Saturday Morning Cartoons: All together now
July 2nd, 2011
I don't buy Minnesota as a dark horse team or even a much improved team. They have too many one way players who have ginormous holes in their games. Michael Beasley can score but can't do it efficiently and has terribly BBIQ. Kevin Love is a beast on the boards at the expense of some defensive chops, and might lack the athleticism to ever contend with some of the better PF's. Darko, for all his fanfare, has terrible scoring efficiency for a ceneter, has a high TOV rate, and IMO only has some value on defense. Wesley Johnson was underwhelming in his rookie year, especially considering the fact that he will be 24 next season. Randolph is an enigma, Pekovic is so-so, etc.
For Minnesota to become a good team either Williams or Rubio have to become big time star players. I don't think either of them will.
Real news here...
Lee should probably get a look at playing time. Tolliver shouldn't slip to much lower minutes or out of the rotation but he probably will at least get squeezed.
Whether Williams fits better at SF or PF or is close to the same at both will be pretty pivotal. It would help them a lot if he can be successful at SF.
Minny needs a new offensive system and almost certainly a new coach (unless they want slightly more lottery balls) It is probably more important for the new coach to be strong on defense, preferably proved strong on that.
Putting guys at the right positions and finding the right lineups will be critical. Just because guys can play more than one position doesn't mean they should be casual about it. A lot of these guys are pretty terrible at one or two positions and have bad pairings. I'd probably form the guys into the 2 best units and do a platoon system pretty heavily and see how that goes and tweak it from there. It might be a running unit with Rubio and probably a half-court unit with Ridenour. They need another good wing. More than that of course, but especially that. One more high 1st rounder may be needed to get past 30 wins but they should at least strive for 30 wins next season.
@ okc baby
Ridnour will probably be starter if roster stays the same
@ dragonbug
Yeah. I noticed it was about the FANS. That was sort of my point.
Bryson :I may be insane, but I think Minnesota is going to develop into a very good team. I think they will have a turnaround much like ours. I mean, look at their talent…-Ricky Rubio (I think he’s supposed to be good?) -Wesley Johnson (Outstanding 6th man, I want him with us) -Derrick Williams (Best player in this years draft) -Kevin Love (Stud) -Michael Beasley (Attitude problems, but still very talented) -An awful GM that is probably going to ruin it.
I agree. I said before they are an intriguing team.
@ Bryson
They dont have a player who can be core of a team like KD or Russ,dont know how to play offense and defense.They have high pick,but high picks dont mean high talent.Do they have better player than Harden?I dont think so.
I may be insane, but I think Minnesota is going to develop into a very good team. I think they will have a turnaround much like ours. I mean, look at their talent...
-Ricky Rubio (I think he's supposed to be good?)
-Wesley Johnson (Outstanding 6th man, I want him with us)
-Derrick Williams (Best player in this years draft)
-Kevin Love (Stud)
-Michael Beasley (Attitude problems, but still very talented)
-An awful GM that is probably going to ruin it.
Anybody else in the west look good on these criteria last regular season? The Nuggets were above championship average on 5 (this is looking almost entirely at offense), Blazers and Hornets 1, Suns 4, Rockets close to 4.
Denver, Phoenix and Houston were short of league average defense, by a little or more. If any of them can fix that and deliver on these same regular season offensive strengths they might get into the contention mix of the next playoffs.
This gave me chills like no other...I represent OKC in the middle of Illinois, and put up with arrogant Bulls fans. Let me tell you, not a single one is as real as our fans...Thunder up.
How did the western contenders look in the regular season compared to these championship team playoff averages?
The Thunder were near or exceeded 2 of those 6 averages, Lakers 3, Spurs 4, Griz 0. The Spurs and Lakers slipped back in the playoffs from what they did in the regular season, while the Thunder (and Griz) stepped forward a bit. They looked stronger than the Thunder in the regular season but they respectively faced tougher 1st round and 2nd round opponents than the Thunder did.
(the m after eFG% above was a typo)
Of the six stats I cited (3 pt FG%, 3 pt FGA, 3pt defense, eFG%m Offensive Rating and FT/FGA) the Lakers, Spurs and Griz were at title winning average on only one each and otherwise were generally not close to those levels. They had other strengths but they weren't strong in the playoffs on these things. The Thunder being exceptionally strong good on one, a bit above average on another and close to the champ average on a third was enough to make them second best. But by these criteria the west contenders were not that strong. By contrast Dallas exceeded the champ average on all 6 of these criteria. I am not saying these are the only things that matter but they matter and they represent a clear divide between how Dallas performed and how the other western contenders did.
If you want a bit of basketball stuff to chew on, here are a few stats I looked up and put together on the last 7 NBA champs.
They averaged 36.6% from 3pt in the playoffs, usually putting themselves well above the playoff average. Only 2 of the 7 were weak on 3pt FG%, at 33% in those instances.
In this playoffs, the Thunder shot 31.6% and ranked 12th of 16 on that.
On average the recent champs averaged 19 3 pt attempts per game in the playoffs, the Thunder actually put up about 20. They upped the quantity of 3 pt attempts from 18.5 in the 2010 playoffs but still need to work on the quality of 3 pt shooting (though it too improved compared to 2010's 29.7% 3pt playoff FG%).
Something that wasn't talked about much to my memory was the Maverick 3 pt defense. They held playoff opponents to just 29% (2 others were slightly better at this). The 7 recent champs gave up an average of 31.8%. The Thunder have given up a bit over 33% in the last two playoff runs.
6 of the last 7 playoff champs shot over 50% eFG% and the average was 50.7%. The Thunder were at 48.2%. Way up from 2010's 42.6% but not enough. The only recent champ who wasn't over 50% on own eFG% was the 08 Celtics. They had a really good defense and some clutch-time performances to make it thru.
The average offensive efficiency of these title winners was 110.0. From 2006 thru 2011 Offensive Rating in th eplayoffs by the champ increased every year. (The 2005 Spurs were ahead of that trend.) The 2011 Thunder were at 109.5. Pretty close. That was well above their 2010 playoff performance of 103.6 but almost 2 points lower than the 2011 regular season.
Better 3 pt shooting and 3 pt shot defense would help the Thunder get closer to the average of recent champs. They have more ground to cover on 3 pt offense.
The average for the recent champs on FT/FGA is far below the Thunder's 2011 playoff performance. None of them are anywhere close to using this method of scoring as much. Between 1988 and 2011 only one title winner went over 30% FT/FGA and thus were anywhere that close to the 2011 Thunder's 32.1% and that was the '99 Spurs at a bit over 30%. The '87 Lakers were the first title winner to be found working back thru the records to be higher on this than the 2011 Thunder. It seems very very rare to get or rely upon getting foul shots to the degree that the Thunder are designed to get and have gotten them. They were even higher and more reliant on it in 2010 so I guess they took a tiny step down in reliance on this method of attack. Will this strength help them enough to win a title eventually or will its attempt to compensate for non-elite shooting quality from the field continue to fall short? We'll see how things unfold. Later.
What Russell is up to. Just in case you are curious.
That donkey with the sombrero was great! Can I get one at The Thunder Shop?
@ okc baby
ones that wont get 50 million dollar contracts :P .
funny though, everyone that seems to try okc love it here :) nazr, perk, even reggie is raving about us. Cant wait to see that kid in action btw. I hope they get these negotiations out of the way soon, i want a season lol
Thunder UP! What NBA player wouldn't like to play for that! Lets Go!
btw awesome video. cant wait till we win a championship, this state might explode with joy. You better believe its going to happen soon too, our guys are hungry.
@ Thomas
its not about the players dude. This video represents THE FANS, and that there are thunder fans all over the state. I rather like the fact that there are no players in it, just real people :) .
Well, that's one way to continue to promote the team without relying on the likeness of a single member of the roster. Just drive around to random towns in Oklahoma (Woodward AND Guymon, say boy) and have people hold up a flag. Can't blame 'em for trying.
DizzDai :Real news here…
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/7/3/2257012/serge...
I don't really see how Serge is going to be able to sign a contract with a Spanish team without ever really knowing when the lockout will end. As soon as it ends, he's just going to drop everything with that Spanish team and fly back to the US? Can he do that? Will there be a stipulation in his Spanish contract that he will play with them until the NBA lockout ends? Seems like there would be too many complications, if you ask me.
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