The Tankathon Is On

Welcome back to The Graham Jam newsletter! I hope you and yours had a very happy, healthy Thanksgiving and got to watch some sports while you were at it.

Congratulations to Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault, who welcomed a healthy baby boy last Sunday with his wife Ashley! The coach's son is named Alex John Daigneault, and will go by AJ. "We tossed around Poku, Luguentz," Daigneault joked to the media Wednesday night. "Settled on AJ."

Daigneault missed a three-game road trip for the birth but rejoined his squad for the Wednesday-night matchup against Utah.

In this week's Graham Jam, we'll take a deeper dive into Thunder stats, brush up on the new relaxed rules at the Paycom Center, and play our first game of Tankathon. But first, a look back on the week that was. Let's get to it!

Last week

Atlanta 113, Thunder 101 (11/22 AWAY)

Utah 110, Thunder 104 (11/24 HOME)

Washington 101, Thunder 99 (11/26 HOME)

Stat blast

Now that Oklahoma City is 19 games into the season, we've got a pretty good idea what this team is going to be. In the early going, it's easy to dismiss wonky stats and worrying trends as products of a small sample size, but now the season is nearly one-fourth complete. It's still not impossible for a team to clean up its deficiencies, but if that team isn't waiting on a star player to come back, then it's pretty tough.

So what do the quarter-mark stats tell us about the Thunder?

Oklahoma City gets rebounds from up and down the lineup. The Thunder aren't performing well in many statistical categories, but they lead the NBA in rebounds per game. OKC averages 47.8 rebounds per game, which is 0.3 more than second-place Milwaukee, the defending champs with rebound machine Giannis Antetokounmpo on the roster.

How are they doing that without any 7-footers on the team? The team's leading rebounder isn't who you'd expect — it's Josh Giddey, a traditional point guard, whose 6-8 frame nonetheless has him averaging 7.3 total rebound per game. In fact, Darius Bazley, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Derrick Favors are all averaging at least five rebounds per game. It's this production from up and down the lineup that has OKC leading the league.

OKC has a league-average defense. An NBA team's offensive net rating is the number of points they score per 100 possessions, and the defensive rating is the number of points they give up in the same span. Put them together, and Oklahoma City has a -7 net rating — meaning, it gives up seven more points than it scores per 100 possessions. That's one of the worst marks in the league — No. 26 out of 30 teams.

But look closer and you'll see that Oklahoma City's defensive net rating is 14th, actually just better than league-average, at 107. That's a better defensive mark than talented teams like the Lakers and Mavericks. But OKC is dragged down by the league's worst offense, with an offensive rating of 100 — exactly one point per possession. By comparison, Utah leads the league in offense with a 114.2 offensive net rating, and Golden State's 13.6 mark is the best differential overall.

The Thunder shoot a lot of 3s, but not very well. There are plenty of reasons why Oklahoma City is off to a 6-13 start, but surely a key one is the fact that it shoots 3-pointers worse than every NBA team save the Detroit Pistons. OKC is shooting 31.3% from deep this season, compared to 37.7% from Charlotte at the top of the chart.

Among the players getting actual minutes, Mike Muscala and Robinson-Earl are easily the team's best 3-point shooters — which is funny, since both have spent most of their time at center this year. Muscala hits 43.6% and JRE hits at a 40.7% clip, though they have just 55 and 59 attempts, respectively.

After that, the production kind of nosedives. Lu Dort and SGA take the most 3s on the team by far, and Dort has overcome a very slow start to up his percentage a bit. But he is still hitting just 32.1% for the year on more than seven attempts per game, while Gilgeous-Alexander is even worse at 30.8%. That's likely due to all the defensive attention he gets; a lot of SGA 3-point attempts come on step-backs with a hand in his face.

Oklahoma City takes a lot of 3s — eighth-most in the league, in fact, at 38.2 per game. But that's not a winning formula when they're not falling.

COVID rules relaxed

Oklahoma City announced last week that it will be lifting its vaccination and testing requirements to attend home games this year, beginning in December. If you recall, the Thunder began the year requiring that all fans attending home games be fully or partially vaccinated, or else get a negative COVID-19 test within days of the game. Fans were asked to provide proof to gain entry to the Paycom Center.

However, due to falling case numbers and increasing vaccination rates, the Thunder have decided to lift this rule. OKC's next home game is on Wednesday, Dec. 1, and the vaccine/testing requirement will no longer be in place. The team is still encouraging masks, and they may be required near the court.

In a news release, the Thunder said more than 85% of Oklahoma County residents ages 12 and up are now at least partially vaccinated, and case counts statewide have declined 60% since the season began.

So if the requirement was holding you back, I hope you'll now be able to make it to a Thunder game this season! And let's hope this so-called omicron variant doesn't mess everything up again.

Tank Time

And finally, let's introduce a new segment we'll be revisiting each week. It's called Tank Time! Here's how it works:

For those who don't know, Tankathon.com is an NBA Draft Lottery simulator that can show fans where their team might be picking in the upcoming draft. Using current league standings and the percentages associated with each, with one click the website will throw out a new scenario showing where every team might land.

Great teams like Golden State and Brooklyn aren't so worried about the draft; with any luck, they will play deep into the playoffs and pick at the back of the first round. But for Oklahoma City and teams like it, the Draft Lottery is hugely important. Thunder fans will remember well the disappointment they felt to fall outside the top five draft picks last summer — fortunately, it seems like the No. 6 pick is panning out nicely. But you'd still rather pick higher than not.

So every week, I will give another click on Tankathon.com and post the results here. Does it matter? Absolutely not, but it will at least give fans a sense of what the team might be looking at, in terms of draft position, next summer. And plus, it's just fun.

A refresher: The NBA teams with the three worst records each have a 14% chance of nabbing the No. 1 overall pick. From there, the odds decrease to 12.5% and then to 10.5%, all the way down to the last team out of the playoffs, which gets a 0.5% chance at the first overall pick.

Currently, the 6-13 Thunder have the sixth-worst record in the league. If the season ended today, they would have a 9% chance at picking first and would be most likely to pick seventh, a 29.8% chance.

It's a lot, I know. Let's just hit the button:

Tankathon results

1. Sacramento (+6 from current record)

2. Oklahoma City (+4)

3. Detroit

4. San Antonio (+1)

5. Houston (-4)

6. Orlando (-4)

7. New Orleans (-3)

8. Indiana

9. Toronto

10. Denver

11. Memphis (via Lakers)

12. Philadelphia

13. Cleveland

14. Boston

A great result! Under this simulation, Oklahoma City gets the second overall pick despite having only the sixth-worst record. Statistically, there was a 9.2% chance for OKC to get that pick — but only a 7.5% chance for Sacramento to pick first, so good for them. (The Kings would probably screw it up anyway, as they usually do.)

We'll look more closely at who Oklahoma City might be eyeing with a top draft pick in a future newsletter. For now, let's look ahead to this week's Rocket-tastic slate of games, and call it quits for now. Thunder Up!

This week

11/29: Thunder @ Houston, 7 p.m., Bally Sports Oklahoma

12/1: Thunder vs. Houston, 7 p.m., BSOK

12/2: Thunder @ Memphis, 7 p.m., BSOK