How Theo Maledon Fits with the Thunder's Future

Often thought of as the odd man out, Maledon has shown flashes as of late for OKC.

While the Thunder have had some interesting players over the past few seasons, the case of Theo Maledon has been one of the harder ones to figure out.

Many Thunder fans like to debate which players will be on the roster next season, and even long term. Most of those discussions don’t include the French guard, but maybe they should.

Oklahoma City selected Maledon with the 34th pick of the NBA draft, the No. 4 pick of the second round. Maledon was supposed to be a solid, crafty distributor with good point guard size.

In his rookie season, he was wildly inefficient but the flashes were there. Despite the worry of empty stats, 10.1 points and 3.5 assists per game was a promising rookie year statline. That was enough for Thunder fans to hope Maledon would build off of that momentum with a strong start to the 2021-22 season.

While he started strong, it wasn’t the right kind of strong. Over the past few weeks, Mark Daigneault and the Thunder have dropped comments that Maledon might have returned to training camp… too strong.

Oklahoma City was so impressed with Maledon’s offseason regimen that they told him he needed to tone it back. Maledon had almost overworked himself, bulking up too much for the point guard position.

It showed at the beginning of the season, as the French product really struggled to shoot the ball. The distance calculation was way off, and eventually Maledon had to spend some time with the OKC Blue.

Since his return, though, he’s shown enough flashes for Thunder fans to have a few second thoughts. He’s struggled to find consistency, but his big nights are hard to ignore. In February and March, he’s netted a 22 point performance against the Spurs, an 18 point outing against Toronto and last but not least, Tuesday’s 25 point explosion to seal the Thunder’s victory.

Maledon has shown enough flashes to be an adequate NBA ball-handler with potential to be a knockdown shooter. The problem with the Thunder is the amount of guards currently on the roster. While most people write him off when discussing the future of the Thunder, if Maledon finds any sort of consistency it could help his case in the long run.

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