If the Thunder keep the same roster between today and training camp, they will have four players that can play the shooting guard position: Desmond Mason, Damien Wilkins, rookie Kyle Weaver, and Kevin Durant.
Now, what's wrong with that picture? Mason has never really evolved as a player, and despite random nights where he goes 10 for 10, he isn't that much of an asset. His game relied mostly on his athleticism, and at almost 31 years old and after some nice surgeries, most of that explosiveness is gone. Damien Wilkins has shown flashes of being a consistent contributor, but he doesn't score all that efficiently, and scoring is supposedly his strongest asset. I don't know what to expect out of Weaver, to be honest (except from a healthy supply of bench time). And that brings us to the Golden Boy, Mr. Durant.
But before we get to him, I actually want to talk a little bit about Jeff Green. I like Jeff Green a lot. That said, the Sonics may have made a mistake in drafting him with the 5th overall pick in '07. At that point there were plenty of guards and big men available, and yet the team brass decided to replicate the asset they already had in Durant by drafting another small forward. Sure, Durant can play shooting guard, and Green can play power forward. But in order to be the building blocks this team needs, both need to be at their natural position, and that's going to be awfully hard to do without running some bizarre I-formation double small forward set. But what's done is done, and the Thunder need to make sense of what assets they do have.
I can understand why playing Durant at the 2 makes more sense than playing Green at the 4. Durant's game is similar to a shooting guard in a lot of ways, and while Green can guard some of the smaller proto-fours that are all the rage these days, I don't see how he'd match up well against the the legit power forwards of the league. If he were moved to the three full-time, Durant may yet have problems with some of the bulkier, stronger forwards. Still, I'm sick of seeing Durant play out of position. One of the biggest knocks on Durant has been his scoring (in)efficiency and turnovers, and most of those woes should have been rebutted with his superb finish to the season. The high turnover rate can be attributed to the high amount of ball-handling that Durant has to do in the guard position and the general NBA growing pains; I feel moving him back to his natural small forward position would only help. The sample size is absolutely tiny, but in the 7 games that Durant started at small forward rather than shooting guard, he showed a 1.5% increase in FG% despite attempting an additional four shots per contest. He shot almost 10% better from three point range, and made 2 more threes per game. His rebounding and assists went up, and his turnovers stayed the same. These are all incredibly basic and rudimentary measures of how he performed, but seeing Durant in the shooting guard role just seemed awkward. He doesn't need to be banging around in the paint all the time, but Durant is a smart enough player to find ways to score around the hoop while still getting plenty of good looks on jumpers. (Looking at the stats again, I still can't believe people viewed Durant's rookie year as a disappointment. Especially anyone who found the strength within themselves to vote for Al Horford for ROY. What made LeBron's rookie year, lauded as one of the best ever, so much better than Durant's? The only place where LBJ really has KD is in assists, but we all expected that.)
Getting a contributing guard isn't even about plugging the spot in the starting lineup, because Durant is doing fine there. I'm not questioning his ability to be a placeholder while still being productive. It's more about establishing consistency for the Thunder's long-term future, in which Durant will have to move back to small forward if he plans on actualizing his ridiculous potential.
So have fun with that one, Presti. Time for you to get creative (again), snag a guard from under a team's nose, and save your superstar from capping his capabilities by playing out of position.
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