Nikola Topic OKC Thunder DEBUT, How will Thunder Rotation Look?

Nikola Topic OKC Thunder DEBUT, How will Thunder Rotation Look?

On today’s Locked on Thunder podcast, reacting to Nicole Topic’s summer league debut. How will the Thunder rotation come together and who’s the big winner of the offseason? You are Locked On Thunder, your daily Oklahoma City Thunder podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Let’s get it going on the Lockdown Thunder podcast. on the Lockdown Podcast Network, your teams every day. I am your host, medium member, and beat writer for Thunderi, Ryland Styles. Follow me on Twitter, Ryland Styles. Follow the show on Twitter, LOL Thunder Pod. On today’s show, we’re diving into the Thunder summer league opener when where Nola Topic made his debut for OKC. AJ Mitchell has probably already graduated from summer league after his debut. Let’s talk Thunder rotation and offseason in the NBA with Michael Martin at Michael on sports on Twitter. Let’s talk Thunder on YouTube. Michael, we’re back again. This time we have more basketball to discuss after the Salt Lake City got summer league got underway with the Thunder losing to the Memphis Grizzlies. But you did get your first look at Nicola Topic. Clearly summer league, you know, don’t take too much from it. However, we’re going to have a disclaimer. We’re going to overreact to game number one for the sake of content, but obviously don’t read too much into summer league. So, let’s start with Nicole Topish because all eyes were on him in game number one. Michael, what stood out uh after he got through his first game?
Yeah, we’re talking about overreactions here. Uh I like the way that he moved. I thought he moved well coming off that injury. I mean, he’s a year removed, but still like he’s not the most explosive guy, but I thought he moved fluidly. Um the the passing shots were very obvious in the playmaking. He was getting downhill pretty easily. There were a few times where a guy like Jaylen Wells was giving him a little bit of trouble, but he’s an elite defender. I mean, he was giving Sheay some trouble at times on some different possessions, so I don’t take too much away on that. Um, the shot looked decent. Some of it is it just went in. So, you could look at it the other way of just confirmation bias. If he goes 0 for four instead of two for four or whatever it was, maybe you go, well, man, the shot is just so far away. Some of that, you know, like I said, confirmation bias. The turnovers are one thing that were a little bit concerning, but I think that just sort of comes with the territory of being a highle pass first creation guard. Like other than Tyresese Hallebert and Ryland, I can’t think of many guys in that sort of archetype and mold who have low turnover numbers. Like we see Luca, we see Kade, we see Trey, we see a lot of these guys. And it just kind of comes with the territory of getting a lot of assists and highle passing. Like you’re going to have your occasional sort of squirrely no need turnover. But by and large, overall, I thought it was a nice performance for him, a nice start, and I hope we get to see more minutes from him going forward in summer league to sort of get a better feel than this oneame sample size. Yeah, and the Thunder play again tonight on Monday night. So hopefully he’ll be in that lineup and ready to rock and roll for OKC because in game one I did think that that he moved well considering where where he was coming off that injury and you can’t replicate game speed in a real game uh throughout your rehab process. And obviously there’s going to be a ways to go in getting him into a you know NBA basketball shape. But when he was on the court he was out there moving really well defensively. You know, he gambled in the passing lanes particularly well, but he was not a a great on ball defender, which we expected. His screen navigation could have been a bit better at times, but overall, I thought I thought the way that he handled himself defensively was better than expected. At least he was able to make some plays away from the ball. They clearly brought him into a lot of actions where he had to play from behind uh coming off those screens. That’s going to be something that you have to look for moving forward with Topic is how can you protect him? How can you hide him defensively? The answer could simply be playing him with a big league club, whether he’s going to be surrounded by four excellent defenders at all times because this lineup that we’re going to talk about with the rotation. It’s just impossible to find a lineup that’s not good defensively for OKC and specifically a lineup that doesn’t have a ton of guys who can jump those screens and avoid uh switching and avoid mismatch whenever it’s time to. Like the Thunder do switch a lot because of their comfortability with their range of defenders on the court, but they also have guys like Lou and guys like Kase who are crafty enough to get over screens in time to not let Topic be brought out on an island on a mismatch a lot of the times. So whenever they’re forced to kind of protect him in a way, whenever they bring Topic to the ball, I think that this team can do it and you saw what he can do as an offball defender. And then offensively, the turnovers were big. I I you know, the one of them was just him getting his lunch money taken by Jaylen Wells. And that’s that’s a a great thing to see because while Topic has promised more summer league games, he’s not promised more summer league games against defenders the caliber of Jaylen Wells. And so that was a really good test for him to kind of see what it’s like to play a high-end defender in this league in Jaylen Wells. And then some of the turnovers, you know, he he loves to do the jump passes and you want to kind of settle him down on that as he progresses in his career. But ultimately, I thought you saw just how he could fit in OKC, particularly with the secondary unit, because the way he’s able to get into the paint and just quick touch the paint, kick out for three that some guys couldn’t capitalize on those opportunities that he created, but generating those shots will be consistently good for this Thunder offense in the actual regular season compared to, of course, the summer league roster. So, the ways that he can get to the paint and get to the rim specifically on the ball is something that this team lacked, especially once PJ Mitchell uh got hurt in January. So, having another guy who can do that and who can set his teammates up was a big deal, I thought, kind of trying to picture how he navigates cracking this rotation.
Yeah, he’s a really creative passer and it’s one of those things like I talked about playing the results earlier with his shooting. You do the same thing with some of his passes of there was a lot of potential assists here and he could have ended the night easily with 11 assists. I mean, I think it’s pretty easy to say that this will be the worst shooting he has around him all season. So, that obviously could have been a lot better and he’s going to be insulated in a lot of different ways. You mentioned defensively. I thought that he played a little bit straight up and stiff, but he’s really good in the passing lanes like we talked about. I think that’s one of those things that you often see from guys like him. You saw it from Luca. You saw it from James Harden, even Russell Westbrook, Joic, and others of just like the guys who have a pretty great floor vision on one end that usually leads to seals on defense. So, I think that translated a lot. But, I like his physicality on some of the drives. He had the one move that was really nice where he sort of backed the guy down, spin move, finish. We’re going to see him get to the rim a lot. And I just wonder how teams uh are going to sort of handle that if they’re just going to allow him to finish at the rim over some of these passes where it starts the blender. But you can definitely see how he can fit on this Thunder team. Going back to Josh Giddy the last couple years. You remember uh Mark mentioned it a lot about, you know, he started the blender for us. He started the passing going for us. I think that’s something that they’re sort of looking to get out of Topic once again on this roster and I’m interested to see how he fits coming into year one. Yeah. And he’ll see a whole new look on Monday where like Memphis was really pressured in the Thunder full court. You don’t know what the game plan is in a summer league atmosphere and these guys are working on different things. So, you know, hopefully for Topic’s sake, he’ll get to be in more of a set half court environment for game number two and see where he’s at in that regard. But I’m glad that you mentioned his physicality because the ways that he got to the rim on top of that back to the basket spin to the rim, he also did a really good job of utilizing his frame. And one of the big pluses for Topic is his positional size and the way that he would gather and turn his shoulder in route to the rim, sealing off his defender from the basket and letting himself have clean opportunities. That’s a way that I thought he did a good job of of, and he did this as a prospect, too, of making up for his lack of just pure burst and pure athleticism. He makes up for it with that craftiness of shielding the body, shielding the ball with his body and getting to the rim. So that seeing that carry over in game number one was also a pretty good sign for for Topic. So I think overall you would give game one from Topic a high high letter grade.
Yeah, I’d give it two thumbs up. Give it an A B minus something like that. There’s still stuff left to be sort of unearthed and flipped over. But yeah, I like the physicality. I think that he’s a guy who can potentially have a floater game a little bit. I thought the shot mechanically looked pretty good. um it didn’t look too stiff and yeah, his physicality that’s that’s a major thing with him of sort of how he gets to the rim and when he’s playing with the big boys on the main roster, he’s going to get one of the more easier defensive assignments on the other end of a guy who’s trying to guard him. So, I think that can really bode well for him. But you really sort of saw his strength and I think as he matures he’s going to get a lot better of sort of just understanding the league because I mean people forget we all know that he’s missed a year of playing but just like organized basketball like this is the first time in a very long time with referees shot clock game clock people in the stands even if it’s on a very small level that he’s done in a very long time and I thought he looked pretty good at times it looked like he was sort of overwhelmed with some of the physicality of the defenders like we mentioned with Jaylen Wells they sort of trapped him but that goes back the point I just made of as time went on, he c he sort of just settled in and he showed why the Thunder are so high on him. So, I’m excited to see what is next for him. But overall, nice start for him. Optimistic because we’ve seen some summer league duds in the past from good Thunder players. So, it’s very nice to see a guy start with his best foot forward.
Yeah, and I think that the shots obviously two of them went in. They were both at the last second of the shot clock and and his ability to get them off. you know, he shot four threes and it was a bit of a quicker release than than what you had seen from him previously. He’s been working on his jump shot. So, it looked good. The results were also good to your point that, you know, if if they weren’t going in, how would we view it? To me, I do think that he’s cleaned up some of his mechanics behind the scenes that has let him uh produce the two for four night, but I would not bank on him being this this overhold shooter just yet in his NBA career. the the two last second shot clock jumpers did not sway me in that regard. But I do think that you saw the vision for Topic and the ways that he can make up for that and still help OKC even with their credit rotation coming up. Let’s talk about that credit rotation. How can Topic find his fit? Let’s talk Brooks Barnheiser summer league debut, AJ Mitchell’s graduation from summer league and more. But first, I want to tell you right now, but your friends over at FanDuel, go check out FanDuel today because FanDuel’s awesome. The summer sports are in full swing. So whether you’re all about baseball under the lights or golf on the green or highstake soccer action, FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You’re already following the action, so what can be more thrilling than adding something special at FanDuel? You can get in on the games while your friends are getting sunburned in the bleachers and have a lot of fun. And that way you can stay locked into every single pitch every single moment with FanDuel. They even have new daily promotions every single day for fun ways to bet and keeping it fresh. So whether you’re placing a same game parlay or just want to ride out nine innings of your favorite team, FanDuel makes it easy to be part of the action. If you’re new to FanDuel, new customers can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. That’s a $5 first bet for new customers and 150 bucks in bonus bets if that first bet hits. open the FanDuel app today or go just visit fandal.com to get started. If you only care about the NBA, don’t worry. They still have NBA bets including the NBA MVP where Shay is second behind Nicole Yokic at plus 280 to repeat as the uh MVP. And the Thunder are plus 260 to repeat as NBA champions. The Thunder are also two-point underdogs against Philadelphia today. If you are going to bet on summer league action, go check it out today at fo.com. We’re back. on the Lockdown Thunder podcast from the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your teams every day talking with Michael Martin at Michael on sports on Twitter. Let’s talk Thunder on YouTube. I’m Merlin Styles, host of Lockdown Thunder. For your second listen, go check out Lockdown NBA for the national scale of what’s been happening around the league during this off season. We’ll touch on that more coming up. But to recap the game one of summer league, put a bow on this loss to Memphis. Brooks Barnheiser made his debut, officially signed his two-way contract with the Thunder ahead of Summer League, then goes out there for nine points, 13 rebounds, a steal, and a block. And Brooks Barnheiser uh he brought the energy. This was a this was a game in which you are playing in front of a neutral crowd that was not very into the game because it was in uh the University of Utah’s gym and it was all Jazz fans there kind of waiting. It was like a a high school game where you’re waiting for the JV to wrap up to get to the real thing. They were waiting on their Jazz to take the court with Ace Bailey. They didn’t necessarily care about any possession in this game. And so Brooks Barnheiser really injected energy into this one. And that’s what he’s known for. His activity on the glass with 10 defensive rebounds, three offensive rebounds, his activeness defensively to get disruptions with deflections, ends up getting a steal, ends up getting a block to start transition. And then offensively, I thought that Brooks, you know, the one for two from three, he’s obviously gonna have to continue to improve as a three-point shooter, uh, and be able to be a play finisher off of that shot, developing, becoming a better cutter and finisher at the rim. But his best bucket was off the catch, getting to the elbow, rising up, and hitting a mid-range jumper where he got fouled that he got the N1 on that attempt. And that’s where he’s been a scoreer in the past is in that mid-range. And when they drafted him, we talked about how, you know, that’s not going to be really open real estate for the Thunder with Brooks Barnheiser. But if he can develop into an improvisation artist in the mid-range, where it is coming off the catch off of a hard close out, which you only get by improving your three-point shot, then he can get back to what what kind of built him up to this point as an offensive weapon in that mid-range area. And you saw that in game one of this summer league.
Yeah. what he did on the glass was really really impressive of just sort of just finding ways to impact the game and it was pretty early on you’re watching the game of just like oh yeah I see what Sam saw here this is obviously a thunder guy this is just sort of how they like guys to play the hustle I remember going back to the rookie presser that we were both at where he talked about two guys in particular two blue alumni Alex Crusoe Lou Dort of wanting to be cut from that same cloth and learn from those guys but I want to push back because the guy who I actually thought of of just I want him to get taken under his wing and learn from him is Kendrick Williams. I think that there’s a lot of through lines between those two guys of like same exact height 66 the mid-range like you talked about like that’s one of the big Kenny Hustle things the hustle in general. So I think that he’s got a lot of guys to learn from him and he’s going to have some uh to learn from and he’s going to have some opportunities this year as a point of attack defender playing on the wing. I think Mark’s going to deploy him in all types of certain ways. He obviously is going to have his limitations offensively like we talked about of like the jump shot one for two. Same way with Topic. If he goes 0 for two, he goes two for two, we’re talking about a little bit differently. Uh, but I liked what he did in terms of like being a guy who can fill in the gaps because that is exactly what the Thunder going to need him to do on the main roster because they already have their star scores, star defenders, stars every level of guys who really, really contribute. So, they just need somebody to do the little things. And if he can take the mileage off of guys like Caruso, Lou, and Kase in the regular season, I think that’s going to be huge. But overall, uh, very impressed with his first game as a guy who wasn’t super familiar with him outside of the draft prep. So excited to see what he has going forward. But overall, uh, I liked what I saw.
I I think with Brooks, that’s a really good kind of comparison to Kish because they also kind of move the same on the court. Like he he moves like an old man, and I mean that in the best way possible. Like he understands that at this level, like he he’s not going to be the the best athlete on the court, but he has great spatial awareness of what he’s doing on both ends. and understanding how to use his stride and angles to box out around the rim and make up for the height or the size of disadvantage there and net you 13 rebounds and take up space to get to his spots in the mid-range and hit a jumper there. In a similar fashion of Kenrich where Kennich never looks like the best athlete out there, but yet he’s constantly making a play. He’s constantly being involved in the action and having his nose for the ball. So, it’s it’s a good thing that he has Kenny Hustle in house uh to to tutor him. And Ken Williams has been very open about taking some young guys under his wing and being very uh well recepting receiving to being in the mentorship role, but the Thunder also accomplished their goal in game one of summer league. Yes, they lost, but their real goal was that the same for every NBA team where you want your secondyear players to show you that they’re too good for summer league. And I thought that the secondyear guys in this one where you’re looking at Jaylen Wells, you’re looking at AJ Mitchell, they accomplished that goal. Like those two guys are clearly too good to be on this stage. And you look around the NBA right now and it’s like Dton Connect and Cody Williams and a lot of these guys have not shown you that they’re too good to play here. But AJ Mitchell did with 24 points on 55% shooting from the floor. He also had six assists and a rebound and a steal. I I thought that AJ picked up exactly where he left off and showed you why he was such a valuable contributor to this 68 win team prior to suffering that toe injury.
Yeah, you just saw what he did in the regular season just amped up in terms of the usage. So, I I really liked what I saw from him. We talked about the rim pressure with Topic. Like AJ, that’s one thing, you know, he’s going to do. He’s going to turn that corner. He’s going to get to the rim. I really liked how he got to the line last year. I thought that was really, really impressive. He’s not a true point guard. So, I I like the idea of playing him with Topic. I don’t know, like you mentioned, too good for summer league. I kind of hope that he keeps playing just for that because I think it’s good for both those guys in terms of they’re never going to be the primary number one ball handler. And I think in a situation like this, that’s sort of just going to be those situations just because the lack of I guess um threats on the other the guys around him on the roster, other options, if you will. So, I I really loved what AJ did. He looked like a primary scoreer. He looked too good for this like you mentioned just his overall maturity and just smoothness to his game which we saw a lot last year but I thought it was just overwhelming the other night in terms of he just looked totally in control of just like guys I got this and took the thunder most of the way. They don’t get the win but who really cares in summer league right now about wins and losses. I don’t think any team is really flexing their arms about winning summer league games as much as they just want their players to look good like you mentioned. And I thought AJ looked awesome and he looked every bit of the contributor that we saw last year before that toe injury. So I’m excited to see him back on his feet and see what he can do in year two now that he sort of has more the institutional knowledge of how the NBA works. He was a guy who was very close to Shay, very close to a lot of the guys on the team of sort of just understanding the inner workings. So, I’m I’m excited to see from him what he kind of brings to the table because like we’ve talked about all season long, all playoffs long, all summer long, and will probably keep doing it. That’s one of the main ways that the Thunder can get better is having one more onball creator outside of Shay and Dub. And I think AJ could end up being that guy.
Yeah, AJ certainly could. And I mean the historical precedent for guys like AJ’s that I don’t think they’ll play past Salt Lake City. Like I think that in Vegas, you’ll see almost a whole new group uh of kind of peeling off some of these guys. Brandon Carlson did not play in this game as one of the other returners on this roster. We have no indication as to why. Uh so anything could be happening with Brennan Carlson, but he did not play. We did see Alex Ducas, who’s a guy that we haven’t gotten to see period uh in OKC because he’s he dealt with injuries last summer league and those injuries did linger into the G-League season where he didn’t play overly too much with the blue because he bounced in and out of the rotation with injuries and didn’t play at the NBA level. But Ducas uh I thought shows you where he’s at defensively which is good like like that’s kind of what he’s banking on and for him at for him at any level it comes down to how he can hit threes. He went two for four in this game. The other standout was like Chris Young Bloodood just jacking up shots. Shout out to Chris Young Bloodood uh and what he was able to do. And then Matty Sissoko, I mean, if if he if he’s uh going to be spending time with the blue, I wouldn’t mind someone who goes and and watches the old blue ball. So, I I do think that there’s some interesting pieces for whenever the the ship pardons out uh some of these actual like thunder guys. But nonetheless, I I I did like what we saw in summer league game number one. We’ll see what game number two has to offer us tonight. But let’s talk about this Thunder rotation. And before we dive into it, I want to put you on the spot as just a number. Whenever we talk about the Thunder and always hint at how crowded a rotation this is, how many guys they got to find minutes for they have an 18-man roster once they sign two two-way contracts because only Brooks Bonhario right now is under contract, but they they’re going to have an 18-man roster. Of those guys, what’s the number of players that you, Michael Martin, just want to watch play? You hope that they get into game actions on a nightly basis? I would say 13 to 14, maybe 12 to 13 in that range. Like the minutes are so hard, but I think we know that this team’s going to be really good, so they’re going to be blowing out some teams, so they’re going to get opportunities to get younger guys in. We also understand how Mark plays the rotations, but I understand it’s a question for me. Uh, there are a lot of guys I’m intrigued by and I think that a lot of guys can still get better. I hope that it sort of comes at the cost of resting certain guys like Chat less minutes, Hartinstein less minutes. Let’s try to get AC’s minutes down. Um Shay is gonna be Shay. He’s going to get his minutes. Uh I want to see Dub play a lot, not as much at center like we had to see last year. But I think it’s a good problem to have in terms of having too many guys where you look at a roster like the Jazz or the Nets like we mentioned and there’s just it’s a barren wasteland of just grabbing for straws of anybody. Can you play minutes? Can you play minutes? Can you do anything for us? can you help us? And the Thunder have a good problem of just way too many guys. And I’m I’m very excited to see how Mark game plans for that because I feel like he’s going to be like a kid on Christmas with a bunch of gifts to open of just wondering about all these possibilities of sort of playing with it like a mad scientist of the different combinations. But I’d say just off the top of my head of not just going player by player, 12 to 13, 13 to 14, what what would you say? Yeah, I mean I think that that’s the the perfect, you know, number to use of just if you’re just talking about who you want to watch play basketball, who you are intrigued by and want to try to develop and want to try to uh see what they have ahead of the postseason, it is that that 13 number for this roster. And that is such a good illustration of why we always talk about the Thunder’s depth because even past like tanking teams and just outright bad teams, like teams that are attempting to win a title, when they’re talking about their rotation, they’re like, “Yeah, we got five or six guys who we love and then can we can we get blank from Blank? Like, can we get enough from X player?” and the Thunder just have this embarrassment of riches of guys who not only do you think can prov can provide and can contribute to this, you know, team trying to defend its title, but guys who you’re legitimately curious about and and think are worth investing into. And even their only two-way guy right now, Brooks Barnheiser, is someone that I really want to see play um at at either level of just what does he have, what what can he pro provide for OKC long term. They have they have a great mix too of like long-term options and short-term options on this roster which we’re going to talk about coming up as we try to craft the Thunder’s rotation way too early on on July 6th. We’re back on the Lockdown Thunder podcast on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your teams every day here talk with Michael Michael Martin at Michael on sports let’s talk thunder on YouTube. I’m Ryland Styles host of Lockdown Thunder. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. For your second listen, go check out locked on Mavericks. How are they feeling with Cooper Flag ahead of his summer league debut? How are they feeling after this off seasonason with D with DLO coming in? Uh what’s the vibe in Dallas? Go check that out. OKC Thunder crowded rotation. If if you got hired today as the Thunder head coach, how would you map out the rotation, the starting lineup, kind of the the balancing act of the 13 plus guys who you want to watch?
Man, to have that job, that’d be great. I’m not moving Mark out, but the number of guys I want to watch. Oh, man. The Can you repeat the question? I was uh too caught up on trying to say something witty about being the head coach.
Hey, listen. that that that happens plenty, but just what would be your starting lineup and your rotation? See, Mark, the the key about Mark, he can do both. He can map out a rotation and be witty. And that’s why we’re podcasters and he’s the head coach.
Yeah. No, I wouldn’t hold my starting lineups as long as him. But the starters I would go with for the regular season is I wouldn’t start double big. I’d go Chad, Shay, Dub, Lou, and Kase. I think that’s sort of the most malleable lineup, and it sort of just sets your rotations in a different way. You can still play double bigs as much as you want, but I think it just makes things more natural for the roster. And then if you’re just talking about nineman, 10-man rotation, that second unit I would have um a guy like Hartinstein, obviously you’re going to have Caruso, you’re going to have Aaron Wiggins, AJ Mitchell, I would put in that second unit spot. That’s four. And then I would probably put I know I’m forgetting someone. Um, I guess I would be the Isaiah Joe spot. But I think that’s sort of a flex spot of just whoever you want to try, whether it is a Topic, whether it is a Kenrich, whether it is, whoever. But I would say my my nine of guys who I want to watch the most would be sort of stacked that way.
Yeah. And this is where, you know, the Thunder are in such a luxury luxurious space of there’s also there’s also just layers to it in terms of matchups and timing of the schedule because coming off of a season where you play deep into June, you’re going to have to manage these guys on backtobacks and three three games and four nights. And there’s going to be a month likely January where it’s very very jam-packed because we’ve got to squeeze the NBA cup in and you can’t play back to backs on the NBA Cup. and all that that does to a schedule for a team that’s that just, you know, won 68 games in the regular season, took the regular season very seriously, plus played an addition an additional season, frankly, in the NBA postseason with two seven game series. You’re going to have to alter, right, like the the minute workload for every player on this roster in my opinion. And so there’s going to be games where you want to go for it and you want to play your very best and just see what’s going on with Caruso with with a iHeart and Chad and Shay and Jdub all playing high level minutes. There’s also going to be games where like you saw in the regular season and like what Caruso called saving himself from himself of like you know what Caruso you’re not getting any minutes and so that opens up a spot that opens up opportunity. Guys like Kenrich can go from playing minutes to like playing no minutes for two months. So like you you just see all the different ways where this thing can fluctuate. So, it kind of is a is a question of uh a two-layered part of how would you try to win games and also how would you try to massage the 82 game season and for the you know former part of that I do think that the Thunder have a clear identity of who their best guys are. It’s it’s you know the the Shay iHeart Lou Caruso Chat Tase like those guys are their very best guys. And then you you have the the kind of matchup dependentness of is it time to to throw in Isaiah Joe because you need to jump start your three-point shooting. Are you looking for more on ball scoring in your secondary unit with Aaron Wiggins? Uh are you lacking playmaking to where you can put in AJ Mitchell and you can just feel out the game? And that’s where the that’s where I think that Mark has done a good job of setting up this team being to be future proof of he treated kind of the game-to-ame nature of the schedule and the matchup to matchup thing where it’s like sometimes it’s just not your night and sometimes you don’t need that and letting the game tell him what what the team needs on any given night. He’s been doing that since they were winning 20some games. He did that last year when they won 68 games and last year in the playoffs he did that where he would admit that like the plan wasn’t to play so and so but that’s what the game needed was to play so and so and that’s never been more important than this season because of the different layers of this roster where to me it’s almost an impossible job but you’ve got to find minutes of course for your your starting five of like Shay what what I think the thunder starting five will be will be Shay U and JDub and and iHeart and chat I would not start double bigs either I would start Kase but you got to find minutes for those five guys in a in a game that you’re trying to win. You’ve got to find minutes for Caruso. You’ve got to find minutes for uh Kase. You’ve got to find minutes for to me AJ is in that list, too, like as a top eight guy. And then that’s already eight names and we haven’t even gotten to someone like Thomas Sorber, who I think can really help you this season. We haven’t gotten to Wiggins and Joe who have proven to help you uh throughout their careers in OKC. Now you’re already up to 10. Kenish Williams is a great veteran presence and you’re up to, you know, 11. So it just shows you
even to you know Topic you have to develop him somehow in this season. It just shows you the the difficulties that the Thunder are working with. To me it would be the Thunder starting five. I’ll go with what Mark starting five would be just to just to kind of lay it out a little bit differently uh than than what you present presented. Although if I was a special adviser I would advise starting Kase over iHeart. But let’s just go with the double big starting five of Shay Blue JDub iHeart chat. Then I would put AJ Mitchell in there because I just we’ve seen the pictures of it. We we’ve seen how good that he is. I’d throw Kase. I’d throw Caruso as the the three from your bench. And then you you of course would stagger in JDub with the secondary unit as you’ve done his whole career. But for the sake of like argument argument of sake for like a depth chart so to say, I would put Caruso at the four Sorber at the at the five and play playing him as that small ball five and then inject in there and Isaiah Joe to to complement this team. But if you weren’t going to stagger in Jada, I’d actually throw in Wiggins as someone who can go get a bucket because I think that the only thing that that lineup lacks of Joe of a of Kase, AJ, Caruso, and Swabber would be a true bucket getter and you’d hope that you can lean on Wiggins for that. So that’d be my like my like two deep for the Thunder would be that starting five plus the bench five that we just rattled off. Uh so that way Wiggins fills that role of a score. You have Kase and Caruso and Swber. Swber pro protecting the paint. Caruso being an absolute dog defensively. Kase being an elite point of attack defender. And then you have AJ kind of setting the table. I think that that’s a very cohesive unit and a very cohesive look at 10 guys already who are playing. And there’s going to be commenters who haven’t even talked about their favorite player yet. We’ve talked about 10 guys uh playing in this hypothetical rotation. So, I do think that it’s more than just lip service to talk about how deep this team is.
Yeah, I think there are three or four archetypes for rotations and just lineups for this team. And not to make it overly simple, you have Shay and Dub those lineups. You have Shay solo lineups, you have Dub solo lineups, and you build around those guys. And then there’s the fourth possibility of whether it’s injury dependent, blowing a team out. then you can mix and match like some of those minutes like you mentioned with AJ Caruso, Wigs, and just an all bench lineup. But I think by and large that’s what you’re going to see. And I would like to see Dub get to play more of his natural position at the three and have a guy like AJ bring up the ball more or Topic or whoever and not have to see him do that as much. But I think that what we’re getting at, maybe you disagree with this, is there’s seven or eight staple guys of like hell or high water. They’re playing. Doesn’t matter who the matchup is, not matchup dependent, they’re playing. And then you’re going to have three or four flex spots of not your night buddy, not the matchup, things like that of like we literally just saw in the conference finals and the finals in the second round of like Jwell, this is your matchup against Denver. Not so much in the conference finals. That’s Kenrich. And then you get to the finals and it’s a little bit different. So Mark’s been really good, like you mentioned about flexing those guys in and out. But it’s also just another testament to what Sam’s done with this roster that he does have these good options because I think there’s plenty of teams that would like to do something like this, but then they look down their bench and they go, they don’t have it. This guy can’t do that. This guy can’t fill in that hole. So, I’m really excited for these rotations. I think we’re going to see some really weird stuff from Mark. I think that we’re going to see some less minutes from the starters. And I think that it could alarm some people that some of the numbers just per game go down. But I think the efficiency is going to go up. And most importantly, what it all really comes down to is how healthy are you come playoff time? And I think that’s going to be a big priority for this team this season. I think overall the talent’s going to win out and they’re going to end up probably being the one seed in the West. I don’t know about overall cuz the East is just such a crapshoot in that regard of just the bottom feeding teams. But I think this team can sort of just play to the beat of their own drum and win a lot of games and sort of hone themselves and get sharper. and we’re going to probably get to that later of different things we’d like to see them do during the regular season and test out. But overall, I’m very excited to see what this roster looks like. And we’re definitely going to see some surprises like going back to last year. We brought it up this uh uh brought this up a number of times of like AJ Mitchell playing in game one. I’m kind of looking forward to who Mark has as that curveball for game one this season.
Yeah. Who has a great training camp, who has a great showing in the preseason and tries to parlay that into becoming a staple because AJ was a staple before he got hurt. he was a staple of every night. You knew Mark was going to play him and it didn’t we didn’t think about him that way in July. We didn’t think about him at all that way uh until it actually unfolded as such. So I I do think that that in a way the reason why we spent the time talking this out is twofold. One, yes, you caught me Daily Thunder podcast in July. We got to find something. But two, I think that it’s easy for especially national nationally people talking about the Thunder to be like, well, how are they gonna play all these guys? Like how are they gonna do it? They just have too many. You can never have too much talent. You just can’t. And especially talent that is so complimentary of one another. Can you have too many number one options with you know there’s only one bowl only too many chefs in the kitchen? Sure. That’s not the problem the Thunder are facing though. And when you talk about Topic specifically and he’s going to be the guy that as he has another great game Monday, I’m sure uh people are going to start to take notice of like well what are the Thunder going to do with Topic? The the answer is simple. just play the games because we we crafted these lineups and like Topic didn’t necessarily come up a ton in crafting them, but we didn’t talk about the es and flows on NBA season where injuries do happen and and you obviously hope it happens for nobody across the league, but it’s just a reality like injuries happen, blowouts happen, and they happen more often for the Thunder historically. Uh you know, as they literally just put out the best point differential in the NBA, like blowouts do happen. games where uh one side or the other just doesn’t show up and it leads to a blowout in the wrong direction and you just you know you kind of not pack it in but you use that opportunity to get guys like Topic valuable experience and then back to backs and and condensed stretches happen throughout 82 games where you’re going to need to lean on some of these guys. the end of the season happens where you know you want to stay fresh and you look at how the Thunder handled the end of this season like they were on they were a 68 win team but what’ they do against Portland whenever they were about to play uh was that the start of the Lakers backto-back set oh yeah they played Jay Will he got a triple double and and they still won but like because they’re so talented so you’re going to see situations I think this season where perhaps before your Christmas day game which a Thunder should have one perhaps the game before Christmas Day yeah let’s let’s let’s ease off a a little bit on our minutes for Cadet, Shay, and and Dub. Let’s let’s use this game as a as a springboard for Topic and a springboard for Sorbboard, a springboard for Brooks Barnheiser. Uh, and that way these guys are fresh for the marquee massive day that is Christmas Day and the Thunder should be playing on it. So, like, there’s just going to be natural breaks and natural ways for the Thunder to try to get minutes for every single person on this team. Plus, their great system with the G-League and the in the blue. Um, but even at the NBA level, they they can find ways to get all these guys on to the court and let them find out what they have. And you have a great coach who is not stubborn. And that that’s what’s been hurting some teams. You look at the Knicks in particular of the Knicks didn’t start experimenting until the playoffs. Like they they spent all regular season being stubborn with their rotation and not and not kind of seeing what does and doesn’t work. They started experimenting in the playoffs and some of those experiments hit. obviously not hit enough, but some of them failed. And you would have known that had you used the 82 game season as a guideline. And you have a head coach who is willing to just put together all these different combinations to where then you do know, okay, we can use Jale in uh the Denver series because whenever we played Denver in in March, you saw that Jill was a really good option against Joic whenever you got you got foul trouble with Chat Nihard. Like that game naturally brings out more Jwell minutes. You could have a game where, you know, you have Shay and AJ and JDub get in foul trouble and Toba needs to play more and so you just have these natural ways to gain minutes for these guys. I don’t think it’ll be a true problem.
Yeah, the the roster stuff, it’s a big question of is your talent redundant or is it compounding in the sense of they amplify each other? Because if it’s redundant, then yeah, you can say you have too many guys, but if they ampl amplify each other and make each other better, then that’s an entirely different thing. and the Thunder right now. I think that there is such a thing as having too many guys and you have to shrink your rotation a little bit and we saw the Thunder do that. But in terms of the regular season, I don’t think that’s a real thing. I think that you can play a lot of guys and the Thunder have already shown that they’re capable of winning a championship, playing deep into June and things like that. So, you don’t have to you’re you’re you’re not searching for those staple guys like I mentioned earlier with Caruso and the starting five and Kase and whatnot. You know who those guys are. So now it’s about finding the guys who can fill in the gaps in those second units like we saw from guys like Kenrich, Jay Will, and whoever. And maybe there’s a guy already on this rotation who didn’t play in those spots last year who you’re going to need next year because they fill a certain role. And that’s sort of what this season is about. Like we associate sort of the seasons of discovery with some of those earlier teams that weren’t winning a lot of games. But it’s sort of coming back around in terms of not the entire roster, but just the back end of like where can these guys fill in the gaps? because like you mentioned there are teams like that that have six or seven guys, five or six and just looking for anything and right now the Thunder are just very very spoiled by it and it’s kind of just adding the cherry on top of the cake of just finishing this team and well-rounding the sharp edges and I think that’s what we could probably see from some of these other guys on the lower end of the roster. But they’re definitely going to get their opportunities. Yeah, that this is why you explore the roster like Mark has always talked about. And it’s just it’s fascinating to me to like see the the same catchphrases and mantras and and ideologies go full circle into now being on the other side and you’re still utilizing that groundwork that you laid way back then today as defending champions of the NBA world. Uh for OKC and for Mark in particular. Uh, but I I I am very very very curious by and and part of the reason why this team doesn’t have too many guys is because of their whole people over players mantra of like nobody rode the roller coaster of emotions in in terms of rotational minutes and NBA opportunities than Jill and his whole career really for the Thunder but particularly this postseason and nobody was happier for his teammates and for the team success in the world than Jill is happier that the Thunder won the NBA championship. So it’s it’s like you get guys who are comfortable with a uncomfortability in terms of expectation level for minutes and expectation level for uh opportunities and you just ride with it throughout the regular season and it lets you have an opportunity in the playoffs to throw a lot of different pitches at every single team and and try to win another championship. But you can go check out Let’s Talk Thunder on YouTube and go catch up on the videos that Michael’s putting out and will put out in the future. And until tomorrow, be good and be good to one another.

Oklahoma City Thunder’s Summer League sizzles with Nikola Topic’s debut and Ajay Mitchell’s dominance. Is OKC’s roster too deep for its own good?

Rylan Stiles and Michael Martin break down Topic’s fluid movement, passing skills, and defensive potential in his first game. They analyze Mitchell’s standout performance, highlighting his rim attacks and game control. The discussion shifts to Thunder’s rotation challenges, exploring potential lineups and the luxury of a talent-packed roster. Brooks Barnheiser’s energetic play draws comparisons to Kenrich Williams and Lu Dort, while the hosts debate managing minutes across an 82-game season.

Tune in for expert insights on how the Thunder’s depth could reshape their path to NBA success.

0:00 Nikola Topic’s summer league debut
5:52 Topic’s physicality and passing skills
11:39 Brooks Barnheiser’s summer league performance
17:28 Ajay Mitchell’s summer league performance
22:32 Thunder’s crowded rotation discussion
29:34 Proposed starting lineup and bench rotation
35:54 Integrating all players

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