Charley Rosen grades the NBA coaches and Scott Brooks gets a B-plus: “Scott Brooks (Thunder) is a young coach 
who’s growing along with his young players. He knows the game, and his enthusiasm is contagious.”
Shoals previews the Thunder for the Baseline. I think he’s excited about the Thunder: ”Indeed, OKC’s team often serves as a cipher meaning many things to many people. However, this fragmented view of the Thunder misses the most obvious point: If you sleep on this team, you’re missing out on what’s probably the most exciting, innovative and altogether intriguing young squad in the league today. Yes, they’re shrewdly building up their ranks; as with the far-duller Blazers, there’s a plan and a mix of players that makes you feel like you’re watching the growth of something important. The Thunder, though, are positively bonkers. Hit-or-miss as they may still be, there’s no question that, on any number of levels, this team is the future.”
A little more video I took from yesterday. Senior VP Brian Byrnes talking about next year’s renovations among other things.
Darnell Mayberry has five reasons we should watch the Suns closely: ”The race for the eighth seed: With Houston losing Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady to injuries and Ron Artest to free agency, the Rockets are widely considered to be a team in decline. If the Rockets miss the playoffs this season, that will open one spot for a postseason hopeful in the highly competitive Western Conference. The Thunder would exceed everyone’s expectations if it reached the eighth seed. But that ambition would be assisted if the Suns fall off.”
Some first hand reaction on Serge Ibaka’s game from Saturday: ”He showed flashes Saturday that made you think he could be closer to contributing than anyone will let on. He showed range out to 18 feet, good hands in the paint when finishing dump-off passes with dunks and a nose for the ball when battling for rebounds. On one possession, Ibaka swatted a Darius Songaila 17-footer, recovered the ball and was on his way to a breakaway dunk before Songaila wrapped him up. Later, he set a down screen for Kevin Durant, read the defense and rolled to the basket when Earl Barron cheated on Durant. Russell Westbrook found Ibaka for an uncontested two-handed dunk.”
Kevin Durant is the background skin of Yahoo Sports main page. I found this cool.
If you want to see all the pictures I took yesterday from the tour of the Ford Center, I’ve uploaded them here.
Andrew Sharp of SBN liked what he heard from KD in that interview he did with a D.C. radio station: “Isn’t it refreshing—in the age of marketing, PR agents, and oversaturated everything—that a superstar can still develop organically? Just by playing pickup all summer in his hometown.”
Mike Baldwin on what he saw on the tour.
KD has stirred the pot with yesterday’s tweets. UPDATE: Henry Abbott has a little response.
Susan Bible of HoopsWorld makes a playoff case for the Thunder: ”Despite the general consensus that the Thunder are on the rise, up-and-coming, have a bright future, etc., most stop short of predicting a postseason for the team this year. This got us thinking. Do they have a legitimate chance of landing in the eighth seed spot this year? Of course, the instinctive answer is no. Look at the strength of the Western Conference – the Suns didn’t even make it to the playoffs with 46 wins last year. The Thunder won 23 games last season. What are the odds that OKC can more than double their wins this year? Unthinkable, right? Fasten your seatbelt, because we believe they can double last years’ wins, and perhaps add even more, and here’s why:”
I found this mildly interesting. It appears on NBA Live 10 that you can wear Sonics throwbacks. Just kind of strange.
Speaking of, Sonicsgate is out. More to come on this later.
Make that 16 days until opening night.
I really liked Henry Abbotts article today. I liked the first one and this one was even better.
@Derrick
Thought the same thing about Abbot's response piece. I was expecting to fire off an angry response in KD's defense- instead, I came away thinking he had some nice points and that he expressed them in an entirely constructive manner.
@Keith
Great reply. KD will be fine. If anything it will spur him to work harder.
@Bang4ur$
Did you feel the filmmaker’s had that opinion?
I'm not trying to generalize all Seattle fans by any means. My point would be you can't use what Presti/Bennett did with the roster as a means to demonize them (and I'm not saying Bennett doesn't deserve SOME heat). It was an incredibly savvy move, which netted great players to go around a (possible) future superstar.
The Save Our Sonics guy sounded like they were a lock for the Western Conference Championship if they wouldn't have traded Ray Allen away, and he acted like R. Lewis would have been easy to resign.
I've heard the argument from a lot of people that Seattle would have supported the team more if they didn't suck that last year. This is probably true when it comes to numbers, but you can’t also say that what they did to the team was a bad thing. It was the best thing possible for the future of the organization regardless of what city it played in.
I wonder if they are selling the soundtrack to Sonicsgate.... it's pretty fly.
@B-RY
I wouldn't worry too much about damaging KD's "psyche." Great athletes, and NBA players in particular, thrive off of criticism (Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech was nothing less than a laundry list of real and perceived slights over the course of his career). In a way, I'm glad that Abbott calmly and clearly laid out the "KD Conundrum."
With everyone saying "Kevin Durant is the best young scorer of our generation, he's doing things no one has ever done, how amazing, etc.," KD runs the risk of becoming complacent. But as long as there are statheads and bloggers questioning his ability to win games consistently, he'll work that much harder and improve his already fantastic work ethic. And personally, I can't wait to see what happens WHEN (not if) Kevin takes his game to the next level. It will be fun to watch.
@B-RY
If Henry Abbot pointing out some of Durant's flaws (while also generously praising him) is going to ruin his psyche, then he simply isn't going to make it in this league. You can guarantee there is way more terrible stuff being written about Durant out there, so he can't let one article really get to him.
And Henry Abbots points aren't really arguable. The team DID perform better overall with Durant on the bench. However, the fact that the biggest problem(s) are easily corrected is a great thing. Durant has to know about these shortcomings, and has to be working on them. And at the same time Brooks has to create something that works with every piece. When Durant is in, the other guys can't be hesitant and confused.
@Nix: Well, take it as the film makers' opinion, not Seattle fans in general. Wally Walker was flushing the franchise down the drain long before new ownership came along to complete the job. The failure to retain Nate was writing on the wall: someone looked at that roster from '05 and decided it was the players, not the coach, who had accounted for those 52 wins. And it was done with Jerome James, Luke Ridnour, Danny Fortson, Vlad Radmonovich, and Antonio Daniels playing key roles. By the time Clay came around, the roster was one of worst in terms of players and roster balance I've ever seen. Nick Collison was the third-best player on the team--'nuff said (nothing against Nick--I love the guy). I thought Ray should have been traded a year or two earlier. Have I said this before?--the people running the franchise were arrogant idiots, a deadly combination (they're also responsible for the completely incompetent attempt to get a stadium built before the team was sold). I wrote at the time that I thought Clay wanted to build a winner from the ground up, he just wanted to do it somewhere else, damm him!
@Derrick
I'm not sure how I feel about Abbott's response to Durant's tweets. If Abbott is right, then there is a problem... but a fixable problem. If he's wrong, then he's running the risk of damaging a young player's psyche, all because he's stat-obsessed.
I watched the first part of Sonicsgate.
Very well done.
One thing I find interesting that Seattleites believe is that the team was demolished for no reason.
If I was the ownership group that just bought a new team I would like to start fresh as well. New GM, new superstar, new arena, new coaches...the works. Tons of draft picks and plenty of cap space to work with.
They act like the Sonics were doing something right before the team was overhauled. DID ANYONE SEE THE BIG MEN THE HAD BEEN DRAFTING AND OVERPAYING???
I think it wasn't a play to put a bad team on the court, but a play to build a team for the future. Which is clearly happening right now, and the moves taken back then have put us in the position we are in now.
@Dooney
Oh no sweat. And I like the new ones better. A little New York Knick-ish, but I like them.
@Royce
I sit at a computer for 8 hours a day during the week so I apologize for not reading the weekend article... I did just get caught up after you mentioned it. I can't decide which ones I like better.
One thing is for sure, I'm glad I didn't shell out 90 dollars for a shooting shirt last year.
@Dooney
Yep. I mentioned it in the tour of the Ford Center post. Definitely new.
From your pictures of the locker room, Royce, it looked like we do have new warm-ups this year? The same ones depicted in Live. Is that the case?
Can someone please supply pictures of these Warriors alternates?
I thought Henry Abott's reply was classy and insightful. Although the reasons behind the +/-'s should have been included in the original article. Doesnt seem like much of a conundrem after reading his observations on the pick and roll.
Oh, and I refuse to accept any love for players or staff from Charley Rosen, since he made a career (and lost a job) out of trashing LeBron James before he got into the league.
Nice call on that one.
those new Warriors alts are frightening. In a way, I kind of like them, because, damn, whoever designed them has HUGE balls.
Looks like someone opened up Photoshop, threw some splash brushes down and said "welp, that'll work." It's like the NBA's first abstract uniform.
Brooks a "B+"?!? I was thinking more of a "C".
Sonic Throwbacks in Live. I might buy the game for that alone.
Susan Bible is always so kind to us.