Over the past few years, Oklahoma City has made it a priority to acquire non-position players, whether through the draft, free agency or trades. The Thunder have clearly been looking to add basketball players who fit the system, and the rest remains to be found out later.
This also worked out pretty well, as Oklahoma City found a way to exploit their opponents in many different ways. While they no longer exclusively use a small-ball formation like they did during the rebuilding years, they do bring it out from time to time to wear teams out and get them out of the gym. To put it more simply, Oklahoma City has been the king of unconventional formations over the years, and that won’t change anytime soon.
With a guard-heavy group in the starting lineup or off the bench, it’s easy to wonder where Nikola Subject will fit into this group. That’s not what the Thunder think, however. They just need to get him on the field, see all of his skills and decide which lineups he fits best into. It’s not necessarily about position, it’s a battle to get the best players on the field.
The Thunder have done this with certain players and lineups in the past, and now can do it again with Topic.
“Yeah, I think you make a great point. I would bring it back to the fact that we come in every year with, like, we look at it as a blank canvas, and if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have discovered or understood a lot of different ways to win,” Sam Presti said during his preseason press conference. “Whether it was Chet at the 5, then – if we were just tied to the way we were doing things, we wouldn’t have gone for Hart or played Kenrich at the 5.
“One year we played three point guards at the same time with CP, Dennis and Shai; we played two big guys with Kanter and Adams. That kind of found, I could make a long list of those attempts, and they weren’t all successful. But I think for us, we don’t say, well, that’s a given. We say, how can this get better.”
The Thunder’s roster with ChrisPaul, Dennis SchröderAnd Shai Gilgeous-Alexander kicked off the Thunder’s unconventional lineup situation. This continued over the years with players like Kenrich Williams in the center.
Topic could certainly share the court with Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen WilliamsThat’s what the regular season is for. Figuring out where he fits will be a task for the coaching staff — and one they’re certainly excited about.
He’s a talented offensive player with playmaking skills and Oklahoma City could definitely use a player like him. It’s also large enough to fit into most lineups. The Thunder will give him a path to improve early on and continue to evaluate himself throughout the season.
“So as far as Topic goes, we just have to see where he is, how the team is doing, where the combinations are, and give him some time and not overreact if things don’t happen immediately, with particular players,” Presti said. “Because a team is, like I said, the sixth youngest team in the league, so there’s always going to be a ton of growth within the team over the course of the year, not to mention what was done in the offseason.”
