher and particularly center Kendrick Perkins, whose offensive abilities have declined to a virtually unplayable degree, at the expense of the development of young players like Lamb, Adams and Jones.
Brooks' ongoing status will surely be one of the biggest questions for the team to address in the offseason. With or without their long-tenured coach, though, here's some of the other ways the team could look to improve its roster this summer:
The Draft
OKC has two picks in this year's first round, selecting via Dallas at No. 21 (the last pick leftover from their haul in the Harden deal) and with their own pick at No. 29. It would not be surprising to see the team trade up in the draft and/or trade out of one of the picks altogether, given how many young prospects the team already has to develop, but this is a deep draft, and GM Sam Presti has a history of finding good value late in the first round (including with Ibaka and Jackson), so the team could very well end up holding on to one or both selections as well.
If they do choose to keep their two picks, they could go in any number of different directions. They could add another long tweener athlete for their frontcourt in the form of Clemson's K.J. McDaniels or Syracuse's Jerami Grant, they could grab a wing shooter like Washington's C.J. Wilcox or Duke's Rodney Hood, or they could go draft-and-stash (or draft-and-D-League) with international big-man prospects Clint Capela or Kristaps Prozingis. They could also just hang back and see which highly touted prospect ends up inexplicably dropping, and keep him around as a trade asset or long-term project. Choices abound for this OKC team.
If I had to bet, I'd imagine that if there's no obvious player that drops to them, they'll go the shooter option with at least one of their picks, to help ease the potential loss of Thabo Sefolosha in free agency and hedge against the development of Lamb, who has yet to show much in the way of reliable range as a pro. Wilcox and Hood would both be options, but OKC might be best off if former Tar Heel and D-League two-guard P.J. Hariston ended up falling to them. Don't be surprised if OKC packages the two picks with a Jones or Roberson to try to move up to the high teens and take a Nik Stauskas or James Young, either.
Free Agency
One of the big questions for the Thunder this offseason will be whether or not the team finally amnesties Kendrick Perkins in his last year of eligibility to get his contract off the books. But as ESPN's Marc Stein points out, there's not a ton of benefit in doing this - the Thunder will be at or over the cap with or without Perkins, with only some minor exceptions afforded to them for spending in free agency. Besides, small-market OKC has not shown particular enthusiasm for paying players to go away, and Perk might be more valuable as an expiring trade chip or veteran mentor to them anyway.
If they do dip their toes into the free agency waters - and really, when was the last time they signed anyone of consequence in the offseason? - it'll probably be for a cheap two-way wing like Wesley Johnson, Richard Jefferson or maybe even Danny Granger. I also wouldn't be surprised to see them look for a veteran PG to replace the likely retiring Derek Fisher in backing up Russell Westbrook - Kirk Hinrich if Chicago finally lets him go, or perhaps former Sonic great Luke Rindour. But considering that OKC probably wants to keep space open for an extension for fourth-year returnee Reggie Jackson, and considering their big FA pickup last summer was Ryan Gomes, Thunder fans probably shouldn't be dreaming too big here.
Trade
As previously mentioned, the Thunder will certainly have options here, as they could very easily take Perkins' near ten-mil expiring contract, tack on a cheap asset or two - one of their two first-rounders, say, and either Lamb or Perry Jones III - and deal for a difference-making mid-level veteran, without really doing any damage to their current player core. (They could also go blockbuster, trading Perkins and two or three of those assets, maybe even including Jackson or Adams as well, and add a borderline star, but that's a little too far from the Oklahoma City way for plausibility.)
So who would they go after? Well, one player sure to be available would be Sixer combo forward Thaddeus Young. Thaddeus definitely fits the mold of the kind of player OKC likes - long, athletic, rangy, defensive-minded - and would greatly assist in their frontcourt depth and versatility, something that was badly exposed in the Spurs series when Serge Ibaka went down for the first two games. Thad might not fit in the OKC starting lineup, but he had two of his most productive seasons in Philadelphia coming off the bench, and would be a huge add to the Thunder's second unit, while Philly would be more than content to send their beloved longtime forward to a contender in exchange for rebuilding assets like Jones and a third (!!) first-rounder.
If the Thunder want to aim a little higher, though, it'd be interesting to see if they could land Arron Afflalo from the Magic. Westbrook and Durant have yet to play with a true two-way two-guard - Harden's D has become the stuff of internet infamy, and even at his most productive, Sefolosha was little more than a catch-and-shoot wing - and Afflalo is coming off his best season for the Magic, an efficient 18.2 PPG season that landed the shooter in All-Star contention for much of the year. Afflalo would be a commitment for the Thunder, as he has a player option for 2015-16 at nearly eight million as well, but he would give their offense a dimension it's never really had before, and that might be worth the stretch - even if it also costs them the #22 pick and Lamb in the process.
Big Picture
Of course, with all of this personnel talk, the biggest question may remain what the team does about Scott Brooks. For better or worse, my guess would be "nothing" - internet complaints aside, Brooks remains highly valued both by the OKC front office and by Durant himself, as evidenced by his praise for the under-appreciated coach in his legendary MVP acceptance speech. It would likely have taken a total postseason embarrassment for OKC to really consider deposing Brooks, and to his credit, the coach did make some long-overdue roster adjustments these playoffs, in the Grizzlies and Spurs series particularly, to give the team their best chance to win.
However, if the team does retain Brooks, and if they fail to make any kind of bigger roster moves this offseason, they risk spending another year of their big three's prime - still early, but hardly eternal - going into the playoffs with a non-maximized roster. Presti's patience in developing this squad and not making any quick-fix moves to compromise their long-term potential is one of the primary reasons they're in the title mix every season, but that patience comes to a point of fault when the Thunder have to face a historically deep team like the Spurs with a whopping five of their ten rotation regulars (Butler, Fisher, Perkins, Sefolosha and Nick Collison) posting playoff PERs under 10.
In the meantime, Kevin Durant isn't under contract forever. Front offices are already starting to gear up to make a run at KD when his deal expires in 2016, and while it's unimaginable at the moment that Durant would ever leave OKC, another couple years of playoff disappointments might change that outlook a little. It was once pretty close to unimaginable that LeBron James would leave his hometown team, too, but when he looked at the landscape in Cleveland after seven ringless seasons and decided he could have a much better shot at winning elsewhere, he bolted, and the Thunder would be naive to not even consider that as a possibility for Durant as well.
As long as the team has Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka together and healthy, they should be considered among the title favorites, as they undoubtedly will next season. Durant will likely work tirelessly in the offseason - maybe this time on his strength and his post play - to jump yet another level next season, and with a couple of their younger players getting more minutes and finding themselves a little as pros, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to see OKC back in The Finals next June. But a little proactivity from Presti towards that end this summer really might not hurt.