Mike Muscala moves down depth chart as Thunder prioritize youth
In the eight Oklahoma City Thunder games since the All-Star break, center Mike Muscala has only appeared in one. In that game, Al Horford, Darius Bazley, Lu Dort and Theo Maledon were all out, which forced rotation changes. Muscala had eight points in 12 minutes.
Outside that, he hasn’t appeared for the Thunder in the second half of the season. Head coach Mark Daigneault said that this is the new expectation for the veteran.
“There may be times where we’re calling on him, I’m not calling that out of the question,” Daigneault said, “but I would say if I’m being fully honest, that it’s going to look, at least initially here, more like what it’s looked like the last eight games.”
Daigneault said that the team discussed this change with Muscala during the All-Star break.
“That’s been communicated with Mike and that’s been a collaborative conversation,” he said. “Mike understands where we’re at. He’s the ultimate professional.”
Muscala has had the best season of his career. His 9.7 points per game are the most he has averaged over his eight seasons, and he’s shooting 37% from 3 while grabbing 3.8 boards in 18.4 minutes of play. The stretch-5 style added another dimension to the Thunder bench.
But now that there are fewer than 30 games remaining on the Oklahoma City schedule, the Thunder are going to put even more of a premium on developing their young players.
“We’re focused on development throughout the whole season and exploring the roster throughout the whole season, but as we enter kind of the last [weeks], we’re going to be continuing to look at younger players and continuing to really focus on the development of guys that need these minutes in a dire way in order to improve,” Daigneault said.
That leaves Muscala on the sidelines. He will be a free agent after this season and will almost certainly be able to earn more than the $2.3 million player option he accepted last offseason. He has played well for Oklahoma City.
It’s safe to assume the Thunder were willing to listen to offers for the center ahead of the trade deadline, but either nothing was enticing enough or no serious talks ever developed.
With Muscala willing to take to the bench, that opens the door for more minutes for bigs Moses Brown, Isaiah Roby, Aleksej Pokusevski and the newly acquired Tony Bradley, once he joins the Thunder.
With all those bodies trying to fit through the door, it makes sense that Muscala gets left out.
This post originally appeared on OKCThunderWire. Follow us on Facebook!
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