One of the Oklahoma City Thunder players that has received the largest decrease in playing time this season is Tre Mann, who has only played in a total of seven games and received just three minutes since Nov. 20.
Mann was finally given a substantial amount of minutes from Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault last night against the Houston Rockets, recording 10 points, four assists, three rebounds and two steals on 4-of-8 shooting in 24 minutes.
While it was an underwhelming loss across the board for Oklahoma City, Mann's performance was one of the few bright spots of the night. The starting unit struggled immensely in shooting the ball outside of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, while the likes of Mann and Aaron Wiggins commanded an efficient night from the bench.
Time and time again, Mann shows his ability to be a spark plug for the the Thunder in a bench role. The guard can be a quality scoring option and ball handler, but the opportunities have gotten more and more sparse for him.
It's understandable that with such a deep roster of quality players, it is hard to find quality minutes for all. There simply isn't room for 24 minutes of playing time for Mann every night, but at least getting an increase of 10 or so minutes for a few games in a row can help the guard get settled back into the team.
Gaining the quick offensive production that Mann has demonstrated over the season can be beneficial for when Gilgeous-Alexander is on the bench, especially with the ongoing offensive struggles of Josh Giddey.
With this performance, Mann may have shown enough to the the Thunder coaching staff to gain more minutes in the coming weeks. If not, his time in Oklahoma City could be coming to a close in the near future.
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