Daily Thunder.com

(Morning cats and kittens. Thank you for your undying support of Daily Thunder. Carry on my wayward sons.)

First and foremost, I want to wish a happy one-year anniversary to my wonderful wife. Thanks for not killing me. To celebrate, I think we should all watch what we pay the money to see: slamjam dunks. The top 100 hammers just came out this week and there’s a few Thundermen making appearances. Kevin Durant checks in at No. 70, Jeff Green at No. 35 with his left-handed bee-auty and Russell Westbrook was the runner-up dunker of the year with his off-the-backboard flush from Earl Watson. Enjoy. And tell me happy anniversary.

(This is the top 25. For 100-70 click here, for 69-47 click here, and for 46-26 click here.)

Video Dunks, Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

As I wrote in the “We don’t want you, Ben Gordon!” column, OKC was one of two teams (New York being the other) that had three players attempt at least 1,000 shots on the season. Kevin Durant took 1,390, Russell Westbrook 1,095 and Jeff Green 1,068. That got me to thinking – was OKC’s “Big Three” the most relied upon trio in the league?

Let’s look! (An absurd amount of stats coming – but there’s also colorful pie charts! Mmm… pie.)

The three averaged 57.1 points per game together and the entire team averaged 97.0 ppg. So of the team’s total points per game, Durant, Green and Westbrook averaged 58.8 percent of the total scoring. Three teams had three players contribute more to the overall scoring than OKC. Dallas was first with Jason Terry, Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard scoring 62.4 percent of the team’s points per game. Chris Paul, David West and Peja Stojakovic combined for 59.6 percent of the Hornets total output. And LeBron James, Mo Williams and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 58.9 percent of the Cavs total points per game (with LeBron having a huge chunk of everything).

But scoring is not the only thing Durant, Green and Westbrook did. They took 52.9 percent of the teams total shots (3,553 of 6,716) and per game, 45.9 of 81.9 shots (56 percent). And they made 52.4 percent of the team’s total baskets. They took 606 of the OKC’s 949 three pointers (63.8 percent) and made 69.5 percent of the Thunder’s total threes. They attempted 60.8 percent of the OKC’s free throws and made 64.1 percent of team’s total freebies. They grabbed 40 percent of the team’s rebounds, had 47.8 percent of the team’s total assists, had 50.5 percent of the team’s turnovers and averaged 36.1 minutes a game between them.

In other words, they kind of did it all. The 54.4 average of those 12 categories is the highest combined percentage of total production/usage in the league. The thing is, a lot of teams had three guys that scored a lot together. Or maybe dished out a bunch of assists together. But really nobody combined the amount of three pointers taken with rebounds and assists. I even left out steals and blocks, but OKC’s three combined for 47 percent of the team’s steals and 27 percent of the blocks. They really did do it all. Read more…

Commentary Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

This deserves its own post. Just an awesome stuff right in Chris Andersen’s face. See this is why you don’t pose and strut after you block a 5-11 point guard. Because when someone puts one on your head like this, it makes it that much sweeter. (Too be fair, the Birdman did block seven shots…)

Video Birdman, Jeff Green