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I think 35 wins is cool, 41 wins is a possibility but that is if everything clicks and i just think that it will be year by year progress.

I hear a lot of talk by experts saying that Durant will hit 30ppg this year but that aint my concern. If he can keep the points and percentage the same while adding an extra rebound and a couple assists per game then he will be well on his way to be being an elite player.

Livinstone and westbrrok continue to improve and harden shows he is for real then i think were the best young team around and in a couple of years then were gunna be contending.

KB :I’m gonna say over 40 wins only because I think Presti will pull off a big trade sometime during the year.

You make a good point. If by the trade deadline Brooks has the guys within shouting distance of that last playoff spot and the economy makes a team desperate to unload a star quality big, I could see Presti being a buyer with this capspace, expiring contracts & extra 2010 1st round pick.

@Dan

I'm not sure how that perception came about, that we're great on offense and bad on defense, but I've seen several people on this blog say the same thing.

However, by any statistical measure for the 08-09 season, we were no better than average on defense, and no better than bottom 6 on offense. If you look at offensive efficiency, we were next to last. If you look at points per game, we were 24th.

We need both scoring and defense, but according to last year, we were better on defense. In fact, the only thing we did really well last year was rebound.

I said last year that I wanted/expected 30-35 wins this year and I'm sticking to it. Anything in that range.

i went over. to be honest, i've seen about 20 minutes of thunder bball in my life, all via terrible webstreams (i love oklahoma and all, but the weather here is just tremendous...so to speak), so i am not nearly as qualified to realistically judge the team's growth potential as the rest of you. i just want them to fight for a playoff spot so maybe they'll get a few more games on national tv.

Maybe it's wishful thinking after watching that Serge video but I can't stop imagining a fast break with Russ Jeff KD and Serge. In summer league we saw how well he could run the floor. Any team would have fits. I really hope Serge can be a shocker this year and establish himself. If he does I can see it being a really good year.

Does noone else see this being just like the hornets when they were in OKC/NO. bad record, then playoff contender, and then breakout season. Just sit back enjoy this year and patiently wait for the grandeur of next year

I see it as extremely conditional. If durant plays decent defense, and the team as a whole plays good defense, we will win over 40 games. We don't have a problem scoring points, its keeping the other team from scoring, and having a bench that can actually score points and not blow our 1st quarter leads. If they don't improve defensively and durant is hurt for a month, I think around 30 wins is likely. So averaging the two is 35, but my heart is hoping for a much defensively improved team. Defense is all that is holding us back right now cuz we are young, defense is something that is hard to be good at coming into the league, its something that you learn through experience combined with a hustling mentality. We have the hustle just not the experience, and to some degree, the bodies.

I'm gonna say over 40 wins only because I think Presti will pull off a big trade sometime during the year.

@ Steve H
I want to agree with you, Steve. But I just don't think that our team will have the interior defense (yet!) to win half of their games.

I think that I will agree with what Royce has been saying though: if Westbrook can come back really (REALLY) improved with his handles and decision-making, this squad has a legitimate shot at an 8-seed. They will be exciting. They'll run a lot. And they'll score a lot of points. I just don't quite see RW making that jump yet however. But he'll get there; I have a lot of faith in him.

Either way, I'm very excited for this season, and I wish that it would hurry up and get here. As we know, this team is young and they have a long-way to go. But I think that they can realistically manage to be competitive each game, beat some elite-caliber squads, and win 34 or 35 games. And if they do all of that, i will be very happy with the season.

I voted over (35 wins) for two reasons. First is the reason everybody knows. We are going to improve as a team. Harden is huge pickup just given our glaring need at SG (sorry Thabo, but our offense needs more help than our defense at the moment). KD is a superstar, and Westbrook has to shoot and make decisions better than he did last year. We will gain 7-9 wins on our improvement alone. Second is the idea brought up earlier that no one seemed to notice. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. San Antonio may very well sweep us next year, but we'll pick up 6-7 games against other teams getting worse. We can beat Phoenix, Houston, New Orleans, Utah, and Dallas. There are still 5-6 teams that we will be huge longshots to beat, but outside of them, there just aren't any other imposing teams. We will be good enough on our own to feel like we can stay in any game. Add in the perplexing additions and old age of our opponents, and I'll feel a lot more confident night in and night out.

Lets look at it this way- how many more points per game on average can we expect from this years squad? Russell IS going to hit at a higher percentage clip. Harden IS going to be a significant improvement on the offensive end at the two than we had last year. Jeff Green and KD can both realistically be expected to up their averages by a point or two. We averaged 97 per game last year- a five points per night bump seems realistic- even conservative- from where I'm sitting. On the defensive end we gave up 103 points a night on average last year. KD and Uncle Jeff are both reportedly coming back with additional bulk. Russell IS going to commit fewer turnovers this year. If he is half assed healthy- and Presti seems picky about taking players in questionable health- I expect Thomas to add some toughness and improved defense in the middle off the bench. So how many fewer points a night can we realistically expect to give up? Does three fewer per sound crazy to anyone? If all of that adds up, we would have a +1 points scored/allowed differential. Looks like a .500 team to me.

@Mully Mulls
Nice "Faces of Scranton" reference.

Look at the schedule last year and that 3-29 opening -- the schedule really wasn't that tough. I've got 14 games out of 32 against non-playoff teams, with only 5 of the others (ORL, Cleveland twice, Boston and @SA) being top-echelon opponents. (Quick count, but it's close enough). I think we were just that bad.

I said a little while back (in a post nominated to Thoughts of the Week, I believe...thank you, thank you) that I was looking for 38 wins. I think the closing 31-win pace was legit, and I don't think 7 wins up from there is a giant improvement. I think the biggest improvement -- which is largely unmentioned -- will be defensively. The tremendous reliance on communication in defense at the higher levels is so underrated, and the fact that we have a full year of Thabo, a full training camp together, and a core roster that looks ready to play a full season together is simply huge. I think that alone is worth a couple of wins and the addition of Harden and the improvement of RW, KD, and Green a couple more. 38 is a reasonable expectation here, and if Vegas sets the O/U at 35 or under I'm putting some money down where my mouth is.

I've been on the 42 wins+ bandwagon for some time now- based on cummulative impact of the many different reasons to expect improvement cited by Royce. I also think we had a significantly better team last year than our record indicated based on the number of really close losses. Hell, on paper I like our current roster as much as Portland's. 42+ in 2009/2010- Book it, and let the experts, shmexperts be damned!

@Cpt. C-Note
Not sold on the Clips. I honestly dont think Griffin plays 82 games this yr. With his style of play and the bigger bodies in the league its gonna be tough for him. And im an OU fan.

@J.G.
I agree but I dont think that expectations equal predictions. Everybody likes to go out on a limb with predictions. But in reality they know we will be under 38 wins.

I'm sticking with 40 wins! and finish in 10th place behind Phoenix and a-team-to-be-named-later.(Sac?, G.St.?, Clips?)

edit - oops, mixed up posts, the Thunder were 2-2 against the Spurs, not 2-1, (they were also 2-2 against the Warriors). My point was to look at the talent level and veteran leadership that that Warriors team had on their roster, not counting current Warriors Andres Biedrins and (for now) Stephen Jackson. Tack on the play style and sorry, but the Thunder are nothing like that team.

@Mully Mulls
Yeah, except the Golden State we were 2-1 against looked nothing like that team that took the 8th seed and upset the Mavs (no Jason Richardson, no Troy Murphy, no Mickael Pietrus, no Matt Barnes, no healthy Monta Ellis, no Al Harrington and no BARON DAVIS). I mean, look at that team!

I'd love to buy a 42-40 season as a possibility, but that's just really, REALLY setting yourself up for some serious disappointment because of unrealistic expectations.

@Mully Mulls
I'm fine with all that happening...

Except the part about getting Chris Bosh...don't want him

Who voted Under???? I'll kill'em

I think we go nuts this season (42-40).... "Great Scott!" 42? Let me explain...

Let's not forget that this time last season they were just getting situated here. Thomas adds another big man to our rotation. Marked improvement by our core and a solidified bench (although a 3 pt specialist would be nice for some "POP" off the bench). All of these things show our stock moving ^^^^

I look for our team to closer resemble the GSW team that took the 8th seed and beat the Mavs in rd one, which surprisingly enough won 42 games as well. That will be enough to get us in the playoffs where we will face the San Antonio Spurs.

We had a 2-1 record against them last season and I think we make it a competitive series as they take us in 6.

This is enough of a jump to make Durant and Green stay on board and we bring in Bosh in 2010.

Well, I've got my fuel for the flux capacitor, and Emmett Brown is hollering something about a "Lightning Strike" to me so I gotta go. Sorry to give away the next season, but I saw it in this sports almanac so I thought I'd share!

I take the over... though my alpha adjusted +/- projection has them at exactly 32 wins. I think Harden is that important.

@J.G.
Agreed. I fear with an offseason of hoping and hyping, we've altered reasonable expectation with this team.

If they win more than 35 games then I'll be ecstatic as they'd be ahead of schedule in terms of development. We're talking about a 13+ increase in win total in the third year of rebuilding without a huge acquisition in the off-season. I'd be even more excited than I already am if that happened.

Over by a little bit....the season starts tough so I see a start similar to last year but not as bad I don't see 3-29 but a rough start. I'm predicting 36 wins

Over, but by just a few.

Over, but by 3 or less.

While it's true that the 3-29 obviously hurt our record last year, we hit our hot streak when we started playing teams that weren't as good. I'm not saying that we didn't have a substantial improvement, but our schedule was much more favorable starting in January.

Since we have a tough start once again, I wouldn't be too surprised if we're talking about how we're a little disappointed 20 or 30 games into the season, and then we improve once again.

Over, but not by much.

This young team needs to set their goal as winning half their games and making that #8 playoff spot. They need to learn to compete. This is a very important season.

A few games over.

I think 35 wins should be the expectation. Enough wins so that we can claim significant progress from last season, and enough to plausibly predict a jump into a record over .500 next year.

I have thought all along that the team would win between 30-34 games. So that being said I have to say push. I really hope I am wrong and we finish over.

OVER!!! And definitely a better start than 3 and freaking 29!

@Jax Raging Bile Duct
That's what I've currently got too.

Barring injury, I think this team wins 34 games.