Full roster, yet recent Thunder losses expose reintegration struggles. Shai, Dort, and Williams are learning to play together again after lineup adjustments.
The Oklahoma City Thunder has now lost two of its last three games, falling to the San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Timberwolves over the past week. Over the course of the last two losses, a handful of issues have popped up, including shooting slumps, missed finishes at the rim, a few uncharacteristic breakdowns on defense and a very noticeable foul and free throw disparity.
What’s interesting, though, is that those two losses also happened to be the only two games this season where the Thunder actually had its full projected starting five available, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. That doesn't mean the starting group won’t work. If anything, last season’s sample points to that unit being the best version of this team and the one that ultimately leads to a championship.
This is less of a “the pieces don’t fit” problem and more of a reintegration problem.
All the shooting and free throw stuff matters in the micro context of a given night, but the bigger-picture story is the Thunder is still ironing out rotations and re-learning where everybody fits when the roster is finally whole. Jalen Williams, in particular, is the Thunder’s second-best player, and he hadn’t been able to use his right hand for months before being reintroduced. That takes time, not just for him individually, but for everyone around him.
Every starter you plug back in reshuffles the bench, changes the lineup combos, and creates downstream effects across the entire game plan. It's not an easy puzzle to solve, even for the best team in the NBA.
Give it another couple of weeks and this group should settle back in and start winning at an 80-90% clip again.