After a slow start, the Oklahoma City Thunder are currently 13-3 in the month of December. The team is trending upwards, with hopes of making an extended playoff run, but something is strange about this rendition of the Thunder. That strange feeling has as much to do with whom they’ve lost in the last few years as much as whom they currently employ.

For all of the vitriol KD receives, I’m sure he left for a reason. He probably grew tired of Oklahoma City’s cheap ownership group, unbalanced roster, and miscast point guard. Those problems were present for most of his OKC tenure. They persisted through his free agency in Summer 2016. Now, they threaten to make the Thunder also-rans for years to come.

First-year Knick, Enes Kanter, earning a standing ovation from the Madison Square Garden crowd.

Last summer’s Carmelo Anthony trade was supposed to make this team official contenders. The Thunder scrapped the overpaid Enes Kanter, the underutilized Doug McDermott, and a first-round pick for one of the highest-scoring players in NBA history. Enes Kanter is providing the rebounding and low post scoring that the Knicks have lacked in recent years, including a 30 and 20 on Christmas Day. He’s proven to be a key piece in the Knicks resurgence, and aided emergence of Kristaps Porzingis as a certified star. Doug McDermott, who was considered a throw-in piece of the transaction, is hitting more than 40% of his threes for the suddenly competitive New York squad. At the same time, Carmelo is submitting career lows in both points and field goal percentage, and is beginning to look every bit of the 15-year veteran that he is.

The Pacers front office was roasted for receiving only Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis after Paul George informed them that he wouldn’t re-sign with them at the completion of the 2017-18 season. All of those jokes have stopped with the improvement Indiana has seen this year. They appear to be a lock for the playoffs, and Oladipo is finally making good on the potential scouts saw in the 2013 NBA Draft. With averages of about 25 points per game and 5 rebounds, on an efficient 48% field goal percentage.

Don’t those Knicks and Pacers sound like players that could help the Thunder? The organization let them all go for both Carmelo Anthony and Paul George. The moves seemed sound, with two big name wings coming in to provide Russ with some certified scoring punch. The issue is that hasn’t come to fruition yet.

The recently traded Victor Oladipo claiming Indiana as his own after another outstanding performance.

Paul George has pulled his season average up to 20.1 points per game in the last month, but it comes on a nearly career-low 41.2% field foal percentage. I can’t imagine that he’s been happy with the team’s overall performance this year, and he’s even hinted at such. If last year was about pleasing Westbrook so he’d re-sign, the same priority must be made of George’s impending free agency. If he decides to leave this Summer, hope would be in short supply in OKC.

I believe the organization made the fatal flaw of catering completely to Westbrook’s play style. And the coaching staff (looking at you, Billy Donovan) has yet to acknowledge who Russ is as a player. He’s awesome, and there is no doubting that. What got lost in his MVP and triple-double stat-chasing last year, was that he (and James Harden) broke the single-season record for turnovers. He’s not a natural ballhandler or point guard (41% field goal percentage this season, a shade above 42% last year), and the roster has never truly been constructed with that in mind.

I’ve always said he’s more of a shooting guard. Placing a player with his aggression off the ball, would certainly throw defenses for a loop, especially if the point passing him the ball was a moderate passing and scoring threat himself. But let’s say Russ will remain the point guard for the foreseeable future, then he needs as many shooters around him as possible in the clutch. Andre Roberson doesn’t qualify. While he’s a great defender and cutter, he can’t space the floor enough for Westbrook’s heroic drives. It breaks all conventions of what the NBA has become, and any well-coached team WILL take advantage in the playoffs.

Barring catastrophe, the team will make the playoffs winning somewhere between 40 and 50 games. But that is a shallow achievement considering the talent they’ve compiled. Nothing the Thunder have done in the last two years has really helped the team improve at all. For that to happen they need to give serious consideration to changing how Westbrook is used or put pieces around him that complement his unique style of play.