Through roughly a quarter of the season, Josh Giddey’s struggles have been a sore spot for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The 21-year-old has regressed from last season with his shooting efficiency. He’s shooting 42.7% from the field and 31% from 3 on 2.2 attempts. He’s also shooting a career-worst 45.4% on 2-pointers and 45.6% on effective field-goal percentage.
It’s not just the jumper that isn’t falling for Giddey, the third-year guard is also struggling to finish inside of the paint.
Giddey is shooting career lows on shots 0-3 feet from the basket (60%) and 3-10 feet from the basket (31.9%). He also has a notably ugly on-off plus-minus of negative-14.7 and is averaging a career-low 22.4% assist percentage.
No matter how it’s spun, Giddey is off to the worst start of his three-season career. Off the court, it’s important to note that he is also dealing with some serious allegations of being in an inappropriate relationship with a minor that is currently being investigated by both the NBA and California police.
When asked about Giddey’s on-court struggles, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said he won’t judge him off of this 19-game sample size, citing the type of offseason he had usually means a player improves.
“It’s a complex game. It’s hard to evaluate anything in a vacuum and separate one thing out,” Daigneault said.
“His efficiency is down. I’ve said this about other players before and I’ll say this about him — your efficiency can be down or your performance can be down and you can still be a better player.
“You can’t convince me with all the experience he’s had in this past — comes into the summer, he improves his body, he improves his shot, he plays national team and gets exposure to a different team, different role, high-level competition — you can’t convince me that he does all that all summer and comes back here a worse player.
“Now, his efficiency is down. That may be true. But he’s still a better player than he was a year ago and it’s important — for us, for you guys, for everybody — to understand that development is not linear and the reason we say growth through experiences is you have to grow through your struggles. And sometimes your struggles are blessings in disguise.
“He’s struggled obviously from an efficiency standpoint but it’s not an indictment on him as a player — if anything, he’s a better player. He can turn these struggles with the efficiency into future growth if he interacts with those the right way and I have no doubt he will.”
Mark Daigneault on Josh Giddey’s efficiency being down: pic.twitter.com/QgjXThcqzQ
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) December 5, 2023
This is a well-said response by Daigneault when talking about Giddey, who’s received a heavy dosage of criticism for his poor start to the season. The 2021 No. 6 pick has earned more room for error after two solid seasons.
With that said, it’s not like the Thunder haven’t taken note of Giddey’s poor play. His playing time has slowly dwindled over the last few games. Against the Dallas Mavericks, he played a season-low 17 minutes.
It appears the Thunder will stick it out with Giddey until he either figures it out or forces Daigneault’s hands to make a more drastic decision. Either way, OKC is taking a cerebral approach to how they handle Giddey.
