Tuesday Bolts – 6.7.11
John Rohde on OKC’s draft plans: “Possibly stash, or perhaps trade away the pick. The Thunder is in a great position to do what it did when it took Serge Ibaka and Tibor Pleiss — draft them, then stash them. Pleiss likely is at least another year away. Ibaka is a freak and made the jump quickly. If someone of quality is available, the Thunder might go international. If not, they could trade the No. 24 pick along with a player or two at the end of the bench (Nate Robinson and/or Byron Mullens perhaps) to get something in return.”
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com with a great column on LeBron: “To paraphrase Carmelo Anthony, who spoke this season of tipping his hat to himself, Doyel promptly congratulated LeBron for a praiseworthy zinger. If the LeBron apologists and see-no-evil statistical devotees would stop breaking down screen grabs and Synergy clips long enough, they’d tip their hat to Doyel, too. They’d credit him for being one of the only media members with the cojones to confront LeBron publicly — even though he was wrong. Much easier to limit that dialogue to the fingertips and the laptop, which is the way of the world now.”
Kendrick Perkins put on a youth camp yesterday.
KD played at the Goodman League last night. Trying to find a recap of it. Pass along one if you get it.
Mark Jackson was hired as Golden State’s new coach. KD offered congrats: “I’m so happy Mark Jackson got the Golden St job! Well deserved and I know he’s gonna do great, hopefully not against the Thunder lol.”
Also, that gives me the excuse to post this awesome Mark Jackson video.
The Thunder are working out a bunch of D-League players, including Latavious Williams and Ryan Reid.
J.A. Sherman of Welcome to Loud City on the reason for the workout: “Why is this workout happening? Well, with the Summer League cancelled and the Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire, teams have limited time to look at non-draft prospects before the pre-season begins, assuming the lockout lasts an extended period of time. Thus, this is basically the Thunders opportunity to look at who they might want on their D-League team, and who they’ll want to invite to training camp. It might seem a bit irrelevant given that the Thunder’s roster will be packed heading into next season, but those who have followed the NBA for a long time know that trades and injuries can hit at any time, and leave us thankful for a guy like Robert Vaden.”
ESPN.com 5-on-5 talking NBA Finals.
Berry Tramel compares how the Mavs are doing versus the Heat to how they did against OKC: “The primary reason Dallas trails two games to one, instead of leading two games to one or even 3-0, is that Miami has won the battle of the backup point guards. Mario Chalmers has outscored Barea by an astounding 33-13. Barea torched the Thunder, making 22 of 46 shots, with 15 assists and just three turnovers. Barea averaged 11.4 points a game against OKC. He’s averaging 4.3 points a game against Miami, making just five of 23 shots, with five assists and four turnovers.”
