Comments on: Thunder at Spurs: Pregame Primer

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:11:34 +0000

@nick Damn that was a sweet play. The degree of difficulty was amazing, yet they nearly pulled it off. It had everything needed to work. And why? Because teams don't even bother guarding players who aren't stars at the end of games. It's become so ingrained in the fabric of the game that most coaches never even think to give the ball to someone else, or even wonder where else the ball might go. I still wish he would have pulled that off. Partly because I hate the Lakers, and that would have given Orlando a ton of momentum, partly because I would have watched it over and over again squealing in delight.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:05:45 +0000

*I’m SURE it convinced …
stupid typo

By: nick

nick — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:05:26 +0000

@Keith Yeah, that's exactly where I was going before I lost motivation in my essay/post. Its some sort of masculine, mano a mano fight to the death that fascinates everybody. Of course, the best end of game play I've seen in forever was SVG drawing up an alley oop for a rookie. Its too bad he missed that, I'm it convinced people that nobody other than a superstar can hit a last second shot.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:02:30 +0000

@nick
It’s all a show. It’s more impressive, draws more oohs and ahs for one guy to win you the game. Of course, Lebron’s never won a championship. Kobe couldn’t even get out of the first round by himself. Wade needed a 20 and 10 Shaq and the help of at least 3 officials to win it all.

Fans only remember the hero, not the guys who got him there, and it’s a shame.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:59:29 +0000

@I am the DON Lee's definitely not a good defender, but he hasn't really had much of a chance to develop defensively playing on the joke of a Knicks team. Since his game is generally predicated on outworking people (his rebounding, developing a consistent jump shot), I can see him fitting into the system and becoming an acceptable defender. Not good, but not terrible. And if that's the case, his offense and rebounding will more than make up for his offensive deficiencies. That's how I see it at least.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:57:39 +0000

@Keith The funny thing is, even those guys are WAY less efficient in end of game scenarios, precisely because of the 1 on 5 foolishness. I don't have the numbers in front of me, and I'm sure our resident stat guys can look them up, but offensive efficiency in the final possessions of close games is terrible leaguewide, even for LeBron and Kobe. I've seen clutch stats showing that Kobe is something like 30% at the end of games and LeBron is around 40%, which is quite a bit worse than they normally are. Obviously some of that is due to an increase in defensive intensity, but some of it is because of the same kind of stupid offense that we run at the end of games.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:53:25 +0000

@nick I think that late game offense is the Kobe-Lebron effect. Lebron once scored the last 25 points of a pivotal playoff game in order to win the game and ultimately take the series. Kobe repeatedly hits huge, game-winning shots to snatch victory from the clutches of defeat. Now, everyone wants their superstar to do that. They don't care that Kobe was 4-18 until that point and LA was losing in the final seconds precisely because of him. They don't factor in that Lebron is the PG of his entire team and actually racks up 8-10 assists every night. Fans and front offices want the ball in their star's hands, and want him to beat the world before their eyes. No one remembers that Lebron and Kobe are probably two of the greatest players of all time, or that world beating is a lot easier with 5 guys than 1.

By: dustin

dustin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:52:05 +0000

Thunderites,

Please don’t treat this like some treat College Football, where every loss is a soul-crushing defeat. There are 82 games in a season and losing one isn’t a big deal. Yeah it’s awesome to win, but no one has gone 82-0 before and they won’t. Ever. We lost the short end of a back to back on the road to one of the hardest teams to play against in the league(when they’re healthy).

In professional sports, losing happens. It’s ok. The Cavs just went on a three-game skid, and no one is crying apocalypse.

We have a great team that is only going to get better as they age. They already have the chemistry. They have the fundamentals. It’s only going to get better.

By: I am the DON

I am the DON — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:49:07 +0000

@nick

Yeah, I am somewhat coming around to Lee just because we are in such desperate need of a reliable scorer, especially one that gets almost all his baskets primarily around the basket

I am just not a huge fan of Lee simply because he is quite possibly the worst defender in the league, but our offense is so bad we might just have to take that tradeoff

If we sign him we need to lace his contract with incentives based around defensive production

By: nick

nick — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:48:34 +0000

@justin I would have been ecstatic with getting Jefferson earlier in the year, but he's been pretty bad of late. I'm not so sure anymore.