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

I’m coming clean: This video is a weekly watch for me. I’m not even kidding. I literally watch at least once a week. I don’t know why, but I love it. Watching Kevin Durant score buckets is like catching Jurassic Park on AMC right when the cars stop at the Tyrannosaur paddock. You’re going to stop and watch. And when KD gets rolling, he gets rolling. He pulls up from anywhere and he just takes the dang thing over. I have a feeling we’re going to have a bunch more of these type of games in our future.

(And two bonus cartoons for this lovely Saturday: Watch a few Russ and KD Team USA highlights here and here. Westbrook has some particularly nice plays. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Go see The Hurt Locker tonight. It’s freaking good.)

Video Kevin Durant

First off, this is a ridiculous question and the fact it’s picked up this much steam for the four talking idiots heads on Around the Horn to debate tells you that it’s clearly the NBA offseason. But let’s get to the bottom of this thing. Up front, to be clear: LEBRON JAMES IS A BETTER PLAYER… RIGHT NOW. Nobody would argue with that. Unless they are related to KD or maybe on his payroll.

On Around the Horn today, Jay Mariotti said it was “absolutely crazy” and laughed it off as if he was offended to even be asked; Kevin Blackistone said no way, but he can see it in the future (being the only one to actually kind of answer the question); Bill Plaschke talked and stuttered so fast I could barely understand him, but ended up saying it was stupid to even think Durant was better; and Woody Paige did something HILARIOUS in which I fell on the floor laughing at his outrageous antics. It was all great television.

And I wouldn’t have disagreed with them one bit, had they answered the question properly. Let’s review what Sam Smith said that started this whole ridiculous debate. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant, LeBron James

It’s a bit of a slow day round these parts, so how about some moving pictures on this Hump Day? Elie Seckbach, who does awesome, slightly different interviews with NBA players, caught up with Kevin Durant recently at the Gatorade High School Awards banquet thing. Besides Seckbach saying “N-B-A” 45 times in 20 seconds at the beginning, it’s a pretty solid interview. The most interesting part was when Seckbach asked KD when ‘Lil Wayne or Jay-Z would do a song about him and Durant said, “Never. They don’t know who I am.” His humility has reached almost sickening levels. But I love it. I’d much rather hear this type of stuff from a star than him refering to himself in the third person and talking about how no one could beat him at anything, ever.

Video Kevin Durant

This is a feature done on Kevin Durant right before the start of last season, but this offseason is actually pretty similar for KD – going to class, working out and just kind of waiting on camp to start. If nothing else, this was enjoyable to watch just to see Durant with a backpack on going to class. And to laugh at that dude’s jumpshot.

Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Happy America Day. Go blow some stuff up.

Video Kevin Durant

Oklahoma City played its best stretch with its star player sidelined with a bum ankle. Therefore, media folks had to bring up the inevitable “Is the Thunder better off without Durant?” questions and really, people are still talking about it. Reader J.G. emailed in and put all of that to bed.

“You’re joking, right?” is what my first response would be to people who ask this question but after his injury and the Thunder’s team success in his absence, a lot of individuals posed this question and at first glance, it may have not seemed all that ridiculous. However on second glance, this notion is clearly based off of the misconception that the 5 of 6 game stretch that the Thunder went on while Durant (and Green for a bit) was hurt was their best of the season statistically.

Well it turns out that stretch was not the Thunder’s best stretch of wins. Not even close. And here’s why:

The stretch without Durant included wins against Memphis (5th worst record), Washington (2nd worst record), Sacramento (1st worst record) and two sixth seeded playoff teams, Dallas and Philadelphia. When you tack on the fact that the Thunder were actually favored in two of those games that they were supposed to have won, then you can really see why that stretch meant very little in terms of an “impressive streak.”

The Thunder’s victories came against teams with a 20.7% Winning Percentage, a 23.2% Winning Percentage, a 29.3% Winning Percentage, a 50% Winning Percentage and a 61% Winning Percentage. So their opponent’s average Winning Percentage during the stretch without Durant (and Green for a time) was 36.8%, hardly something to celebrate and even less indicative of one player’s overall impact, destructive or constructive.

The best stretch the Thunder ACTUALLY had in terms of “quality of opponent” and “wins produced” was when they went 5 of 7 in January, beating Utah, Detroit, Golden State, New Jersey and Memphis. The Thunder were not favorites in ANY of these games and went up against much harder competition. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant

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

How about some moving pictures to get you going this Saturday morning? Sure it’s no Animaniacs or The Tick, but it’s video with sound and it’s interesting. At least I think so. Plus cartoons stink these days. What’s even on? Yugio or some crap? Do they still even exist? Anyway…

Back at the beginning of April, Brian Davis had a nice 7-minute interview with KD. It’s really a great interview that touches on a lot including the team’s improvement, how he’s learning to be a leader and how he used to be shy but has learned to get angry on the court. Plus, there’s one kind of awkward question about Durant’s lip curling or something. Anyway, it’s really incredible to me how team-oriented and humble KD is. I love that dude.

Video Brian Davis, Interview, Kevin Durant