Chris Tomasson of FanHouse passed along why Kevin Durant posed on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s preview issue with unlikely candidates Thabo Sefolosha and Nenad Krstic.
Basically, Durant requested that Thabo and Nenad be on the cover with him because “they don’t get a lot of pub.” Durant even indicated that he wouldn’t have posed for the cover if those two guys weren’t included with him.
This guy Durant. What more can you say? I mean, sheesh.
Given the Thunder took the eventual champion Lakers to within one possession of a Game 7, it’s hard to point to Oklahoma City’s 50 regular-season wins in 2009-10 and say it overachieved. The 27-win improvement in one year after the franchise moved here represents such a leap that an increase this season by even half as much is unthinkable. I don’t think anyone would dispute that approaching the mid-60s in wins during the regular season is asking too much.
It begs the question: What number of regular-season wins represents the kind of improvement the Thunder is looking for? Last year, .500 seemed a realistic goal and the playoffs a hopeful one, though players said flatly in the preseason their goal was the postseason. Specifics were harder to come by this season in the Thunder’s own stated goals, but home court in the first round replaces .500 this year as most folks’ chief preseason hope, with a No. 2 seed in the West as what gets dreamed of more often than said out loud. Read more…
First, how awesome is it that the Thunder is on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s NBA preview issue? Not LeBron and his two friends. Not Kobe and the champs. Nope, instead it’s the little kids from Oklahoma City splashed across the cover of SI.
But the question is, what the heck is Nenad Krstic and Thabo Sefolosha doing on the cover? Kevin Durant we get (or at least I hope you get). But Thabo and Nenad? Where’s Russell Westbrook and Uncle Jeff? Serge Ibaka and James Harden? Why go with two players that while starters aren’t really recognizable?
I’ve got a theory and I tried to sort of explain it at CBS Sports in probably a not-so-clear way. The word is that KD didn’t want to be on the cover alone, so he asked for teammates. Whether he chose Nenad and Thabo or that’s who the Thunder sent is another thing. But really, the SI cover is just another example of OKC’s team first philosophy.
It’s that time of year again. No, not basketball time. T-shirt time. And the good people at Tree and Leaf are working their butts off (literally, I think Dusty’s butt has literally come completely off) to have a full re-stock of last year’s Daily Thunder shirts plus three or four new designs for the upcoming season.
Want to see what they look like? Here’s a small preview with two more after the jump:
The Thunder beat the Spurs 111-102 last night behind 29 from Kevin Durant and 27 from Jeff Green. The starters scored 103 of OKC’s 111 points. The Thunder used a big fourth quarter to win, but it’s not as good as it seems as San Antonio wasn’t playing as many regulars as OKC was. Westbrook finished with 17 points and nine assists and was good overall. And James Harden was excellent, scoring 18 points on six shots and going 3-3 from downtown, along with five rebounds and four assists.
David Aldridge on NBA.com referenced that he thinks Jeff Green could still have an extension coming: “Green could certainly argue he deserves a new deal after averaging 15.1 points and six rebounds a game last season for the emerging Thunder. And Green’s agent, David Falk, has a way of persuading teams to see things his client’s way, so Green’s status may change by the deadline. Oklahoma City’s plan has been to keep its powder dry until its young core group came on line for new deals. But the next extension in OKC will certainly go to guard Russell Westbrook, not Green. And the Thunder is not likely to break the bank for many others on owner Clay Bennett’s watch, which means hard choices on the rest of the roster.” Read more…
I hate going into movies with expectations. In a way, your mind can be made up about a flick before you see it based on your friend raving about it or bashing it down. How can I possibly come out of National Treasure 2 and say I liked it if three of my friends ripped it to shreds the day before? Not because I’m afraid to like something my friends don’t, but more so that I’m seeing the movie already knowing that people of similar taste as me hated it. So that movie better be really good to impress me because I’ve got some serious prejudice heading in.
I remember how high my hopes were for Indiana Jones 4. Like I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited for a movie. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited for anything. My favorite movie character back on screen after over 20 years off? Yes. Please. Harrison Ford was back and looked great in the previews. Steven Spielberg preached for months about how he directed this one with the fans in mind. George Lucas went through screenplay after screenplay looking for the perfect script. Everything was coming together for a serious excellent movie. And I couldn’t wait.
Like a huge nerd with no life, I saw it at midnight. I sat through two hours, didn’t say a word to anyone and then the credits came up. And something unexpected happened.
Instead of just going with the usual couple posts previewing the Thunder’s season, I decided to try and make it a little different. So I pulled together all the Paint and Microsoft Word skills I have an made this here little PDF preview for the 2010-11 Thunder season. It’s not perfect. It’s not professional. Heck, it might not even be good. But hey, it’s something.
The preview book had to have some things edited down to fit (darn you print publications!!!), but throughout the week, I’ll be running everything from it (and a few things that aren’t in it) as kind of a preview week for the upcoming season. Plus, this way you can comment on the stories and prediction and fill me in on how wrong I am. So if you feel like reading something twice, be sure to check out both the book and the post.
Anyway, have a look, print it out, show your friends, don’t look at it, whatever. The moral of the story is, the season is almost a week away.
Barring some unforeseen issue, the Daily Thunder preview should be up here a little later today. I’m sort of dubbing this “preview week” so consider yourself warned.
Zach Lowe of The Point Forward picks the top 12 pick-and-roll combos: “7. Russell Westbrook-Unnamed Big Man: “For all their improvement, the Thunder were a poor screen-and-roll outfit last season for two reasons: 1) Westbrook was learning how to run the play properly; 2) the Thunder lacked a big guy who is an ideal screen-and-roll partner, a hole that led to Westbrook shooting a bunch of long pull-up jumpers on screen-and-rolls last season. The Thunder will certainly use Kevin Durant as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, but they can’t do that every time down the floor. The Westbrook-centered combo must improve, and watching that process unfold will be fascinating. Rookie Cole Aldrich is a promising roll man, and Nenad Krstic is capable as a pick-and-pop guy. Very nice players, both of them. But for real excitement, we’d all be best served if Serge Ibaka, the athletic freak the Thunder (then Sonics) drafted along with Westbrook, grows into this role.” Read more…
This is the one we’ve been waiting to do for a long time. Kevin Pelton, from Basketball Prospectus and co-author of the new book “Pro Basketball Prospectus 2010-2011” joins the guys on the podcast. We talk definitively about Jeff Green, discuss why Eric Maynor may be trade bait next year and how KD and Russ can make further improvements on their game.
Many “hot button” issues to discuss coming out of this interview with Pelton, so post your thoughts…even if it’s to join with Brad in ripping Joel for his “self love”.
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(Good Saturday friends, family and strangers. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Embrace the day.)
KD tweeted a while back that he was going to be filming a spot for a “deo-Durant” ad as he put it and the first promo has dropped. Durant has inked an endorsement deal with Degree and in this ad, he’s with Bear Grylls, Mark Sanchez and Tony Hawk. Decent company. There’s something about challenges involved with this ad campaign where Bear does things involved with the athletes. The KD challenge for Bear is that he has to jump off a cliff and latch onto a passing helicopter. You know, an alley-oop. I’m glad they didn’t ask KD to participate in that part.
Three things to follow with KD this season. First, Russell Westbrook made a leap of sorts this summer — by the end of the World Championships, he was Team USA’s second-best player — which can only help Durant’s progress as the GATH (a cousin to the GOAT, the acronym for “Greatest At This Hour”). He might be playing with the best under-25 guard in basketball for all we know. Second, don’t sleep on rookie Cole Aldrich — he sets great picks, rolls to the rim, crashes the offensive boards and knows where to be. Durant hasn’t had someone setting him a decent pick at any point in his career. Now he does.
Third, you can’t overstate how much the Team USA experience helped Durant: not just succeeding as The Guy and carrying them those last few games, but just getting coached. Durant’s rebounding and defense looks to be miles ahead of where it was the previous couple of years; he’s a legitimate “4″ now in today’s NBA. You could say he graduated from Coach K Camp. (And if you want to make a mean Rick Barnes joke, you could say that it was his first experience with a real college coach.) As an all-around player, Durant looks like he climbed a level from last year … when he only averaged 30 points a game and finished second in the MVP voting. So … yeah.
As was expected, the Thunder has waived both Demond “Tweety” Carter and Longar Longar, the team announced today.
Neither player made much of an impression nor were the afforded much of the opportunity to. Carter saw his only action last night putting up four points in four minutes and Longar appeared in one game for about a minute and a half.
Obviously both guys were nothing more than training camp players that were there to balance out the roster.
The Thunder roster now stands at 17. Which of course means Jerome Dyson and Elijah Millsap will almost definitely be next, but the team has decided to let both try and make a little more of a lasting impression in the final three preseason games. There’s some chatter about Millsap maybe playing for the 66ers as the team appears to like him.
Ron Artest’s top two players in the NBA: “Kobe’s got five rings, six game winners [last season], 23-straight points in [Game 5 of the Finals] off mostly jump shots. [He's] the biggest shot maker, big shot maker. So, that said, Durant’s the second best player in the NBA. He’s the second best player in the NBA,” Artest said of Durant, ranking the youngest scoring champion in league history behind only teammate Kobe Bryant.” And what about LeBron? “I only count to two.”
Darnell Mayberry’s game notes: “Former Duke guard Trajan Langdon unofficially becomes the first opposing player to provide the first compliment of Harden’s defense. “I tell you what, James Harden is a darn good defender not just on me but even watching him on the floor against other players,” Langdon said. Fitting since Langdon threw up the old goose-egg on 0-for-5 shooting after scoring 20 against Miami on Tuesday.” Read more…
The Thunder defeated CSKA Moscow Thursday 97-89 at home in Oklahoma City. The game really wasn’t ever close as CSKA made up a lot of the deficit in the fourth quarter.
While it wasn’t against NBA competition, the Russian team isn’t a pushover. They played the Heat well earlier this week and have some talented player. But still, a lot of this game should be remembered as played a non-NBA team. Some notes:
The Thunder offense was great tonight. Except for one part. Twenty-four turnovers. That’s just, well, kind of ridiculous against CSKA Moscow. The biggest offender was Kevin Durant who gave it away seven times by himself. Russell Westbrook turned it four times, Eric Maynor four times and nine of the 12 players that saw action had at least one. A lot of Durant’s struggles with the ball came when he was running point where he turned it over three or four times there alone. He was forcing things a bit and had trouble handling with the shorter, quicker defenders.
Again, other than that, it was good stuff. OKC shot 61 percent from the floor, hit 7-11 from 3 and got to the line. The Thunder hit just 16-26 from the stripe, but offensively, everything looked solid. Except for those turnovers. Read more…
Thunder (1-2) vs. CSKA Moscow TV: None Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM, 97.1 FM Tulsa) Online Stream: None Time: 7:00 CT
Finally, a chance to get a look at the good guys at home. The preseason hasn’t been all that pretty thus far, but that doesn’t mean anything. In fact, it really means nothing. Some of the issues the team’s had so far could mean something, but in terms of worrying about the season based on three preseason games in which the starters played just 25 minutes tops? Yeah, I wouldn’t fret on that too much. Read more…
