Comments on: Thursday Bolts – Undefeated Edition

By: Vince

Vince — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:53:04 +0000

@Steve H You may be right -- I think my comment was a little too firm. It's very possible that on Friday we'll see Livingston and White instead of Ollie and Thomas. And maybe early in the season that will be the pattern. OTOH, Brooks has had six months now to look at Livingston and White, and I think the fact that they got no run on Opening Night does mean something for the rest of the season.

By: John

John — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:04:36 +0000

Re: Thabo’s extension:

If you’re a GM, it has to be a bittersweet feeling to have a player’s agent congratulate you on a deal.

By: Steve H

Steve H — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:53:32 +0000

@Vince It could be that Brooks plans to experiment with the second unit for awhile until he finds what works best. God knows Coach Scott has done a lot of that since I started following the Hornets. Sounds weird, but I really do hope Livingston's benching is minor injury related. He obviously has the best pedigree for the back up job, and is supposed to be mostly healed from getting "Theisemaned". The alternative explaination that I really don't like is that the benching was somehow attitude/behavior related.

By: Vince

Vince — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:09:26 +0000

Keith : I have to imagine last night was more about getting our starters to gel than anything else. Did KD need to play 42 minutes, especially when his shot wasn’t on? No, we could have won just as easily if he played 30. I imagine the playing time will be a lot more even as the season goes on. And as for Ollie and Etan getting all those minutes over Livingston and White/Ibaka, you could argue that after the first quarter Brooks realized this game was in the bag. Getting more playing time out of the new faces forces them to learn the games of their teammates quicker. Hopefully the minute spread was more about getting those guys ready for the rest of the season than a belief they are the best options.

I've gotta disagree with about all of that (except KD playing 42 minutes, I don't want to see that all year either). First off, there's no way that Brooks altered his planned substitutions because of a 15-point first quarter lead. 15-point leads come and go in the NBA all the time. Unless there was an undisclosed injury, the reason that Ollie and Thomas played is that they're in the rotation and Livingston, White, and Ibaka are out. Good teams stick with a rotation, usually 8- or 9-deep, and Brooks is not going to play subpar guys, particularly early in the year, to get their feet wet or to take a look at them. He's going to play the 9-man rotation he chose through camp, so I would think that Ollie and Thomas are in our top 9. That may change due to injury or performance, but I think the 9 guys who played last night are going to be the top 9 for the next couple of weeks.

By: Concerned Fan

Concerned Fan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:27:15 +0000

Thank you all that responded to my earlier question about U-Verse. I couldn’t get anyone from AT&T to give me a definite answer.

By: J.G.

J.G. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:45:22 +0000

@Concerned Fan
You will have all of them on Uverse in HD.

KSBI is 1052 on Uverse HD, and you can see Fox Sports Oklahoma in HD for the Thunder games on a number of channels, 1753, 1754, 1755.

Enjoy.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:46:10 +0000

I have to imagine last night was more about getting our starters to gel than anything else. Did KD need to play 42 minutes, especially when his shot wasn’t on? No, we could have won just as easily if he played 30. I imagine the playing time will be a lot more even as the season goes on. And as for Ollie and Etan getting all those minutes over Livingston and White/Ibaka, you could argue that after the first quarter Brooks realized this game was in the bag. Getting more playing time out of the new faces forces them to learn the games of their teammates quicker. Hopefully the minute spread was more about getting those guys ready for the rest of the season than a belief they are the best options.

By: Pennington

Pennington — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:24:26 +0000

I wasn’t concerned by Ibaka’s absence. But ollie’s tremendous playingtime while Livingston and weaver saw no time has me worried. It seems to me that the praise we hear of Ollie is word for word what was said of Chucky Atkins

By: Lefty

Lefty — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:56:26 +0000

I’m still having a hard time believing we’ve played a real actual game of NBA basketball this season.

And that we won it.

By: ryreeboo

ryreeboo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:49:49 +0000

@Concerned Fan I have U-Verse and I know that last nights game was in HD on KSBI.