One of the knocks about OKC is that there is nothing to do here and that will be a turnoff to potential NBA players for this market. I can’t really say anything about that, because I just don’t know. But I’m sure there are all kinds of little hidden gems around the city that would be of interest.

One of the things I thought about was the UCO jazz club in Edmond (not on the UCO campus, but a few blocks away). Probably not a place that players would go hang out, but it might be a nice place to take their mom/dad etc. for a show when they’re visiting town. Live music has pretty universal appeal.

The website, UCO Jazz Lab has more info about the place. The site auto plays jazz selections, which, ordinarily I hate (any auto play audio or video). But in this case, it’s alright — really good stuff. Appears to be selections from Brian Gorrell’s ‘Live at the UCO Jazz Club’ CD.

Now if you like that kind of stuff (I do) you can get more at Brian’s home page, http://www.briangorrell.com. For instance, he has made a few songs available for free as mp3s (recorded live at a ‘Jazz in June’ festival a couple of years ago). Here’s a sample song, Invitation.mp3 just to give you an idea. These guys are SERIOUSLY talented.

Funny things is, even though I’m living in Edmond, I’ve never checked out the jazz lab. I’m pretty sure that I will now though, at some point. And see if I can catch Gorrell’s band playing there.

As long as you can keep yourself between the basket and the offensive player, you can do a decent job of controlling where the shot is taken.

That said, I don’t think this is the hallmark of our defense. Teams shoot an average of ~19 long midrange shots against us, fourth least in the league. However, teams only make 36.1% of those shots against us, 3% better than league average and by far best in the NBA. So we’re definitely doing a great job contesting the long two’s, but teams don’t shoot them as often against us. We’re second best in the league in opponent three point % as well, although opponents don’t shoot too many threes against us either.

We’re also #1 in the league in opponent FG% 10-15 feet and inside of 10 feet (not as rim). So from ~3 feet to 23 feet, we’re allowing the lowest percentage out of anyone else in the league, by a fair margin.

The caveat is that we allow the third most attempts in the league at the rim. Our aggresive perimeter defense that allows such low percentages breaks down more often, and teams get high percentage shots at the rim.. if we had a weakside shot blocker or big defensive presence inside I suspect we’d be the #1 defense in the league.

Vince :

justin :
There’s a time and a place for the long two, but we take too many.

When I was listening to the radio feed on XM from the Wolves-Thunder game a couple weeks ago (it was the Minny feed) they interviewed Brooks about his defensive philosophy. “Tough twos” was his reply, and he talked about forcing long twos and contested jumpers.
If you believe that Brooks has treated the team as a whole roughly the way he has Ibaka (focus on defense, offense can come later), then we may see a change in those mid-range stats next year. I’m not calling Brooks the next Phil Jackson quite yet, but I think he’s smart enough to know that what’s good for his defense is good for the opposing defense, too. At least I hope so.

Someone help me out with this. How do you exactly aim to force “tough twos”? I understand contesting every shot, but how do you control where the opponent takes them?

justin :
There’s a time and a place for the long two, but we take too many.

When I was listening to the radio feed on XM from the Wolves-Thunder game a couple weeks ago (it was the Minny feed) they interviewed Brooks about his defensive philosophy. “Tough twos” was his reply, and he talked about forcing long twos and contested jumpers.
If you believe that Brooks has treated the team as a whole roughly the way he has Ibaka (focus on defense, offense can come later), then we may see a change in those mid-range stats next year. I’m not calling Brooks the next Phil Jackson quite yet, but I think he’s smart enough to know that what’s good for his defense is good for the opposing defense, too. At least I hope so.