Daily Thunder.com

KennethLamb You are a joke and in fantasy land. Good Luck on your next team. Following Nate.

DXL we dont have many minutes for those guys.

finish1ine Of course we do! RJ is better than Thabo and Billups is certainly better than Maynor. For low salaries those are no-brainer signings. Also just to keep them away from Miami and other capped-out contenders.

DXLfinish1ine Umm no

shiki They also have to take on Hedo's contract I believe

shiki Playing the season opener against Howard-less Magic would be awesome!

diddoffshiki It'll be a hell of a lot less fun to watch us smoke the Magic without Howard. It's not like they have enough talent even with Howard to beat us at home. It'll make it a lot more worthwhile for fans like me who want to see how festive the Thunder get on opening night after this miserable lockout if I get to watch a fun, competitive game

shiki Forgot to throw in lottery tickets for the Magic, because that's what they'd be playing for if this trade goes down.

cemitten I think what the love is, at least for me, is this guy was no "bench bum" like most guys who are in his situation (*cough cough* Byron Mullens *cough cough*). The guy was a productive player, who was playing relatively big roles, who got abruptly traded to a team where he didn't play at all, and he took it right in stride. You have to appreciate that at least a little bit, even if his sideline antics don't do anything more for you.

JimboSlicecemitten Actually, he was a bench bum. Couldn't shoot, couldn't defend, and didn't pass. I think everyone wants to remember Nate as the guy who dropped 30 one night for the Celtics, but he's not. He's a chucker with no defensive or PG skills. He's Byron Mullens with a useless highlight reel, not anything close to a productive player.

Keith00cemitten I wouldn't say all that. If you look at his advanced stats and stats per 36 min for boston in 09-10, especially the playoffs, he was one of their more productive players outside the Big 3. And going back before that, he averaged 17.2 points a game with a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio in 08-09 with the Knicks. From the eye test for us, yes, he was a bench bum, but his career production tends to show otherwise.

JimboSlicecemitten He was a bum for us, which is the only thing that matters. And even career, he has below average efficiency, terrible defense, and the eye test shows him obviously thinking himself better than he is (way too high usage whenever he is on the court). I'm in the same boat as cemitten, I just don't see why people liked him so much. It's one thing to support him because he's on the team, it's another to give him props for things he doesn't do.

Keith00JimboSlicecemitten if you look at his best season for the knicks he had 17.2ppg 4.1apg 3.9 rpg on 29mpg with 13.9 fga/g with a ts% of 55%

I do not see how somebody with 14 fga/g in their highest fga season is a chucker.If he is then so is westbrook as westbrook had more fga/g and a lower ts%.

Keith00cemitten but he was a "bum" for us because of the situation he came into. As f5alcon pointed out, his numbers don't say chucker at all. That's just the perception since he played a total of 30 minutes in a Thunder jersey, and still even in that period averaged 1.5 assists to 0.5 turns. Not only that, but his per 36 minute averages were STILL strong even in the terrible role he played ( 4th on the team in scoring, 7.2 assists to 2.4 turns- of note Maynor was only 7.1 to 2.3 per 36 best on the team).

My point is, this is a completely legitemate player who deserved minutes and could have easily whined and made a huge stink about the way he was used here, but showed OKC nothing but love and appreciation despite his tough situation. If anything, he deserves far more love than any of the other benchwarmers we've cheered on.

cemitten I'm thinking you're not a native Oklahoman. We embrace everyone like they're family and love 'em up while they're here. After all, everyone is temporary on the team to some degree. (BTW. . . there are 18,203 of us sitting around the court!) :)

ThunderChick2010 Unless you're on the OU football team and lose... Sorry, had to throw that in. Lived here all my life and understand Oklahoman's tendency. The difference is players like Ivey, Livingston, and the multitude of other short term bench guys on this team never got the same love as Nate has. I have nothing against Nate. Wish he could have been product here and wish him the best wherever he lands. It's just interesting that everybody developed such a love for a bench player who really did nothing for us on the court.

cemittenThunderChick2010 Nate got so much love because he's high energy. Even if he wasn't contributing on the court he was showing a ton of love to the OKC crowd and to every player on the team. Everybody loves having a guy like that on their team. He's rowdy and crazy and super likeable because he's the diminutive point guard who happens to be a 3-time Dunk Content Champion. He has a reputation of being a lot of fun and a total goof ball. I loved having him in OKC even if he isn't gonna be here any more.

cemitten Nate contributed to the Thunder before even arriving. When Kendrick Perkins was upset about being traded, Nate helped assure him by letting him know that he'd be there with him. Kendrick could have been totally pissed off when he arrived...or open to something new. I think Nate helped open the door to the Thunder.

How come we only have 13,000 at the game? Are we playing Centenary?

diddoff@nba Sounds like the rumor is we traded Thabo for Tony Allen.

DizzDaididdoff@nba Please be serious about this.....

cemittenDizzDaididdoff Holy shit that would be awesome.

I haven't seen anything serious. Just a few random tweets. I think it is likely just a rumor.

DizzDaididdoff I see no reason for the Grizz to do this trade. It doesn't save them any money

DizzDaididdoff@nba I would crap myself and do an irish jig if this were true

diddoff@nba please be true. please be true.

diddoff i asked Tony via Twitter if he was coming to OKC, to which he replied "Naw". too good to be true i guess.

fearthebeard Nevermind. Thinking about it for some hours was great.

fearthebearddiddoff dangit. researching this rumor this morning made me late for work. and for nothing!

diddoff@nba Can we PLEASE get Tony Allen. One of the few non Thunder players I follow on Twitter, and he's one of the guys that would exponentially help KD by not being in his way lol.

btw, sad day in a way...Brandon Roy retiring due to bad knees. From 2006 to 2009 he was a superstar in the making and then like that, he's done. Pretty bad deal for PDX. As if they didn't have enough injuries destroying their franchise, just goes to show how lucky we've been.

DizzDai Don't think they could officially break news of signings til about 8 minutes ago. Don't worry, we should hear something very soon.

GeoLogger Potentially could save it for someone we trade for...maybe in the case we make a bad trade (not likely)...or in the case we make a trade where we have to take a bad contract back and then could just amnesty that bad contract.

KD35Russ0 So what is the bit about signed before July 1 2011 about? I hadn't noticed that before

GeoLoggerKD35Russ0 Doesn't count on a trade. Has to be an existing contract signed prior to that time by the team that signed it. Essentially it is worth protection on the Perkins deal and that's it. Which with his injury history and games logged could end up being a little something, but likely not used.

it could be used on perkins to give us the room to resign ibaka nd harden if somebody tries to max them both.

bigturdGeoLogger Didn't know that it couldn't be used on a traded player. Thought it was just for any deal prior to this CBA. Interesting, thanks