How The Thunder Can Become A Dream Team

Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. On this week’s show (Nov. 22, 2017), Neil, Chris and Kyle take a look at how the recent injury to Denver Nuggets forward Paul Millsap will affect the team. Millsap will reportedly have surgery on his wrist and could miss three months. Next, the crew discusses why the Thunder haven’t clicked yet. After bringing Paul George and Carmelo Anthony to Oklahoma City last summer, the Thunder were anticipated to be a contender in the West. But it hasn’t all come together so far. We investigate what’s going right, what’s going wrong and how they might turn the season around. Plus, a small-sample-size segment on Lonzo Ball.

Here are links to what we discussed this week:

• Keep an eye on our 2017-18 NBA predictions, updated after every game.
• Chris Herring wrote that the Thunder aren’t far from being good.
• ESPN’s Royce Young took a look at the still-developing chemistry between Russell Westbrook and Paul George.