TV: Cox (Cox 3, HD 703)
Stream: HERE
Radio: N/A
Time: 6:00 CT
White Team
Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jeff Green, Michael Beasley, Jamal Crawford, Monta Ellis
Blue Team
Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, James Harden, Rudy Gay, Amare Stoudemire, Damien Wilkins, John Wall, Jonny Flynn. Read more…
Good Saturday Thunder fans. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. It’s not the Thunder, but at least it’s basketball Sunday.
Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images
The NBA wants you to believe something. We’re fighting for the little man. We’re sticking up for the small market team that can’t fend for itself.
That’s what Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver hammered home yesterday while basically announcing that the league is screwed right now.
“I know we’ve had lots of back and forth with people in this room, but we think that a team that spends $100 million on its payroll versus a team that spends $50 million is at a huge competitive advantage. It’s not a perfect one-to-one correlation, but there’s a huge competitive advantage that comes from the ability to spend more time. And there’s a reason we believe why the NFL has been so successful from a competitive standpoint with a hard cap and a reason that the NHL has been so successful from a competitive standpoint with their flex cap type system which has a hard, absolute cap at the top of the band.”
Before that, David Stern went on and on during his media blitz about how the Sacramento Kings are trying to live in a world where they spend $45 million to the Lakers $100 million. It isn’t fair. No way around it. It’s not. Historically, the trophies live in the big markets. Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles — over the past 60 years, 36 championships were won by those cities (40 if you count the four won by the Minneapolis Lakers). Four cities accounted for 60 percent of the NBA’s champions since 1950. There’s never, ever been a precedent for competitive balance in the NBA. Never has the playing field been level. Read more…
Nazr Mohammed: “It’s almost amazing to me how our union is handling the new CBA like a business deal while some owners are acting like bitter ex’s who want to make us bleed. We’ve given in on the BRI($300m), luxury tax to police teams from themselves, and we’re negotiating on length of contracts but nothing is enough for them. This is business and we have a good thing going. They need to stop being greedy and start negotiating before we alienate the people who make it possible for us to make a living playing a game. It’s not negotiating if we’re the only ones willing to compromise.”
Andrew Sharp of SB Nation on “Saint Kevin”: “Since his rise to superduperstardom is as inevitable as the constant tug of war between myth and reality and cynicism and naivete and everything else, it’s a good bet that at some point there will be backlash against all the praise. We’ve already seen some of it. (“The sports media celebrate Kevin Durant for being someone he isn’t”; Kevin Durant’s Beautiful Mirages). There are good arguments on both sides, and to some degree Durant’s always going to embody a much broader debate about narrative and how we understand the superstars of today. But even if the debate gets louder among fans, bloggers, and starry-eyed columnists falling all over themselves to deify him, don’t forget to appreciate the real Kevin Durant. The devil—or the saint, maybe—is in the details.” Read more…
To with Allison Glock’s outstanding piece on Kevin Durant was this lovely video of KD hanging out at ESPN the Mag. Read, and then watch. Or watch and then read. I don’t really care what order.
But be sure you don’t miss the list of things about KD you might not know. Pretty interesting: Read more…
Mick Cornett wasn’t one of the mayors to send a letter to the league: “I just felt like the players and owners are on the same side as we’re on. Everybody wants it to be resolved,” Cornett said Wednesday. “It just seems disrespectful to sign a letter that seemed to imply somebody was necessarily at fault.” One paragraph later though, Cornett takes a side: “If forced to take a side, I would side with the owners in this deal,” Cornett said. “If anyone believes commissioner (David) Stern or the owners want to start canceling games, I just can’t imagine where that line of thinking is coming from. That’s the last thing anybody wanted to do. “They (owners) obviously are serious about getting a better business deal with the players. The players are going to have to see that the economics have changed, and they’re still getting a good deal, even if it is not as good as it was (in the previous CBA).”
A wonderful feature from ESPN the Mag on KD: “Kevin Durant has seen the YouTube videos. The ones where he drains so many threes the crowd rushes the court to touch the hem of his garment. The ones where his step-backs and crossovers turn defenders into extras from The Walking Dead. The ones where, with his Bambi gait, he shuts down more crap than Congress. The ones where he out-LeBrons LeBron. On his extended summer vacation, Durant took his game to the playground courts of LA, DC and NYC. The highlights became the “Lazy Sunday” of the lockout. On them, freed from the formality of the NBA, Durant plays with frivolity. Nothing is at stake. The game is just the game. And he is just a kid, standing on the court, letting the crowd love him.” Read more…
Despite Blake Griffin being out for Sunday’s charity game, Oklahoma City is going to see the most star-studded rosters of any NBA pickup game this summer.
Joining a list that already includes Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, John Wall, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Paul, Jeff Green and Rudy Gay, is Kendrick Perkins, James Harden, LaMarcus Aldridge, Damien Wilkins, Jonny Flynn, Jamal Crawford and Michael Beasley.
Desmond Mason said this: “It is going to be a wonderful event that is virtually sold out. Everyone is bummed about Blake, but as it pertains to the quality of players we have, one person does not dictate that. This is an opportunity for our fans to show the world that Oklahoma City is deserving of an All-Star bid in the future. Without the Hornets, Oklahoma City wouldn’t have had the opportunity to secure an NBA franchise and hopefully this event enables the city to be in consideration for future All-Star events.” Read more…
Via Marc Stein of ESPN.com, Blake Griffin will miss this Sunday’s charity game in Oklahoma City because of a cut on his right foot that “required a couple stitches.”
Griffin cut his foot while in the ocean, apparently.
Major bummer for a lot of reasons, but it’s a blow to the game that was billed as “The Battle for Mr. Oklahoma” as a head-to-head between Kevin Durant and Griffin. Not that the game doesn’t still have a solid cast (LeBron, Wade, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo, CP3, Amare, John Wall, etc), but Griffin was one of the two headliners. I would imagine he’ll still attend, just not play.
KD’s new episode of 35th Hour is out and while it’s not the most fascinating thing ever — at least compared to the interesting responses he gave in the last one — it does give some nice behind-the-scenes looks at his Nike commercial promoting the “Back for the Future” campaign.
Good news: Sunday’s charity game will be televised in Oklahoma on the Cox channel (channel 3 and 703 HD).
The league and players met for 16 hours yesterday but didn’t reach an agreement. They will, however, resume negotiations at 9 a.m. (CT). The talks went until 1:30 a.m., but after they wrapped, the federal mediator had apparently requested neither side address the media. So we don’t really know much of anything. But you’ve got to feel like if they went at it for 16 hours and then set up to resume shortly after, there’s got to be something worth talking about. At least I hope. Read more…
Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images
Kevin Durant was on The Sports Animal yesterday to help spread the word about his Oklahoma City charity game. So naturally he got asked about the lockout, what he’s doing with his post game and how much he hates OU. Via Sports Radio Interviews:
On the players fighting not only for the present but also the future:
“Yeah man, I think we’re trying to get a deal done that’s going to really help what we’ve got going on now, but like you said, the players that will be coming after us too. We’re sacrificing a little bit of time for betterment of both. But hopefully we get something done because I know the fans are getting anxious or a little upset, but I think we’re doing what we need to make sure the players have a fair deal.”
On what his message is to fans that think the negotiations are still ongoing because of players being greedy: Read more…
Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images
If you had trouble buying the tickets you wanted Monday to the Kevin Durant-Blake Griffin charity basketball game, you weren’t the only one. Ticketmaster issues — surprise! — made ticket sales for the Sunday’s U.S. Fleet Tracking Basketball Invitational a crazy endeavor early Monday afternoon.
“It was out of hand,” said former Thunder player Desmond Mason, who is helping to organize the game. “I had some high-profile friends calling me saying they couldn’t get them.”
Dozens of people were lined up at the Cox Convention Center box office by 11 a.m., but workers there later created a lottery system that gave no preference to those who arrived early. Some people lined up at Homeland stores in the Oklahoma City area to get tickets there. Others spent time in Ticketmaster’s online waiting room.
Many people were told that only the $39 tickets were available after a few short minutes, but that was not the case. Single tickets in all but the courtside price level were still available late Monday, which stood in direct contrast to what many customers were told by the Ticketmaster website and Homeland employees as early as 12:05 p.m. Pairs of tickets remained available in the $89 price level late Monday. Read more…
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com on today’s huge meeting: “But if Cohen, the ultimate dealmaker according to legal sources who have dealt with him, can build a bridge on the cap-and-tax issues, then agreement on the other problems can and will follow. I don’t have all the answers, but I do have the answer to this question: Are there any more excuses for the NBA and its players union to avoid compromise and extend this lockout? The answer to that question is no.”
SLAM ranks Russell Westbrook 12th overall: “In fact, due to Westbrook’s rare talent, I would encourage Head Coach Scott Brooks to encourage his young leader to shoot more. To trust his lighting-quick first-step and off-the-charts athleticism and take over games when needed. While the Thunder have a bevy of riches assembled by the brightest young (not sure if we can still call him that, but…) mind in GM Sam Presti, there isn’t a lot of on-the-ball wizardry. The frontcourt is full of role players (Nick Collison, Serge Ibaka, Kendrick Perkins) and the backcourt isn’t necessarily loaded with creators. James Harden is the perfect compliment and Eric Maynor is much like Westbrook (a converted college scoring 2-guard) only a little less awesome in every department.” Read more…
Ronald Martinez/NBAE/Getty Images
Sixth overall. Kevin Durant, according to 91 voters for ESPN.com, is the sixth overall best player in the NBA.
Not bad.
I was one of the 91 that voted on a 1-to-10 basis and I gave only one 10. That was to LeBron. I gave four 9s — Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and KD. So even from the biggest KD homer in the land, his sixth ranking makes a good amount of sense, considering the circumstances.
If you look at the actual numbers, Durant’s within a few tenths of everyone in front of him. Who are those in front of him, you ask? (Not in order) Dwight Howard, LeBron, Dirk, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade. Behind KD is Kobe (uh oh), Derrick Rose, Deron Williams and Blake Griffin.
But just like for Russell Westbrook, the question has to be asked: right or wrong? Read more…
Darnell Mayberry on Russell Westbrook’s NBA Rank: “Westbrook and Rose are not comparable. They are in two totally different situations. Rose doesn’t have the back-to-back scoring champ flanking him on the wing. You just can’t overlook that. Nor can you overlook how predictable Westbrook can be. There were too many times last season when you just knew he’d come down and take a 17-foot pull up without even thinking about looking for something else. All that needs to be considered, and it goes back to the trite “watch the game” argument. I know it seems like I’m bagging on Westbrook. Trust me, I’m not. I think he’s a phenomenal player. I think he’s a top 20 player. And if he’s not just where he belongs at No. 15 then he’s not far from it.”
James Herbert for HP on KD’s rap video: “I know I’m not alone when I say the the Thunder are the team I’m most excited to watch if/when the season gets going. If I was putting an enormous list together, I’d have OKC’s emergence as a true title contender as THE most interesting subplot to follow. I’ll be rooting for Westbrook to silence his critics and for Durant to be up there in the MVP conversation. I’ll be looking for the next step from a starting James Harden and for signs that Kendrick Perkins’s relative ineffectiveness last season had more to do with his health than anything else. This is a team that’s impossible not to like and it’s no surprise that its players genuinely love being part of the organization. Here’s hoping the next video we post of a Durant-Westbrook connection takes place on the court.” Read more…
