How the Thunder’s Remaining Schedule Stacks up Against Fellow Lottery Hopefuls
The Oklahoma City Thunder face the San Antonio Spurs Wednesday in the first stop of a three-game road trip with games against the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic, the first and last teams in the Eastern Conference standings respectively, to follow.
OKC enters Wednesday’s game 20-48, good for the fourth-worst record in the NBA. The Thunder sit three games back of third place in the reverse standings and 3.5 games back of the league-worst Houston Rockets .
Looking ahead to the Thunder’s schedule compared to those it's in the race with, OKC has the fourth-easiest remaining schedule — only behind the Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Portland Trailblazers. With a laundry list of injuries, including Josh Giddey, Lu Dort and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, The Thunder will face the vast majority of that schedule with half of its roster sidelined.
A scheduling quirk has left three of the bottom-four teams to all play one another down the stretch — something that could have large implications come the May 17 lottery.
OKC will face Orlando twice and Detroit Pistons once, while the Magic and Pistons will face off Thursday in Orlando. The Rockets are the lone team not to face any of the other bottom four.
On the flip side the Thunder still have some of the league’s best to come with matchups against the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets on the schedule.
The Magic hold the league’s second-easiest remaining schedule with an opponent win percentage of 46.6%. OKC’s opponent win percentage sits at 47.3%, just edging the Pistons 47.4%. The Rockets remaining schedule ranks as the 19th hardest at 49.2%.
With the odds at the No. 1 pick the same among the Top-3 in the reverse standings OKC sits just three games back of that 14% chance at the top selection with 14 games to go.
The Thunder will close out its season with a stop in Utah before playing both Los Angeles teams at the Crpyto.com Arena.
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