Western Conference executive calls Thunder ‘three-man circus’

The Oklahoma City Thunder took a severe blow when superstar Kevin Durant decided to leave the team for the Golden State Warriors last year. Russell Westbrook left to man a team with no clear future, but that changed when they acquired Paul George and Carmelo Anthony in separate trades this past summer.

Although it seemed that general manager Sam Presti set the franchise up for title contention for many years to come, the dynamic trio in Oklahoma City hasn’t worked out thus far. It has been so bad that the Thunder aren’t thought of very highly among executives in the NBA, via Ken Berger of Bleacher Report.

“It’s a three-man circus,” a Western Conference executive told Bleacher Report. “They don’t play well together. There’s no ball movement, no chemistry. You can tell by watching them play, it’s out of sync. There’s no rhyme or rhythm to how they play.”

The Thunder have only just recently started to get on somewhat of a roll. The team has struggled all season long with a lot of questions about whether these three stars could play together but now have won seven of their last 10 games and two straight.

Despite the recent success, the Thunder are still only one game over .500 at 16-15 which has they slightly ahead of Antony Davis’ New Orleans Pelicans for the seventh spot in the West. If Oklahoma City can’t sustain this recent run or it clearly doesn’t seem to be the right mix of players by February, the team could elect to trade George elsewhere considering most believe he’ll end up with the Los Angeles Lakers in NBA free agency this summer.

The NBA trade deadline is Feb. 8 with the Thunder ironically playing the Lakers in Los Angeles that day.

In the meantime, the Thunder have three teams ahead of them in terms of odds to win the Western Conference this season.