Yes, Harden is a unique player who can score and create for others but Kevin Martin had 20 points on 10 shots tonight and they won their 11th game in a row. When Harden got traded, everyone thought that made the Lakers the favorites but of course, that's not the case. Thoughts?
Its how out of sync the offense on OKC looked last year when Westbrook ran the point at times. When it got to that point they would put Harden in and the offense would flow through him and everything would settle back down. This year Durant has taken the step forward to being able to not only create for himself but others and it has allowed him to really dictate everything on the O end at times giving Westbrook a break from trying to make plays for teammates. I still think it will hurt them in the playoffs because Martin is not that dynamic of a player and he is just straight up garbage on the defensive end but I think the Thunder are going to make a big move before the trade deadline so I dont' think the team we see now will be the team they are at the playoffs.
They've almost already played half of their total home games (16 home games already). I doubt they'll drop off huge when they finally start playing more road games, but they have only 25 home games left vs 33 road games. That could catch up to them. 15 of their next 21 are road games. But they'll probably still have an insane record
A healthy Eric Maynor helps as well, only played 9 games last year and not at all in the playoffs. Last year their backup PGs were a committee of Derek Fisher, Royal Ivey, and Reggie Jackson. Having a dependable ball handler that gets them into their offense off the bench was pretty much what everyone thought they were losing with the Harden trade, you knew Martin would score the ball as well as Harden but the real question was who was gonna run the offense off the bench.
It has never been about whether Martin is talented, it's that he can't stay healthy. He's never played a full season.
