In this continuing series, Thunder Wire assigns three goals to each of the 21 players, per Spotrac, that make up the Oklahoma City Thunder roster.
The Thunder’s season kicks off on Oct. 25 against the Chicago Bulls. After a surprising 40-42 campaign that ended a win shy of the playoffs, OKC enters this year with playoff aspirations.
Buy Thunder TicketsLet’s assign three goals for Tre Mann, who is entering his third season. Last year could be categorized as a sophomore slump for him. The 22-year-old struggled with consistency and slowly fizzled out of the rotation as the season progressed.
Mann hopes to get his career back on track this season as he’ll fight an uphill battle for consistent playing time.
Establish being a bench scoring guard
During the 2021 NBA draft, Tre Mann was profiled as a combo guard who could provide self-creation scoring. Through two seasons, he’s shown signs of that — more his rookie season than last year — but so far nothing sustainable.
Mann will need to show signs of consistency in his third season if he wants to craft a career out of that role. The talent is definitely there, but so far that hasn’t materialized to anything tangible outside of flashes.
It might be too late to do that in OKC, but Mann will have an entire season to prove otherwise and slowly climb into the rotation.
Avoid G League
While the Thunder have done an excellent job at removing any negative connotations related to the G League, if a third-year player is still getting assigned to the Blue fully healthy, then that doesn’t forecast well for his long-term future.
While the Blue was certainly a helpful tool for Mann these last two seasons as a quick confidence booster, he’s matured past that entering his third season.
If he is still being assigned long stretches of G League assignments, then that likely means he isn’t progressing the way most hoped he’d be by now.
Score 30+ points at least once
Mann’s rookie season excited the fanbase as it looked like the Thunder nailed the pick. A pair of 30-point games helped fuel that excitement as it showed off his potential as a scoring guard.
Last season though, Mann struggled and was slowly phased out of the rotation. His season-high was 25 points in October.
It’s time for the 22-year-old to show off his scoring talents by having at least one game where he scores over 30 points. It’d be a nice reminder as to why fans were excited about him this time last year.
