Wednesday Bolts – 7.20.11
Zach Harper for TrueHoop on notable games this season: “Apr. 8: Los Angeles Lakers at Oklahoma City Thunder: Kobe wants to prove he’s still the best player in the West. Durant will be showing off his impressive scoring ability that many thought would carry him to the MVP before last season. Both players should be well within MVP contention this year. The team defense of OKC will attempt to slow Kobe and make him more inefficient while Ron Artest will try to continue his physical nature of making Durant miss a lot more often than he should.”
Berry Tramel on the schedule: “The Thunder’s intraconference, but interdivision, schedule is tough. The Thunder plays every team in the Northwest Division four times each. That includes playoff teams Portland and Denver. But of the five other Western Conference playoff teams, OKC plays four of them four times. The Thunder gets Memphis just three times but plays the Lakers, Mavericks, Spurs and Hornets four times each. That’s a tough schedule.”
I picked out some notable games for the season and had a few Thunder ones included.
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com on upcoming labor negotiations: “While the basketball world was obsessed Tuesday with the release of an NBA schedule that may never happen, CBSSports.com has learned that the owners and players may not convene for another full-blown collective bargaining session until August. It is up for interpretation, however, whether that would put the two sides behind the negotiating pace set during the 1998-99 lockout. Back then, it was 37 days between the imposition of the lockout on July 1 and the next bargaining session on Aug. 6.”
Thoughts on the schedule from SportsCenter.
Land O’Lakers breaking down the LA schedule: “The Lakers open the season Nov. 1 at home against Oklahoma City, then turn around about three weeks later and play the Thunder at Ford Center. From there, L.A. won’t see Kevin Durant and Co. until March 29, and again on April 8. There will likely be a lot read into the results of the first two games, but the second pair could very well have monumental impact on the Western Conference playoff picture.”
The TrueHoop Network reacts to the schedule.
Michael Schwartz of Valley of the Suns in a 5-on-5 on who he’d like to see on Christmas: “Oklahoma City-Memphis. The big markets are already well represented, so I would match up a pair of small-market squads that played perhaps the most exciting series of the past postseason. That Kevin Durant guy really should be playing basketball on Christmas.”
I’m loving Ziller’s “This is why we can’t have nice things” series.
Jenni Carlson says she can’t get excited about the schedule: “Dissecting the whole thing was grand fun. But now? It feels like torture. I mean, I’d love to get excited about the opening weeks of the Thunder’s season. It’s a gauntlet of games against the likes of the Lakers, the Mavs, the Knicks and the Bulls, and only one of the team’s first six games is at home. It should be a fun run of games. But will it be?”
Darnell Mayberry on the buzzkill of the lockout: “Under normal circumstances, the Oklahoma City Thunder could puff out its chest as one of a handful of the league’s television darlings. The NBA and its television partners penciled the Thunder in for 27 nationally televised games. But a box of erasers might soon be needed with the league wrapped up in a labor dispute that has forged a near three-week-long lockout and threatened to cancel some or all of the upcoming season.”
