Now that Paul George has taken on Russell Westbrook’s role as the Thunder’s most important player and MVP candidate, the team has to solve a conundrum with George that it faced with Westbrook for the last two years:
How the hell do we survive for the minutes this guy needs to rest?
During the two previous seasons, the Thunder became a sinkhole when Westbrook went to the bench. They posted a net rating -9.5 (meaning they were outscored by 9.5 points per every 100 possessions) when Russ sat in 2016-17, (this was a major talking point in Russ’s case for MVP) and -5.