OKC Thunder Will Not Be Conventional With Rotations, And They Shouldn't Be

Mark Daigneault is not going to settle into a typical rotation, and he shouldn't. The value of "exploring the roster," is worth the risk.

As the Oklahoma City Thunder sit at 41-18, not only are they a playoff lock in the driver's seat to host a series, but are officially dubbed contenders by Phil Jackson's theory. 

With the Thunder finding success this year as one of the youngest teams in the association, and the home stretch of the regular season upon us, the natural conversation around Oklahoma City is will the team tighten up their rotation? 

After practice on Friday, Mark Daigneault was asked about their lineup fluidity. 

“Like I told you guys out of All-Star break, we can't allow the relative success going into All-Star Break to bite into our aggressiveness with understanding what we have with the team, and our aggressiveness to continue to develop the team and develop our players." 

The Thunder bench boss continued by saying, "The more aggressive you are, the more exploratory you are, the more you are going to introduce failure, and the more you are going to introduce success." 

The standard across the NBA is to head into the postseason with a defined eight-man rotation that is ridged and highlights your best players. However, Oklahoma City is anything but that, and certainly not standard. 

With Thunder already proving to be an abnormality finding their stride this early, with such a successful young core contributing at a high level, owning a top-five offense and defense in the NBA, you can not put them into a conventional box now.

Oklahoma City has a unique roster that is chock-full of talent, and a coach willing to flip through his rolodex to find the right combination on any given night. While most teams come into games with a preset plan, the Thunder are so good at adjusting on the fly, letting the game dictate what should happen next. 

This has allowed OKC to pull off the most double-digit comebacks in the NBA this season, and remain versatile knocking off teams of all sizes and schemes. 

In preparation for the postseason, the Thunder will continue to explore their roster to have as many data points as they can to know which adjustments work and which do not. 

The fluidity is important as some nights the Thunder might need to lean into their shooting relying on Isaiah Joe, Cason Wallace, Mike Muscala, Aaron Wiggins and Gordon Hayward. On other nights size and physicality may be important with an emphasis put on Bismack Biyombo, Jaylin Williams, and Kenrich Williams. 

The ability to mix and match gives Oklahoma City the ability to counteract against and compete with any lineup or matchup thrown at them in the playoffs. The Thunder already lack raw playoff experience, you do not want to compound that problem by needing to throw out lineups without experience together because you never worked on a "Shai Gilgeous-Alexander plus shoots" or a bigger lineup with Chet Holmgren sharing the floor with a Jaylin Williams or potentially Mike Muscala. 

As the Thunder continue to stockpile wins, do not expect them to write their rotation in Sharpie anytime soon. 

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