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The trade deadline is less than a week away (five days, to be exact; the actual date is February 20th), and it looks like the Thunder is another one of the many teams scouring through the trade market. Per Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski:
Armed with trade exceptions, OKC has been active in search for a shooter to fortify them for title run, league sources tell Yahoo.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) February 13, 2014
To be exact, the Thunder are shopping more for a two-way wing player than simply a shooter.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) February 14, 2014
My initial reaction to this was that this fits in nicely with the Thabo Sefolosha trade rumor of last week and my hypothesis that the Thunder were looking to move Sefolosha for a shooter. Sefolosha might be their most tradable asset in terms of replaceability and trade value. That they're looking for a "two-way wing player" (read: 3-and-D) isn't surprising, since that type of role player is pretty much what every team in the league wants nowadays. Make no mistake though, the need here is three-point shooting since they're trading a standout defender in Sefolosha.
The tl;dr version of my post from last week is that Sefolosha has regressed to 33.6% shooting from this season after shooting 41.9% last season, and it coincides with a lack of spot-up shooters for the Thunder this season. If you look at this table from Basketball-Reference, you can see how the Thunder are missing a three-point specialist that has been both efficient and prolific.
| Rk | Player | Age | G | GS | MP | 3P | 3PA | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kevin Durant | 25 | 54 | 54 | 38.2 | 2.2 | 5.4 | .410 |
| 2 | Russell Westbrook | 25 | 25 | 25 | 32.9 | 1.4 | 4.4 | .309 |
| 3 | Serge Ibaka | 24 | 54 | 54 | 32.6 | 0.3 | 0.7 | .375 |
| 4 | Reggie Jackson | 23 | 55 | 30 | 28.4 | 1.0 | 3.1 | .315 |
| 5 | Jeremy Lamb | 21 | 55 | 0 | 22.1 | 1.3 | 3.5 | .366 |
| 6 | Thabo Sefolosha | 29 | 51 | 51 | 26.9 | 0.8 | 2.5 | .336 |
| 7 | Derek Fisher | 39 | 54 | 0 | 16.3 | 1.0 | 2.6 | .381 |
| 8 | Nick Collison | 33 | 54 | 0 | 17.5 | 0.0 | 0.2 | .167 |
| 9 | Kendrick Perkins | 29 | 53 | 53 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | .000 |
| 10 | Perry Jones | 22 | 44 | 2 | 12.2 | 0.3 | 0.8 | .351 |
| 11 | Steven Adams | 20 | 55 | 2 | 14.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | |
| 12 | Andre Roberson | 22 | 22 | 4 | 7.5 | 0.0 | 0.2 | .200 |
| 13 | Hasheem Thabeet | 26 | 8 | 0 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | |
| 14 | Ryan Gomes | 31 | 5 | 0 | 6.8 | 0.0 | 0.4 | .000 |
| 15 | Royal Ivey | 32 | 2 | 0 | 2.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 | .000 |
Guys I named as potential targets in my original piece on trading Sefolosha include Jared Dudley, Mike Dunleavy, Randy Foye, Trevor Ariza and (the unlikely best case scenario) Arron Afflalo. C.J. Miles was a very popular candidate on Twitter as a player the Thunder might target, and he's been great in Cleveland this season. With assets like Perry Jones III and the Dallas Mavericks' protected first-rounder as well as some trade exceptions, the Thunder definitely have the flexibility to get a deal done before next Thursday.
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