Thunder Season Review: OKC's Bubble Stretch
After a solid 8-8 stretch early in 2021, the Oklahoma City Thunder would have pretty significant changes to their active roster. With the G League kicking off in yet another bubble, Oklahoma City would send Moses Brown, Aleksej Pokusevski, Ty Jerome and Josh Hall to play for the Thunder's G League affiliate, the OKC Blue.
At that point, these young players they were sending away hadn't gotten much playing time. In fact, Jerome was just coming off of an ankle injury that forced him to miss the start of the season, while the other three had combined for 89 minutes through Oklahoma City's first 22 games.
On top of these four not playing much of a role, they weren't being very efficient in their time, really needing the G League to build confidence and get into a groove.
In an impressive team outing throughout the G League season, Brown averaged 18.5 points and 13.9 rebounds per game. Additionally, Pokusevski started to find his way, averaging 7.9 points, 7.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. Hall ended up only playing in one game due to injury, while Jerome was spectacular and was recalled back to the Thunder after just nine games with the Blue.
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While these guys were gaining valuable experience in the bubble, the Thunder went on an interesting stretch. Throughout 15 games from February 6 to March 6, the Thunder went 6-9, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way averaging 25.7 points per game over the stretch. At the same time, Lu Dort started a shooting slump, converting on only 27.6 percent of his threes over that month.
Although the players they were without weren't major contributors before leaving, the rotations were still thin, especially with injuries. The Thunder were showing their first signs of perhaps not being a playoff team. However, the experience for the young prospects playing in the G League was worth it.
From there, each of them would only come back more confident and experienced as ever, ready to take on more of a role than even they would have expected.
