The Oklahoma City Thunder have once again hit another rut that has put the focus on the struggles their Big 3 of Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony have had together trying to figure out how to best play alongside each other.

Despite the big splash moves over the offseason have actually put them on a worse pace than last year through the first 42 games played as Forfunzi of Reddit has pointed out.

Last year the Thunder was 25-17 after 42 games vs 22-20 of this incarnation of OK3

It had appeared that Oklahoma City had begun to find their stride in late December with a six-game winning streak that saw them hold a 12-5 record in the month. However, that progress has seemingly gone out of the window after dropping five out of their last seven games including their past three straight contests.

The Thunder have had much difficulty in finding a way for their best three players to cohesively play together on the floor. Russell Westbrook is still playing at an MVP-like level with 25.1 points, 10.0 assists, and 9.6 rebounds per game. At the same token, both George and Anthony have had their fair share of struggles in being effective scorers.

This has primarily been most difficult for Anthony to settle into this third scoring option with most of his scoring opportunities now coming on catch-and-shoot situations when he has been an isolation scorer for his entire career. It's a major adjustment that he has continued to show troubles with trying to fit his way into playing on a nightly basis.

What this does more than anything is shift the focus toward this upcoming trade deadline that is just less than a month away. If the team continues to head south, the question could become whether general manager Sam Presti should seriously consider moving George before he possibly leaves the Thunder empty-handed in free agency.