Felton factor
Will Raymond Felton be a difference maker in the playoffs?
Billy Donovan had no desire to talk about the playoffs. But you can guarantee he remembers last season’s brief fivegame first round without a true backup point guard.
With three games remaining in the Thunder’s regular season, Donovan has to worry about getting the Thunder to play with any semblance of consistency. But it’s a testament to Raymond Felton that the minutes Russell Westbrook hasn’t been on the floor have taken a load off Donovan relative to the 2016 Western Conference first round against Houston.
When the postseason kicks off next week, if the Thunder is in, Felton — not Paul George or Carmelo Anthony — will be the biggest difference from last season's ineptitude without Westbrook at the point.
Yes, the Thunder still has to earn its way into the Western Conference playoffs, but this season has already been a marked improvement with Felton backing up Westbrook.
What Felton could provide when Westbrook was off the floor was a talking point between the Thunder and Felton when the 33-year-old signed with Oklahoma City for the veteran’s minimum in July.
“Raymond is a really veteran, experienced guy, and I think the one thing — it was hard for Semaj (Christon), and it wasn’t because of Semaj,” Donovan said of last year’s rookie point guard. “I think being a rookie, his first time up there, having to take over a second unit, there was a lot.”
The difference Felton has brought to a backcourt which was beleaguered without Westbrook last season is stark. There’s a decisiveness, whether Felton’s probing for points himself or distributing, that was oft missing from Christon or even in the underutilized instances Victor Oladipo was handed the ball in the second unit.
“You always prefer to play with someone who is decisive instead of indecisive. It makes your job a lot easier out there and it makes it more fun,” said Thunder forward Patrick Patterson, who’s shooting 40.2 percent when
with Felton. “Ray does an exceptional job with that.”
Felton has assisted on more of Patterson’s field goals (36-of-102, 35.2 percent) than any other Thunder player.
“He knows if he has an opportunity to pass it, he’s going to pass it,” Patterson said. “So, there’s no gray area with him. It’s pretty black and white and that makes everything run smooth out there for us.”
That same decisiveness can be a gift and a curse for the Thunder’s
second unit. When the ball sticks, sometimes you’ll hear Donovan yell “move it!” as Felton has been relied on to carry all-bench lineups for most of the season.
With either Alex Abrines or Terrance Ferguson as the variable at shooting guard, allbench units led by Felton and featuring Patterson, Jerami Grant and Josh Huestis, have shot Felton’s usage rate (possessions ending with a field-goal attempt, free throw attempt or turnover) to 32.4 and 31.4, respectively. That ball dominance can be a minus from a career 41.2 percent shooter, even if Felton is firing the thirdbest 3-point percentage of his career (34.5).
But in the 374 minutes Westbrook and Felton have played together, Felton’s usage drops to a modest 14.2 percent, and the Thunder is 5.3 in points per 100 possessions better than the opposition.
Those minutes together will increase with Donovan’s rotation
shortening in the playoffs.
“It just gives me a chance to get off the ball a little bit and it also gives him a chance where I can bring it up and get him off the ball a little bit,” Felton said. “That lineup with him in the game, it can be a lot of fun and a lot of up and down.”
But Felton’s true value is in the few minutes Westbrook sits. While the Thunder has more offensive firepower to weather non-Westbrook minutes, it’s still a net negative (minus6.0) with Felton in the game instead of Westbrook.
That’s still not the cliff dive of the 2016-17
postseason, when the Thunder was minus51.3 per 100 possessions when Westbrook was off the court.
Even with Donovan’s mind still in regularseason mode, he at least doesn’t have to stress about his backup point guard when the playoffs arrive.
“Raymond’s been in the league for so long. He can take four guys and he can get them organized and get them ready to go and he can speak to them and he can kind of encourage them,” Donovan said. “He’s in tune to what’s going on in the game; he’s in tune to matchups. So, he helps that group in a lot of different ways.”