The 2022-23 Oklahoma City Thunder’s season ended with the play-in tournament loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, which means it’s time for reflection.
Being one of the biggest overachievers in the league, the Thunder finished with a 40-42 record after being predicted by many to have high lottery odds.
Now that the season is in the books, let’s go back and evaluate all 19 players who suited up for the Thunder this past season. Grades will be handed out to every player in terms of what their expectations were heading into the season and how they lived up to them.
The 15th player in this installment is Darius Bazley, whose OKC tenure ended following being traded to the Phoenix Suns. In a contract year, he played a career-low in minutes with OKC.
(Editor’s note: We are starting individual grades for all players from the 2022-23 Oklahoma City Thunder. To access other reviews as part of this ongoing series, click here.)
2022-23 statistics:
- 5.2 points
- 3.2 rebounds
- 0.9 assists
- 45.4% shooting
- 37.7% 3-point shooting
- 54.3% free-throw shooting
Advanced stats:
- True-shooting percentage: 52.4%
- Usage rate: 16.4%
- Win shares: 1
- VORP: 0.2
- Block percentage: 5.1%
Significant Percentile Finishes:
- Isolation scorer: 2 percentile
- Transition scorer: 12.5 percentile
- P&R roll man: 36.6 percentile
- Spot up: 46.3 percentile
- Cutter: 52.8 percentile
Contract:
- 2023-24: RFA
Thoughts:
Bazley’s final season with the Thunder was an unceremonious one as he averaged a career-low 15.4 minutes. After averaging 29.3 minutes and starting in 108 of 124 games his last two seasons, he was essentially out of OKC’s rotation for the final months of his tenure.
Bazley had his moments, but for the most part, he was out of the Thunder’s rotation and the writing was on the wall that his tenure was coming to an end. It became official when he was traded to the Phoenix Suns during the trade deadline.
The same problems that were there for Bazley in his last couple of seasons were also there this season. While he provided valuable athletic defense, his offense plateaued as someone who could get tunnel vision and erratically attack the basket when the ball reached him.
It felt like whenever Bazley had the ball, there was always the constant threat of him hijacking the possession to isolate — which is not his strength (he was in the 2nd percentile in isolation scorers). More times than not, this resulted in a wasted possession due to a bad shot being produced.
The 3-point shooting also disappeared for Bazley this season. After averaging 4.5 attempts the last two seasons, he was held to just 1.2 this season. A supposed strength of his, he’s slowly lost his touch from the outside as the seasons progressed.
Overall, while the Bazley era in OKC didn’t go the way as many had hoped — especially after an impressive rookie campaign — I’d say the Thunder got their money’s worth for the No. 23 pick who was deemed a project.
The Thunder got a couple of decent seasons out of him before eventually moving on as they added better/younger talent to their roster — such is life in the NBA.
Moving Forward:
Entering restricted free agency, I have no idea what Bazley’s future hold. He’s essentially been a benchwarmer for the Suns too during the last couple of months of the season. He had even less playing time as he averaged 8.7 minutes in just seven appearances with Phoenix.
Considering how expensive the Suns are, I seriously doubt they offer him the qualifying offer, which is worth $6.2 million. Perhaps he can land somewhere due to being a Klutch client, but his long-term future with the league is not looking good.
It seems like Bazley will need to take a cheap one-year deal somewhere that can offer him consistent playing time and hope he can recoup some of his value next season as a rotation wing.
Like it’s been heavily discussed, Bazley needs to downgrade his role on offense and figure out the 3-point shooting as that will likely be where the majority of his shots will come from if he stays in the NBA for the long run.
The good news is that he shot 47% on corner 3s with OKC this season, which puts him in the 94th percentile among bigs. The bad news is that it was on an extremely small sample size of 17 attempts and was awful from the corner 3 spot his previous three seasons.
The defensive talent is definitely there with this length and athleticism, but that can only buy you so much time if you’re not either competent on offense or elite on defense — which it seems like he’s currently neither.
At 22 years old, Bazley is still young enough for another team to take a flier on. That just wasn’t going to be the case with the Thunder as they continue to add more promising talent to their roster.
