Daily Thunder.com

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Now that training camp has officially begun for the Thunder, it is only natural that we would all immediately jump into our coaching armchairs and start getting down to the nitty gritty aspects of what decisions could make the most impact on the coming year. You know, the calculations and determinations that sparked rich debate last year and will undoubtedly spark even more debate before the tip-off of the 2011-2012 Oklahoma City Thunder season, especially the biggest powder keg of them all…

Can Royal Ivey raise his bench celebrations to the level of Nate Robinson’s All-Star machinations?

Okay, so maybe I’m the only one that thinks this could be a serious factor for the Thunder’s success this year, so let’s just hammer out if James Harden should start over Thabo Sefolosha.

Yes. Yes, he should.

But since I know you’re going to want some kind of reasoning behind such a quick and concise answer, let’s dive into why the most important statistics (in my opinion) absolutely leave no doubt whatsoever that James Harden has to, surely, for the love of all that is holy, start for the Thunder this season. Read more…

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Here are some of the eye-opening stats from the Thunder’s 2010-2011 season thus far. This isn’t an all encompassing list but more so the numbers that have captured my attention and even somewhat surprised me on which players seem to hurt and help the Thunder the most win it comes to trying to put a ‘W’ in the win column.

And yes, this is going to cause “discussion.” Believe me.

• The Thunder are 11-2 when Serge Ibaka plays 30 or more minutes a game (which means they’re only 12-11 when Serge plays less than 30; oh yeah, did I mention he’s averaging only 26 minutes a game right now over the season?). In the games Serge has played more than 30 minutes, he is averaging 11.46 points, 8.69 rebounds and 2.62 blocks in those games

• Oh, and the Thunder are 16-5 when Serge scores in double digits as well

• The Thunder are 10-2 when Durant scores 30 or more points; 18-8 if he scores 25 points or more

• The Thunder are 9-3 when Westbrook notches double digit assists. If he dishes out 8 or more assists, the Thunder are 12-5. You can guess what happens if he dishes out less and less assists

• Yet, Westbrook’s scoring seems just as critical to the Thunder’s chance at a victory, as the team is 15-5 when Westbrook scores 20 or more points (and are only 8-8 when he doesn’t)

And since he’s such a hot button issue (and rightfully so after last night’s debacle of a performance/indefensible amount of playing time with a visibly on fire James Harden just wasting away on the bench)… Read more…

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With Darnell Mayberry’s tweet and Chris Silva’s blog reporting that Serge Ibaka will start at center for the Thunder tonight, I couldn’t help but remember the plethora of conversations, discussions, debates, and name calling incidents that have centered around where Ibaka should play and if he’s a true 4, a tweener 4/5 or somewhere in between.

So, let’s have a look at the potential positives and negatives of starting Ibaka at center for the Thunder’s first preseason game against the Charlotte Bobcats and beyond.

Pro: Serge will get to play with the starting unit. This is obviously a no-brainer for both sides of the “Serge is a PF/C” argument because both want to see him eventually emerge as a starter, so getting as much time as he could with the starting unit is a good thing considering the fact that he would have been coming off of the bench in any scenario not involving him starting at center.

Con: He won’t be playing at the position he’s most well suited for and spent the majority of last season at. While some would argue that any time on the floor is good time (and I typically support this idea), some other individuals would also claim that Serge seeing time at center will only highlight some of his deficiencies from last season, namely his poor boxing out and man-to-man iso defense against bigger opponents, unless he has significantly improved those already, and might cause him to play differently when he returns to PF when Krstic and Collison get healthy. Read more…

Commentary Nenad Krstic, Serge Ibaka

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Well this is the end of our five part look into the things I’d personally like to see happen next season for the Thunder. Much like the previous four installments, this one has been a hot button issue for the fan base and I suspect it will continue to be until the players involved settle the debate organically by how they play.

But without further ado, here is Part V…

I want to see Serge Ibaka emerge as the Thunder’s starting PF.

I know a lot of people are going to see this as a shot at Jeff Green and it’s not. Not at all. The fact of the matter is that I have always and will always continue to believe that Jeff Green has a very important role for this team and the Thunder franchise (and yes, that role is on the court and not some weird KD BFF or “calming presence in the locker room” nonsense. Jeff Green is better than you probably think he is, trust me).

Now obviously I’m not one of the people who want Green dealt or dream up trades where somehow he gets traded for an All-Star caliber PF despite those very same people saying he stinks and somehow equating “stinky player + picks or expiring contracts” = “trading for an All-Star PF.” Fuzzy math is fun, just not very logical. Read more…

Commentary Jeff Green, Serge Ibaka

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Offensive Execution.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before (though seriously, please don’t, or else this entire article will also have to be stopped), but I couldn’t help but rewatch the playoff series against the Lakers off of my DVR (yes, I’m that guy) a few nights back and was genuinely surprised at just how viciously one glaring weakness of the Thunder came screaming into view:

“Man these guys really don’t execute on offense very well.”

From the steady flow of dribbling turnovers to the lack of intentional movements to open up good looks to the general sense of confusion and aimlessness on the floor, the biggest area of improvement I think the Thunder could see next season that could take them to that next level as a contender is offensive execution.

So let’s take a look at the three things that the Thunder really need to improve upon for the offense to go from average (and below average without Kevin Durant on the floor) to a Top 10 level for next year.

Reduce the turnovers

This is not just a Russell Westbrook or Kevin Durant statement, though clearly both of them really, really need to start taking better care of the ball. The entire Thunder team needs to value the ball throughout the entire game as much as they would if it were the last 20 seconds.

Fortunately for the Thunder and their fans, I think the turnover issue will be resolved a bit organically since all of the Thunder players who primarily handle the ball off of the bench will no longer be rookies and those who start will no longer be sophomores. As most of us know, turnovers and poor shot selection are synonymous with the word “rookie” in the NBA and there seems to be no cure like good old experience for those specific maladies.

But I also think another cause of the turnover bug is the fact that a lot of times the Thunder’s offense just looked—directionless. Read more…

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Defensive rebounding improvement.

Does anything more need to be said other than, no, this is not a shot at Serge Ibaka in any way (even if that one moment could be considered a great example of this needed improvement).

Some people have made the mistake of saying that the Thunder are not/were not a good rebounding team last year and that’s just not true. For starters, the Thunder were the third best offensive rebounding (rate) team in the league last year behind Memphis and Detroit and were the sixth best rebounding (rate) team in the NBA, ahead of teams like the Blazers, Lakers and Bulls. So those two statistics show how fictitious the assertion is that the Thunder were not a good rebounding team.

The problem with the Thunder’s rebounding is not what it wasn’t able to do last year as much as it was what it could have been last year if the defensive rebounding wasn’t just middle-to-below-average in the NBA. Well, and if anyone in the front court could grab more than six total rebounds a game.

Stats like those are why I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re SF, who rarely finds his way onto the block on defense, is your leading rebounder and your team leader for grabbing defensive rebounds, then there’s a legitimate problem that must be improved for next season. Read more…

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2. I want to see Russell Westbrook’s FIBA defense in the NBA

If you haven’t been watching the World Championships or the exhibitions that led up to it, you’ve really missed out on seeing one of the most crystal clear displays of what Sam Presti was thinking when he drafted Russell Westbrook to be a defensive stopper out on the perimeter for this franchise.

Westbrook has been everywhere defensively on the perimeter and even down on the blocks when he’s seen the opportunity to double a post player. His hands have been almost relentlessly active, his footwork has steered guards to where he wants them to be and, thanks to FIBA rules, Westbrook has used his sizeable strength advantage to amazing effect, bodying guards to the point that they are entirely redirected anytime they want to drive to the bucket.

This display leads me to one thought over and over again as I watch this unbelievable performance: Why haven’t I seen this on the Thunder?

Read more…

Commentary Russell Westbrook

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With the World Championships about to kickoff and the month of August coming to a close, I think it’s more than appropriate for us to start getting a little excited about the upcoming year (especially now that we’ve seen the schedule). And a big part about the anticipation and excitement for this upcoming season has to do with the natural progression that a young team must make to go from potential contender to a championship reality.

So with that in mind, I’m going to look at five different things over the next few weeks that I’d really like to see happen next year because I believe these are the five developments that will take the Thunder from being a young and promising squad to a legitimate, without-question championship contender.

And no, these are not in any specific order of importance whatsoever. Read more…

Commentary James Harden, Thabo Sefolosha

Henry Abbott posted a postulation on TrueHoop this last Friday about the emerging scientific consensus that the alpha dog mentality that has been so long attributed to packs of wolves has recently come into question through the conclusions of recent research studies.

Naturally, this got some people thinking about LeBron James and the Miami Heat (take from that what you will, but I’m thinking any NBA fan or basketball mind almost always has the Miami Heat on the brain now so I suppose it’s not that much of a shock). And of course, any time you bring up LeBron’s decision to “take his talents to South Beach,” a discussion inevitably centered around the alpha dog idea is not too far behind.

The question that was posed was pretty much if the fact that alpha dogs may not exist in a pack of wolves, like we have thought for so long, then does this recent development completely reshape how we should react to LeBron’s choice to join some other superstar’s basketball team instead of lead one of his own.

Now, before we even dive into this, I’m going to need you to certainly toss aside the fallacious logic that if the alpha male phenomenon might does not exist in wild wolfpacks then it obviously means it can’t exist in human basketball teams (or any other non-wolf centered group dynamic), because well, that’s just coming to a faulty conclusion.

“If the alpha dog/male concept does not appear to exist in wild wolfpacks, and human basketball teams kind of resemble and operate as a wolfpack, then clearly the alpha dog/male concept can not occur on a human basketball team and has no bearing on leadership roles at all.” Read more…

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Anytime training camp and preseason can be seen on the hardwood horizon a certain level of excitement begins percolating throughout a franchise’s organization, the team and the fan base. And that excitement is usually directly proportionate to what level of expectation all three groups have for the team in the upcoming year.

And as commenters justin and Kivman discussed recently, the expectation to succeed and win at a playoff-caliber level will be entirely new to this team and their fans. In fact, you could even argue that this upcoming season will be a better determinant for if the Thunder will compete for a spot at the top of the NBA’s pecking order for the next five-to-six years (at least) because being an elite, championship contending team means having a target on your back.

Last year the Thunder was the surprise of the league in terms of exceeding expectations, a fact accentuated by Scott Brooks winning Coach of the Year. No one, especially not the fans, expected the team to make the playoffs, let alone be only five games back from the number two seed when the season ended.

Everyone except the players. But, honestly, I thought they were crazy. “3-29?! And they expect playoffs?! Oh don’t do that to yourselves.” I’m sure almost everyone thought something similar last year when they heard Durant discussing the team’s goal in training camp.

And it’s this unique dynamic between a team’s belief and the expectations placed upon them by their fans and their competition that can make or break a season, influencing if the year was considered a success and that a team’s future is bright, or if the year was a disappointment and everyone heads into the off-season with a sour taste in their mouth. Read more…

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(The idea that KD is good and LeBron is bad was discussed a few weeks ago, but just on the surface. What about their teams? Is this truly a good versus evil type of dynamic in the NBA this year? JG takes a closer look.)

Far too often in sports, professional athletes and teams are given exaggerated names or labeled with one of a million cliched analogies that they just don’t deserve. Hyperbole runs rampant in the information age and so many, many a fan rolls their eyes when they hear words like “the game of the decade” or “the best _______ I’ve ever seen” so much so that a doubting reluctance to pay attention to any demonstrative title or name becomes almost second nature.

The reason I say this is to try and illustrate how much disdain I personally feel when a team or athlete is hyped to an unbelievable degree or labeled as something so outlandish and absurd that all you can really do is laugh about the strained connection some writer or media member tried to make between a true icon of the sports world or a timeless character from books, movies, history, etc and some modern day athlete playing a game for a living.

Why? Well, because I’m about to do just that.

You see, I’ve been diving into the defining traits of the all-time great modern villains in literature and film, or as I like to call them, the Degrees of Diabolicalness, for my book’s website and I couldn’t help but notice the striking parallels between legendary, epic villains and—the Miami Heat.

Now while that might not be all that surprising, the realization that the Miami Heat would be the NBA’s version of the Empire led me to an almost inevitable inquiry: If the Miami Heat are the Empire, does that make the Thunder the Rebellion?

Read more…

Commentary Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder

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There’s two contrasting thoughts typically around NBA fan circles about what role Team USA can play on that fan’s team. These thoughts usually depend entirely on what happens to the players from that fan’s team while they are representing their country, positively or negatively.

Thought A is that the risk versus reward is too great and that only bad can come from it. These are the fans who claim that any actual basketball development or improvement while playing with the Team USA squad and coaching staff will be so negligible that the risk for injury and/or the non-rest that these players experience during the off-season puts them in an unfavorable position heading into the season. They’re either going to be too tired and a little worn down from the games and practices during a time that they are typically resting and recuperating from a long season, thereby making them more susceptible to picking up nagging injuries or to suffer from fatigue earlier in the 82 game haul than usual, or they will actually enter training camp with an injury/still trying to fully recover from one and that hampers their ability to enter the new season in top form.

Thought B is that risk for injuries or exhaustion is minimal for a Team USA player in the contrasting context of an 82 game season whereas the experience of playing with some of your country’s best players/coaches, especially for younger players, can act as a springboard to an entirely different level of mental development as well as physical/basketball skill growth. In other words, risk of injury is a part of basketball so unless a player is known to be somewhat brittle, what’s the difference between them playing a pickup game on asphalt or at an NBA team’s training facility versus playing with Team USA, especially since a few months of games and practices is nothing compared to the 9 months of night in, night out basketball grind that the players go through during an NBA season?

For me, both sides have their points and ultimately it comes down to just one simple thing in terms of the fans’ perspective (after all, for the players this is really about representing your country and wearing that jersey with pride and honor…but NBA fans usually aren’t nearly as worried about that part).

That one thing is this: Will there actually be development and improvement? Read more…

Commentary Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

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We’ve all heard of the sophomore slump and while it does exist in every sport at every level of competition, the NBA is an intriguing case study for the opposing phenomenon of the sophomore slump: The Sophomore Surge.

(By the way, it was really hard to not title this the sophomore Serge, but I resisted.)

You see rookies are known, if not even expected, to do two horrible things in their rookie season. They take unbelievably ill-advised and often rushed shots, thereby plummeting their FG%, AND they turn the ball over so much that coaches round the world simultaneously smack their foreheads and yearn to call for a sub.

Are there exceptions to this rule? Well, of course—but not really. I mean of course there are exceptions in that not everyone is going to suffer from both and some will do better in these categories than others but, pretty much across the board, a rookie is going to take better shots and take better care of the ball more in their second-through-retirement seasons than they will in their rookie season. In fact, I’ll go out on a very short limb and say it should come as no shock to any of us that professional basketball players get better the more time they have to play professional basketball up until that no fun thief known as age steals their youth and physical prime.

It’s called experience and adapting to the speed and level of play of the Association. So why all the references to the sophomore surge? Well, seeing as the Thunder are still one of the youngest teams in the league and have a core consisting of players all under the age of 23, we have witnessed that “jump” from the rookie season to the sophomore season in terms of production and development. In fact, we’ve also seen the jump (via Durant) from sophomore stud to junior All-Star and MVP candidate (though please don’t expect all Thunder players to make that jump).

And since there are three rookie pieces that are as essential to the Thunder’s rise to the next stage of competing for a championship, the sophomore surge of Serge, Harden and Maynor will greatly affect the current and futures success of this team.

So what can we expect?

Well, for starters, you might not want to expect the same dramatic jump that you saw from Durant, Westbrook and even Green make for the Thunder’s newest sophomores. And here’s why… Read more…

Commentary Eric Maynor, James Harden, Serge Ibaka

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So the dust is finally starting to settle on the free agency bonanza of 2010 and while many, many faces stayed put because of some absolutely absurd max contract offers (Joe Johnson/Rudy Gay), others went to greener pa$ture$ so we need to reassess the current makeup of the league.

But don’t worry, there’s a really easy way to get a good feel for the common thread of what has taken place since July 1st (yes, it really was only 11 days ago) and that overarching theme is this…

“Bye, bye Western Conference. Hello East!”

You know the old adage that it’s better to be lucky than good? Well it’s really nice if you can be both and, luckily for the Thunder, last year’s almost miraculous run to 50 wins and the playoffs certainly doesn’t seem like it was a once in a lifetime achievement. Realistically, the Thunder should do even better next season.

In fact, you could argue that an 8th place finish would have been a disappointment next year even before every major free agent and top draft pick wound up in the Eastern Conference.

But enough with the summary, let’s look at the cold hard facts of where the Thunder should reasonably be in the Western Conference’s pecking order come tip-off for the 2010-11 season… Read more…

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So here we are again ladies and gents! Summer League is fast upon us as the first game will start Monday, even though most of the work force will be at home so, surprisingly, there shouldn’t be a huge hit in work productivity because of the awesome spectacle that is the Orlando Summer League.

Now as you noticed, I’m not going to go over the Vegas Summer League but pretty much just use both events for the purpose of this article (plus, the Thunder won’t play in Vegas, unlike last year, and you’re on a Thunder site so…).  And it’s not like either location has better or worse competition.

They’re both awful.

I mean just plain abysmal at times.

But, alas, in the summertime with only baseball to regularly keep you company, we will flock to any kind of organized “professional” basketball like mosquitoes to a bug zapper.

So without further ado, here’s my list of the Top 5 things you absolutely have to know/understand about Summer League before you either throw up in your mouth a little after watching a game for the first time or think that Ryan Reid will be the next Hakeem Olajuwon after he scores 20 points, pulls down 20 boards and blocks 10 shots.

1. It’s pretty bad. No, seriously, it hurts sometimes it’s so bad.

First things first, you have to go in with adequate expectations about what kind of basketball you’re going to see if you have any chance of appreciating and enjoying the NBA’s Summer League for the awesomeness that it is. And that expectation is this… Read more…

Commentary Summer League