Russell Westbrook Injury Means It's Sebastian Telfair and Perry Jones Time in Oklahoma City

Russell Westbrook hurt his hand during the second quarter of the Thunder’s 93-90 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night. Westbrook suffered a small fracture of the second metacarpal in his right hand and early indications are that he will miss 4-6 weeks. This is bad, bad news for Oklahoma City.

Just how deep of a hole will the Thunder be in by the time Westbrook or Durant is healthy again? Kevin Durant probably won’t be back until December and Westbrook was supposed to keep the Thunder afloat until then. With Westbrook out, Sebastian Telfair will be asked to start. The last time an NBA team relied on Sebastian Telfair to start regularly was the ’07-’08 and ’08-’09 Timberwolves. Those teams won a combined 46 games.

Of course, they didn’t have Serge Ibaka. Last season, Ibaka took a career-high 12.1 shots a night – good for 65th in the league. Of course, without Durant and Westbrook creating those shots, how will he fare? The Thunder are already 0-2. I guess it’s Perry Jones time. After scoring 3 points in the season opener, Jones went off for 32 on Thursday. Can the 28th pick in the 2012 NBA Draft possibly keep it up a season after scoring 3.5 points per game and barely getting on the floor in the playoffs? Is it more likely that Scott Brooks buried a solid player on the bench the last two seasons, Jones is suddenly ready or last night was an anomaly? We’ll find out over the next few weeks.

[Bassy Defense by @CJZero]