#CrystalBasketball: Ranking the Oklahoma City Thunder After 2020-21

How does every NBA player stack up coming out of the 2021 playoffs?

That’s the question NBA Math staff members and contributors sought to answer, ranking each and every player in the Association on a 1-to-12 scale and then seeing who emerged with the highest averages. The distant past was irrelevant. Long-term potential doesn’t matter. Only the level at which we expected them to play right after the conclusion of 2020-21 matters, assuming health for those currently healthy and full recoveries from those presently injured, so long as they logged even a single minute during the regular season or playoffs.

All players—classified by the team for which they last appeared, even if they were since waived or released in some alternative fashion—were graded on the following scale by each evaluator, and ties between players with identical averages were broken by sorting the scores from best to worst and propping up the men who had the highest mark at any point in the top-down progression:

  1. Shouldn’t Get Minutes
  2. End-of-Bench Pieces
  3. Depth Pieces
  4. High-End Backups
  5. Low-End Starters
  6. Solid Starters
  7. High-End Starters, Non-All-Stars
  8. All-Star Candidates
  9. All-NBA Candidates, Non-MVP Candidates
  10. Lesser MVP Candidates
  11. MVP Frontrunners
  12. Best Player in the League (only one player could earn this grade on each ballot)

Now, for the Oklahoma City Thunder:

Shouldn’t Get Minutes: 1.00 to 1.49

19. Justin Robinson: 1.17 (0.03 down)

18. Charlie Brown Jr.: 1.38 (0.25 up)

End-of-Bench Pieces: 1.50 to 2.49

17. Josh Hall: 1.5 (0.3 up)

16. Jaylen Hoard: 1.67 (0.29 up)

15. Gabriel Deck: 2.08 (not previously graded)

14. Darius Miller: 2.33 (0.12 up)

Depth Pieces: 2.50 to 3.49

13. Tony Bradley: 2.69 (0.1 down)

12. Ty Jerome: 2.73 (0.66 up)

11. Isaiah Roby: 2.75 (1.15 up)

10. Mike Muscala: 2.85 (0.01 down)

9. Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk: 3.0 (no change)

8. Aleksej Pokusevski: 3.07 (0.8 up)

7. Theo Maledon: 3.23 (0.92 up)

6. Moses Brown: 3.31 (1.91 up)

5. Kenrich Williams: 3.38 (0.38 up)

High-End Backups: 3.50 to 4.49

4. Darius Bazley: 4.08 (0.06 down)

Low-End Starters: 4.50 to 5.49

3. Luguentz Dort: 5.31 (0.87 up)

Solid Starters: 5.50 to 6.49

2. Al Horford: 5.64 (0.36 down)

High-End Starters: 6.50 to 7.49

None

All-Star Candidates: 7.50 to 8.49

  1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 8.08 (0.89 up)

All-NBA Candidates: 8.50 to 9.49

None

Lesser MVP Candidates: 9.50 to 10.49

None

MVP Frontrunners: 10.50 to 12.00

None

Many thanks to the following people for their participation in this project: Marvin Barge, Jacob Bourne, Rory Bresail, Josh Eberley, Dan Favale, Adam Fromal, Grant Hughes, Bryant Knox, Jordan McGillis, Tom Rende, Bryan Toporek, Frank Urbina, Eric Spyropoulos, Matthew Way.