Oklahoma City Thunder Starting Lineup 2019-20 Thunder Starting Lineup
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27-19,
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in West Northwest
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A lot happened for the Thunder in the past offseason. They saw the guy that embodied their franchise for years leave in a trade to Houston and got Chris Paul back in return. Paul George is now a Clipper. Russell Westbrook and Paul George leaving marks the end of this era of the Thunder being contenders. There are murmurs around the league that Chris Paul will not be a member of the Thunder come opening day, and it makes total sense. At this point in his career, you have to imagine that he'll be wanting to grab a ring. For the Thunder's sake, you'd like to see them sell Paul for young talent to help jumpstart their rebuilding process.
Starting Lineup
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Oklahoma City Thunder Starting Lineup Analysis
Starting Lineup
PG: Chris Paul
As of now, Chris Paul is slotted in at the starting PG position. It's hard to take writing about him in the Thunder's system seriously, as I simply cannot foresee a scenario where he suits up in a Thunder uniform come the first game of the season. The Thunder were already able to land a slew of first round picks in the Westbrook and George trades, so I don't see why they wouldn't convert Chris Paul into more young talent, potentially making them threats in a few years. Rebuilding is never fun, but it's a process every team has to go through if they want to make it back into contention.
SG: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Acquired in the Paul George trade, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is currently slotted in the SG position, but if Paul leaves before the season starts we could see him get a lot more time bringing the ball down the court. He averaged 10.8 points per game for the Clippers last year and had a FG% of 47.6. His 3.3 assists per game had him at 90th in the NBA in the category. Is he a stud? No. If anything, he's an indication of where exactly the Thunder are right now. I think he'd be much better suited to be a role player off the bench, but he's in the starting lineup as of now.
SF: Terrance Ferguson
The Thunder will occasionally get good defensive possessions out of Ferguson, but that's about it. Other than that, he's a rather mediocre player who happens to be on a subpar team and in a starting position. Last year, he averaged 6.9 points per game with 1.0 assists and 1.9 rebounds. He wasn't anywhere close to the top 150 in the league in any of those stats, and I don't think he'll come anywhere close this year, either.
PF: Danilo Gallinari
Gallinari is one of the better players in the Thunder's starting lineup. HE averaged 19.8 points per game last year and 6.1 rebounds per game. He's proved to be versatile on the floor, putting in good work on defense and also shooting well from behind the arc at 43.3% in the 2018/19 regular season. He would be a good guy for the Thunder to keep around during their rebuild, but he's 30 years old, so he might not be around to see the Thunder be good again. Only time will tell.
C: Steven Adams
Steven Adams has seen many a Thunder player come and go, and this year is probably the worst of it all. He no longer has a superstar (assuming Paul is gone) on the floor with him and you can't help but feel a little bad for the center who's kind of stranded in Oklahoma City right now with not a lot of talent around him. He averaged 13.9 points per game last year with an impressive 9.5 rebounds per game which had him at 19th in the league.
