Lock up win No. 24 and let’s move on, right? Not right. It’s not because there could be a potential letdown after the big win in Atlanta Monday. I don’t think this Thunder team is really a letdown kind of group. It’s because Minnesota isn’t as bad as their record says. I’m serious. Talent is on that roster and they’ve been competitive, especially as of late. The way they’re playing close but yet losing reminds me a little of OKC a year ago. Read more…
1. Kobe Bryant
2. LeBron James
3. Dwight Howard
4. Derrick Rose
5. Dwyane Wade
6. Kevin Garnett
7. Chris Paul
8. Paul Pierce
9. Shaquille O’Neal
10. Pau Gasol
11. Carmelo Anthony
12. Steve Nash
13. David Lee
14. Allen Iverson 15. Kevin Durant
To me, this is a big development. Add Chris Ballard’s piece today, multiple other recent features, the MVP talk, the Hyperizers ad, the ESPN NBA ad, the jersey sales and just a host of other things and it just seems like Kevin Durant is becoming that household superstar name in the league. He’s everywhere. He may play in little ‘ol Oklahoma City but he’s clearly getting noticed. Which is something I’ve been dreaming about since he came here. We’ve got our LeBron, our Kobe, our Wade. We’ve got our STAR.
If you haven’t seen by now, Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard penned a nice long feature on the Thunder and Kevin Durant. I thought it was excellent. The issue hits the stands today, but you can read it here.
Shoals exploring the Hawks-Thunder relation: “Plus the Hawks, unlike the Thunder, have been a running joke, then a glorious mess, until Principal Mike Woodson finally succeeded in instilling some common sense in the kids. But now, there’s no way around it: These two teams, despite some notable differences (OKC drafted its superstar, ATL signed its; OKC front office and coaching is top-notch, ATL still questionable), these two teams are the closest I’m seeing to real … I don’t know, change, adaptation, even progress.” Read more…
We’re halfway done and I’m not sure the first part of this season could have gone much better. It took Oklahoma City 82 games to win 23 last year and this season, the Thunder’s reached that mark in just 41. That’s like progress or something.
But I figure this is a good point to see where everything is at, evaluate some players and look back on the things I thought were important coming into the season. I like re-reading things from months back to gain a little perspective on where we’re at currently. And to either pat myself on the back and say how smart I am, or if I was wrong talk about how it was someone else’s fault and how what I said should’ve happened. That’s what good sportswriters do.
Looking Back At Stuff I Said
Peering over the things I said about Kevin Durant, I was pretty spot on in some areas, and missed in others. He’s scored 40 twice, he’s in the MVP discussion, he’s going to be an All-Star, his defense is vastly improved, his PER is up and I’m pretty close on his ideal stats. But I was off on the turnovers, the 180 shooter (though it’s getting closer; 172 right now) and cutting down the minutes. But as far as Durant meeting the arbitrary goals I set for him, I’d say he’s a 10 out of 10.
I was way off with Nenad Krstic. I wanted 15 double-doubles from him. So far, he’s got one. Yikes. But he showed Monday in Atlanta why he’s still got serious value to this team. When the matchup works, he can by a dynamic extra offensive weapon. Read more…
Both players are high-volume scorers who constantly get to the line, rebound well for their position, have low assist rates and have substantially improved their once-laughable defense. Anthony leads the league in scoring while Durant is third, with the margin between them (0.9 points per game) close enough that either could end up first at season’s end. Durant has shot more efficiently, helped by his 86.9 percent mark from the line, but Anthony has won more.
What it ultimately came down to for me was availability. Durant hasn’t missed a game; Anthony has missed five. In a race this close, that matters, and it’s why I give Durant the nod. Anthony fans needn’t worry, however — back in the real world, he’s going to win the voting by a wide margin.
This is the second-most difficult choice on the ballot, as Durant and Carmelo Anthony have essentially equal résumés. If somebody wanted to pick Carmelo, I don’t think I could generate a strong enough case for Durant to change his mind. Of course, the opposite is also true.
Of course you won’t hear any disagreement from me. ‘Melo will obviously will start because of the fan vote, but I like the fact people are giving KD credit in the “deserves to start” area. Last year, it was that he deserved to be an All-Star. Now he deserves to start the All-Star game. I like this progression.
John Hollinger on the Thunder after yesterday’s win: “It’s one of many quantum leaps the Thunder have made in the past twelve months. It’s hard to remember, but a year ago at this time they were 8-33. They’ve nearly tripled their first-half win total, and after another hard-fought road win in a tough arena the Thunder — who are one of only seven teams with a winning road record at 11-9 — seem well on their way to making the playoffs a couple years ahead of schedule.”
Frank Hughes of SI looking at OKC’s needs: “Oklahoma City is in an altogether different mode, but would like to add a complement to center Nenad Krstic nonetheless. The Thunder aren’t trying to find a short-term fix for a run in the postseason, but are focusing more on their long-term goal of building a sustainable winner. Oklahoma City is one victory away from matching its win total for last season, and though making a decision for immediate success is tempting, Thunder general manager Sam Presti is going to place a premium on patience and prudence.” Read more…
The 23rd win is pretty cool in itself. Thunder fans have taken a lot of crap and had to live with a lot of humble pie for the last year and a half, but what makes it even more interesting is that today’s 23rd win came against one of the best teams in the East with a 16-4 home record, and it came in game number 41; the dead center middle of the season. How cool is that?
It was a game of runs, bricks, big shots, highlight reel plays and “oh my gawd” moments. So basically it was one you couldn’t sleep through, especially in the fourth quarter. For much of the fourth it looked like a scrum under and above the basket. Neither team was shooting well and all ten guys were in there ripping and snarling for rebounds and putbacks.
Case in point: after shooting 51% through the first three quarters the Thunder managed only 6/21 in the final frame (28.5%) en route to 15 points. Atlanta was 6/22. As a result the Thunder gobbled up 17 rebounds in the fourth and the Hawks snared 13. Loose balls, bodies flying and arms flailing.
But the game got tight at the end when the Hawks pulled even on two Josh Smith free throws at 88 apiece with just two minutes and a bit left after trailing since the first quarter. Then finally, with the Thunder up by two with 19 seconds left, one of those “most amazing plays of the season” happened. Read more…
There has been a lot of talk on here and across the NBA landscape about the Thunder’s seeming reluctance to make the kind of mid-season trade that could reshape the future of the franchise OR at the very least assure that the team would have the best opportunity to make a playoff run without sacrificing the future of the franchise. Clark’s PL&T article this week showed some of the possible trades that could help both of these and plenty of readers and commenters have also added their ideas as well (commenter justin will probably still be shouting for a trade for Brendan Haywood until the deadline since his contract is expiring and he could help out with that whole giving up one of the league’s worst averages in offensive rebounds a game).
Now obviously if a homerun trade opportunity comes up in where the Thunder have to give up for little to get something ridiculous (think Pau Gasol to the Lakers) then obviously I would be extremely disappointed if Presti didn’t make a move. Actually, even a solid asset that either doesn’t tie up cap space after this season (aka, expiring contract with an opportunity to resign if all goes well) or is a no-brainer as a future cornerstone of the franchise (be it a Bosh caliber post player, though notice that I didn’t say Bosh himself so let’s not start that up again) would obviously help this team make a playoff run this year and still be positioned to compete for a championship later.
Do I sound cautious about this type of discussion? Absolutely. It’s usually at about this time in a franchise’s development that the team hits something of a critical mass moment that ultimately determines the fate of the team for the next, oh, decade or longer. And when you seem to be “this close,” this near to what seems like the apex of the mountain is when desperation can creep into a fan base and even a front office because “if we only had _____, then we’d be a championship contender,” which means everyone is a little less likely to really think through all sides of a move before pulling the trigger. But what does this mean for us as Thunder Fans… Read more…
The Thunder’s victory over the Heat was incredibly anti-climactic, but thankfully it was kind of boring and stilted in a good way. The major highlights were an argument on the court, a really good shooting night for a few players and, um…the fact that they won? Does that count?
Yes, the game was one those but there were some things that deserve to get some attention so let’s have a look, shall we?
Home games get more and more valuable as we go. The Heat are a good team. But these are the home wins the Thunder need to start putting away. If you can beat them on the road, you should be able to beat them at home, right? No, don’t bring up the Spurs game. Read more…
(Good morning. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Pass the toast.)
Dunk contest participants will be announced relatively soon and by the way it sounds, LeBron is backing off his promise and Dwight Howard is going to pass the torch. And from an earlier interview, KryptoNate likely won’t be there either. Now we know Kevin Durant humbly bowed out, but if there is one guy I know I want to see, it’s Russell Westbrook. He almost got there last year through the fan vote, but the whole country of Spain rallied to get Rudy Fernandez there. Westbrook’s of course got crazy leaping ability and he dunks like he’s angry. And I’m sure he could employ the help of The Broingtons to come up with some good ideas. We know Serge Ibaka can cram like a king, but hear me now: Let Russell dunk.
Two tough Texas teams, two one point losses. Where’s the sunshine?
There really isn’t any room for big complaints or woes about the game. It was a hungry, talented Dallas team on their own home turf. Their superstar doing most of their damage, and ours doing most of ours. The difference in this game was the ten extra free throws for Dallas; we sent their guys to the line with shooting fouls. Durant and Nowitzki both had roughly the same number of free throws attempted and made, but nobody else on the Thunder took more than 4. Dallas had Josh Howard and Drew Gooden at the line 8 times and 6 times respectively. I’m not complaining here, just stating.
Kevin Durant did his 30 point thing again which is his 18th time this season and 10th time in the last 12 games, yet his shot was off tonight. Same delivery, same spots, it just wasn’t going down. I thought Shawn Marion really did a great job on Durant defensively, but that only goes so far, he can still elevate and score at will most nights, but tonight was a challenge for him and he finished up 6/18. He did get the double double though with 13 boards. More on that later.
It was pretty obvious that Dallas’ game plan defensively was to double up or even triple up Durant on most of his touches. That’s a good strategy if he can’t recognize the ploy and pass out to an open man, and that open man can’t hit the jumper. Not to overstate anything here, but the boxscore has a zero in it in the column for assists by Durant’s name. The passing game and learning to play the decoy sometimes will come with more experience. I don’t think for one second that Durant would rather pad his scoring stats than to get a win by making a great pass. That’s just not KD.
Notes:
Nick Collison had a double double tonight with 10 and 10, an assist and a block in 23 minutes. He’s really a quietly efficient super hero for the Thunder. Going into tonight he is a + 13.80 player per 100 possessions (the team is 11.38 points better on offense and 2.42 points better on defense when he is on the court) to lead the team in overall rating. Read more…
Let’s all just take a minute to forget about Wednesday night.
(Waiting.)
(Still waiting.)
You’re right. I can’t get over it either. But that doesn’t matter. All that does, is that the team is over it. There can’t be any lingering hangover from that killer, brutal, heart-wrenching loss if Oklahoma City has any plans of beating Dallas tonight. Read more…
Good news: Russell Westbrook is now shooting over 40 percent for the year. If there’s one thing that’s keeping him from being mentioned as a legit All-Star or at least an upper level point guard, it’s that. He’s been incredible so far this year, despite some rough patches. He’s averaging 16.5 points per game, 7.4 assists per game and 5.1 rebounds per game. Like I said last week, just one guy can compare in those three categories and his name rhymes with Shashmon Brames.
But so far in six games in January, Westbrook is shooting a solid 45 percent from the field. He’s talked about how he thought he was settling for jumpers and how he wanted to get back to attacking the rim. Attacking the paint is where he’s absolutely lethal, and by getting back to that, he’s become instant dynamite. His pull-up jumper is improving, he’s finishing drives and best of all, he’s taking smarter shots in general.
I think this stat says it all: In November, Westbrook took 39 3-point attempts (hit 14). In December, he took 34 (hit seven). Through the six games this month, he’s taken only three. And two of those I know were clock-running-out-forced-hand desperation attempts. Read more…
vs. 
The 23rd win is pretty cool in itself. Thunder fans have taken a lot of crap and had to live with a lot of humble pie for the last year and a half, but what makes it even more interesting is that today’s 23rd win came against one of the best teams in the East with a 16-4 home record, and it came in game number 41; the dead center middle of the season. How cool is that?
Thunder 98 Mavs 99.
