Thunder Practice Report | Mar. 31, 2022
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00:00It was the tale of Teo Malladon today in Thunder practice. He was the main topic
00:04of conversation and rightfully so. He has averaged 22 points per game in his last
00:09four games as a Thunder player. He's been leading the offense, been the primary
00:14creator and has been doing a lot of good things for the Thunder and coach
00:17Dagnalt said why he was impressed with him today.
00:20Well I would say, you know, first thing is like any time, like he guarded young a lot of the game last night and any time you get the
00:28opportunity to guard a player that is as high usage and as potent as young is,
00:33that's a that's a real opportunity that you can learn from and develop from and
00:38that you know you can lean into. So that's been something he's been able to
00:42do. He guarded Morant in the Memphis game and has taken on some primary matchups
00:47and then offensively just continuing to play with some aggressiveness and
00:52confidence, you know, which is something that's been a theme. He's a very, you know,
00:56steady player but, you know, steadiness doesn't, you know, uncover your upside as
01:01a player. It doesn't uncover the upside of the team and so just encouraging him
01:04to continue to stay aggressive. Now the only one that would know what made the
01:09difference for Taylor Malladon is Taylor Malladon himself and he said what the
01:13key has been to his development this season.
01:43Even though it seems like more and more players on this Thunder roster are
02:00incurring injuries, one player has made his return back into the fold for
02:04Oklahoma City and that is Jeremiah Robinson Earl. He's on a minutes
02:08restriction right now so only playing 15 and 16 minutes in his last two games
02:12but he has shown some promise and even Mark Dignolt had a lot to say about his
02:16game today.
02:17I think that the time away from the game when a guy's hurt, especially when it's a
02:22longer-term injury, tends to be valuable time for them. You know, you'd never design it
02:29that way. You know, we'd rather him have played over the last seven weeks if he
02:32was healthy but within the circumstances I think just being able to take a deep
02:36breath, kind of reassess where you're at, watch the game from a more distant
02:42perspective. I think when guys plug back in, I think you get that benefit in the
02:46offseason too. You know, once you like step out of the emotion of the season
02:49and you can kind of just look at it from a little more of a distance, you gain
02:53some wisdom and perspective in that and I think injuries allow guys to do that
02:56as well. I've been excited, you know, just seeing them at the four more I think with
03:01the way our team is right now. He's playing, he hasn't played any five really
03:04yet and so that's something, like I said, we toyed with early in the year but you
03:11know with our situation roster wise, like the five was the position where he
03:16was gonna get the most opportunities so that's where he played but we don't see
03:20him just truly, I think there's more versatility to him and we're gonna be
03:23able to like tap into that a little bit here in the final, you know, couple games
03:27of the season. And that concludes this Thunder practice report. Reporting for SI
03:31Thunder, I'm Christine Butterfield.