I think OKC is significantly better than last year. Aside from Mitchell, their Melo was our best player. We relied on them playing Melo throughout the series to hog the ball, chuck up some crap, and play really terrible defense. Just getting rid of him and giving Grant, an unselfish role player more burn improves their roster and makes them a more formidable matchup. OKC has upgraded with Schroder and Morris (if he ever becomes healthy). I haven't watched too much of them lately, but I imagine they could playing RW and DS in the backcourt at times and give teams fits. Right?
If implemented against us, RW and DS offers them an incredibly explosive backcourt that RR and DMC would have to respect defensively while giving them the best chance to shut DM down. I don't know how often Donovan has gone to this, but they could remove Adams and potentially go small (Nellie style) with Grant and Morris and force Gobert out to the perimeter, giving driving lanes to their perimeter players. That would force us to either leave Gobert out there trying to cover perimeter players or reserve him only for when Adams is in. Some teams have gone small against us and have done so with great success since Gobert is not yet a dominant offensive player. I can't remember which team did it recently (maybe Portland) but I remember they went small and it forced Gobert away from the basket while we were unable to take advantage offensively. This must be the next step in Gobert's evolution.
I think OKC would be a very tough series 6-7 game series with our margin for error being much less than theirs. George and Westbrook are two superstars with a host of good role players. Adams, Grant, and Schroder are all really good players. If Grant was on our roster he potentially could be that stretch 4 we need and if Schroder was on our roster he'd probably start.
Their FO has done a good job in keeping them competitive when it looked like their window of opportunity had slammed shut. Honestly, OKC is one of those teams that I can see making a run this year if their superstars really step up and one of their role players get hot. My money is on Grant. He could have a very Trevor Ariza like playoff run this year and could become that 3rd scorer they need. If that happens, they're as good as anyone besides GS.
