One of the questions that the Thunder face heading into the season is whether or not Dennis Schröder can play well alongside Russell Westbrook.

Before Tuesday’s matchup between the Bucks and the Thunder, Schroder’s former head coach with the Hawks, Mike Budenholzer, told reporters that he thinks that Schröder is ‘very capable’ of playing with Westbrook.

Mike Budenholzer says Dennis Schroder is "very capable" of playing with Russell Westbrook, working more off-ball: pic.twitter.com/PizsElxHwO — Erik Horne (@ErikHorneOK) October 9, 2018

Budenholzer highlighted the fact that Schröder will need to learn to play better off the ball. It was also mentioned that Schröder has experience playing within the flow of an offense throughout his career.

The most important aspect to Westbrook and Schröder sharing the floor together is that defenses respect them when they are playing off the ball.

The single greatest way to command respect as an off-ball play is to be a reliable catch-and-shoot threat. The less that defenders can leave you open, the more spacing there is for a playmaker to operate.

Schröder had a down year on catch-and-shoot attempts as he shot only 29 percent last season. There is at least some basis to be optimistic because he did shoot 34 percent on 32 more attempts in 2016-17.

There are certainly more components to playing off the ball than just catch-and-shoot, though. It’s important that Westbrook and Schröder remain active as cutters and are properly vacating the right spots on the floor in general.

It will be crucial that Thunder head coach Billy Donovan deploys a half-court offense that isn’t stagnant and units that have spacing coming from the supporting cast.

Oklahoma City’s ability to get into the lane could be prolific if they can pull it off. It is worth noting that both guards ranked in the top three last season for drives per game, Westbrook averaged 19.3 and Schröder averaged 16.4.

Having a flowing offense and good floor spacing would make it very difficult to defend the Thunder with Westbrook and Schröder on the floor together so there should be some optimism the pairing can work this season.