We are refreshed and restocked with DT-Shirts (sans Zombie Sonics of course). So… buy one or something.
For whatever reason, the Thunder doesn’t draw well on TV: “Overall, ratings on TNT are up. Regionally though, some numbers are surprising. Teams like the Lakers (197k), Cavaliers (130k) and Celtics (83k) are drawing good numbers. But what is the deal with nobody watching the Oklahoma City Thunder (12k)? The Bobcats, another team on the rise, is also not a good TV draw in Charlotte (10k – although that number is up significantly from last season).”
Kevin Durant’s victims in HORSE are Rajon Rondo and Omri Casspi (reportedly). Evidently, one NBA executive thinks that sucks: ”You gotta have guys with OVERSIZED trash talking personalities. A guy like Eddie House or Rasheed Wallace or even Brandon Jennings. Just an all-round talker. Nash, Nate Robinson, Rasheed, and Baron Davis. Now that’s a HORSE competition worth watching. Omri Casspi should be interesting. He looks like he has some off-the-wall stuff. Not Kevin Durant’s boring a–! And definitely not Rondo! Knock him out making five consecutive free throws!!”
A slighty terrifying, yet potentially exciting piece from Frank Hughes of Sports Illustrated on how Kevin Durant’s extension could be directly affected by the new CBA. Basically, the conundrum is such: If the Thunder waits to offer Durant a max extension instead of doing it July 1 like he’s eligible for, they could save as much as $25 million. But at the same time, the Thunder would risk offending Durant by holding off on the offer just to save money. Durant sayeth: “I never pictured myself with another team … I like these guys so much. I like being around them. But I know this is a business here. A lot of different things happen. As far as being on the basketball court, these are the guys I envision myself playing with. But we’ll see what happens. If it doesn’t happen, maybe they forgot or whatever. I don’t know. I don’t know, maybe they got some other things going on.” A lot of KD’s love for the Thunder stems from the players on his team. Remember that. The last quote from KD is pretty exciting though.
Power rankings! Marc Stein with OKC at nine: “My bad: OKC was way too low last Monday and has been hurt more than any team by our recent struggles to sort out the weekly jumble in the middle. At 16-8 during Durant’s streak of 25-point games, it had to jump.”
Eight on SI: “Russell Westbrook’s 19.7 points/9.7 assists averages through the first three games in February make Thunder coach Scott Brooks happy. His average of 1.7 turnovers in that span makes Brooks giddy. An under-control Westbrook — he’s tied for third among point guards with 3.2 turnovers per game — is another formidable weapon in Oklahoma City’s arsenal.”
Sixth on NBA.com: “The Thunder have won five straight to move from 10th to seventh in the West. The streak started with some improved offense, but they had to get defensive when they shot just 42 percent at Golden State on Saturday. Their three-game trip ends Tuesday in Portland.”
HoopsWorld 11: “The Thunder have won five straight – now eight games above .500. Last year they won 23 games – they’ve already exceeded that by six.”
Pro Basketball Talk on Westbrook winning Player of the Week: ”Like many young point guards, Westbrook has been inconsistent. He’s had lapses at the defensive end, struggles with his outside shot, is plagued by turnovers, and has had serious issues finishing at the rim. Westbrook’s True Shooting is currently at 48%, which is one of the worst marks in the league for a starting point guard. Up to this point, Westbrook’s talent has allowed him to be a successful player despite his offensive inefficiency. If he figures his offensive game out, he could become one of the league’s best guards.”
Just a really fun column from Lang Whitaker of SLAM about All-Star games past and present.
Jonathan Givony of Draft Express with a very nice feature on Latavious Williams: “The interesting thing about Williams is that he does not seem to get caught up in the selfishness that often plagues the D-League. While he surely deserves credit for this, this is just as much a testament to his coaching staff (led by the well-respected Nate Tibbetts) and the entire Tulsa organization, as they refused to just spoon-feed him minutes early on in the year and really made him earn his playing time by doing things the right way. He’s bought into being a role player, which is a good sign since that is almost certainly what he’ll be if he’s able to carve out a niche for himself in the NBA. His feel for the game is still quite limited, but he’s not a terribly turnover prone guy and seems to understand his limitations.”
Darnell Mayberry on the Thunder beating hurt teams: ”Oklahoma City is 8-4 this season against teams playing without its best player or a key contributor. The Thunder will face a Blazers team tonight without All-Star guard Brandon Roy, who is saddled with a strained right hamstring. Portland is also without big men Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla because of knee injuries that cost both the rest of the season. How the Thunder continues to capitalize on opponent’s misfortune could go a long way in determining whether Oklahoma City crashes the playoff party.”
@crick
Exactly. The Thunder are about decidedly NOT a never-know-what-you're-gonna-get-game-to-game team. They are actually one of the most consistent teams in the league. The Thunder win almost all of the games they are supposed to (and win them by good margins most of the time) and show up and play well against the good squads too.
Yet the BlazersEdge pregame opens:
The Thunder are one heck of an interesting team right now. They're good, playing extremely well right now in fact, but they're young. Their season has been typified by short streaks: win 2, lose 3, win 4, lose 5, win 3 and so on. Put it all together and you have a 29-21 team that's capable of winning on many nights but could also throw the unexpected stinker performance in there.
UNTRUE.
The Thunder lost to the Kings and Clips in the first two weeks of the season, but since then their only bad loss was two weeks ago home against the Bulls. (The only other arguable bad losses would be @MIL or @MEM, but road games against ~.500 teams aren't gimmes).
The Mighty Blazers, meanwhile, have lost road games @GSW, @NYK, @LAC, and @WAS, and blown a home game against Philly.
Who's the inconsistent team again?
Btw, I don't know if this has been linked here yet. If you take the time to read the post and figure out how to read the thing, this is a pretty amazing tool.
http://www.hoopdata.com/recent.aspx?aid=139
@justin
Yeah, I know. Point guards are going to be stiffed a bit by this chart since it doesn't take assists into account at all. Chris Paul doesn't even register as a high usage player according to this chart. It's pretty much looking strictly at your value as a scorer, which makes LeBron's placing even more insane considering his assist percentage.
@justin
At least he's in the top 50! Nowhere to go but up, baby!
Look at where Russ is on that same chart.
Fantastic post over at BlazersEdge about KD
http://www.blazersedge.com/2010/2/9/1302737/how-good-is-kevin-durant
I still doubt sam presti lets the main part of his core go his franchise player u guy need to stop listening to the media hes not going anywhere
It's a huge dilemma. The max contracts signed under this CBA will be anchors around the necks of many a team in the years to come if max salaries and the cap are actually slashed by millions. How do you justify not paying Durant? How do you justify paying him, especially if you are OKC? And what is his market value? If OKC doesn't sign him under the current agreement, it's not as though another team would be able to pay him more.... He would probably have to take less to leave, even then, because OKC would still have whatever bonus they could offer their own FA under the new CBA. He would have to be so miffed that he was stiffed that he was willing to leave money on table.
I think that last sentence needs a "would he?" to end it.
If anybody doesnt know KD does not have an opt out clause in his contrac he has team option i dont think sam presti drafted him to let him go three years later
I trust Presti, and I think he will be fair and not try to hold out and low-ball KD. It really gains him nothing to save money which he appears perfectly happy not to spend elsewhere, and risk the immediate and long-term future of our franchise. However, that being said, if the rules are about to change dramatically for salaries and luxury taxes, he wouldn't be the coolly analytical GM we know him to be if he jumped into a max contract ahead of the change?
I meant it's unlikely that a pro athlete will take less than market value.
I believe KD is cut from a different cloth sam presti said he is the same kid they drafted three years ago hes not going anywhere
We'll see what happens. After what Carlos Boozer did to the Cavs I wouldn't trust anything a pro athlete says until they actually do it. These guys have agents, other business interests, etc. whispering in their ear and influencing their decisions, it's not always so cut and dry as 'I want to play with these guys'. Kevin Durant is supposedly cut from a different cloth, but I'm still skeptical..
I get the feeling KD will do whatever it takes to stay with the guys on this team. They are his best friends. He likes the people more than the place like a poster said somewhere. He gets along perfectly with this team. I think he wants to keep that more than anything.
On KD's upcoming contract negotiation: It's pretty clear that player salaries are going to drop dramatically along with the overall cap and possibly a hard cap without luxury tax. If Kevin's goal is to continue to grow w/ the current core, Presti will need to explain the domino affect a max contract in today's terms would mean to keeping Green/Westbrook/Hardin/Surge and continued growth in the future. I would hope KD opt to take less money a la Tom Brady in order to allow the team to be retained around him.
@dork
I dispise when games are on KSBI as well...mostly cause I can't get that channel
Im not thinking its an insult but thats all they notice him for is scoring nothing else
Durant's a long, skinny, smooth scorer who does a lot of damage from mid range.. hard to avoid the Gervin comparisons.. Ice is a hall of famer and had four scoring titles in five years, it's not exactly an insult to Durant.
Here's the link sorry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/sports/basketball/13sonics.html
josh :
Im sick of that george gervin comparison gervin was allergic to defense and and rebounding
Perhaps the most flattering comparison came from George Gervin, a member of the Hall of Fame and who now will be officially a mentor to Durant under a new N.B.A. program that matches young players with stars of previous generations.
“He kind of reminds me of myself,” Gervin said in a telephone conversation from San Antonio. “He’s got a sweet jumper. That kid can just flat-out play.”
f5alcon :i think tv would be better if more games were on ksbi and not on FSO, i wonder what away game vs home game difference is.
Tell me you were joking. I throw crap at my TV everytime its on KSBI! Prime example is the freeze... aka 5 mins left in the game... the picture/sound freeze...... 3 minutes later it goes back into live action with 2 minutes left.... I hope that they can get out of what ever KSBI contract they have and only show on FSO.
Im sick of that george gervin comparison gervin was allergic to defense and and rebounding
Assuming we end up 7 or even 6 in the Western standings, we'll play one of them. As much as I want to say we move above Phoenix, I think 7 is our spot this year. I'd rather play Denver than Dallas. We have no answer for Dirk, whereas I think we can match up with Denver (even with Carmelo). So I hope Denver wins. We aren't winning the division anyway, so them getting the extra W doesn't hurt us.
@f5alcon
Denv. is 2 at 34 and 17
Dallas is 4 at 32 and 19
I would rather Dallas get the L cause we are closer in the standings to overtaking them. Plus if they do a trade and the team doesn't gel right away them falling to say 7 and OKC getting to 6 or dare I say 5 (assuming they keep on getting more Ws then Ls) makes that 1st round match up potentially easier.
f5alcon :Do we want Dallas or Denver to win tonight?
I'm taking Dallas, for divisional reasons only. :-)
I mean, Juwon Howard wasn't close to being an adequate center even in his best years..
I cannot believe how well Portland is doing with JUWON HOWARD as their starting center. Say what you want about them, but the fact that they aren't below .500 right now is amazing.
@f5alcon
I hate Dallas, but I want them to win. Some upward movement within the division is always nice.
Re: TV ratings
I don't know if everyone realizes, but the Thunder are, essentially, an expansion team in its second year. Yes, they once were the Sonics, but there is almost nothing Sonics left. We rebooted with young players and are still new to most fans. Playoffs and signature wins will go a long way in forcing the average fan to recognize those ugly-uniformed boys coming to town a couple times per year.
Re: Portland preview
I don't get the problems. Even our previews are written as hopeful as possible, even if no one expects us to win. It's kind of the the point of being fans. What would you expect a Portland fan site to say? "That Kevin Durant is making our first pick look foolish, and their team is really turning it on lately, while we are fading without Roy." It's just not reasonable.
I was thinking about posting a few more clips that I disagreed with, but I guess I stop there. My point has been made.
Most of you will probably say that I'm being WAY too picky -- and you're probably right. The game preview was very lengthy, detailed, and obviously the writer knows a good deal about the Thunder. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of what he knows about the team is a bit out of date. Parts of his descriptions read like a caricature. That is, a lot of truth to it, but not all true and bit misleading and exaggerated.
I felt the same way reading the preview the way I did a month or two ago when someone would put up an article about KD and make some mention about his offense being out-of-this-world but his defense pathetic. Kevin's "bad defense" rap was an out-of-date caricature. It was a bit lazy on some people's part not to have noticed the change.
To someone who doesn't follow the Thunder closely, that game preview probably sounded very wise. To someone who does, much less so.
Do we want Dallas or Denver to win tonight?
I wanna know why everybody whoknows kevindurant overloooks his defense and rebounding and only cares about his scoring
@crick
The players just want to win every game, make the playoffs that sorta thing, im sure they are aware winning helps increase their spot in the division, but they go out there to win no matter who they play, we havnt had many games lacking effort.
On the tv ratings living in rural Oklahoma and having dish, they don't even carry fox oklahoma. But you can get the games on one of the sports alternate channels but you have to really search for the game and most people might not even know they can get it, i didn't until i called about trying to get fox oklahoma 3 times and finally found a game on by mistake.
another nit:
"The other thing you have to consider with Oklahoma City is that they have the Blazers dead in their sights."
well, only if you mean the current fight for a playoff spot. But later he says:
"Plus OKC has heard for a couple of years now how the Blazers are stacked and the Blazers are the rising team in the West and the Blazers are on a short track to greatness. Excuse them, but while Portland is doubled over nursing injuries they're more than happy to steal that crown and all of the monikers that go with it. They want to be the Next Big Thing. As such they'll be invested in leaving their logo tattooed on the forehead of the former owners of that appellation. "
I'm sure that's true of the fanbase (and I would include myself). And probably true of most sport writers who love a good angle to frame a story. But I seriously doubt the coaching staff or players are going into this game thinking "We'll show them who the Next Big Thing is!". More likely they're thinking "Man, Portland's a good team -- we're really going to have to play hard tonight!"
The guy's being a sports writer here and attempting to inject some drama via a team rivalry angle. But I don't think that there is one, in the players' minds anyway.
I think the preview on the Portland site is really in depth and informative. You can't expect fans of other teams to have a 100% accurate scouting report and it's always interesting seeing how our guys are viewed by others.
IMO the horse competition is one of those things that only work in theory. Last year KD won after he realized he could just shoot jumpers and win. The whole thing became a glorified 3pt contest.
another complaint -- he thinks we're a young, run-and-gun team:
"They want Westbrook to break you down or Durant to overwhelm you while everyone else looks to clean up the mess. If you can force them to execute in the halfcourt, running back-up options instead of taking you to the cleaners with mismatches every time down the court, they tend to fall apart. Plan A is great for this team. Plan B, not so much."
The part about Westbrook and Durant is spot on. They sure as heck want to take advantage of mismatches. But executing the half-court is our Plan A. We play half-court as a matter of course. Sure, we can and do get fast break points off of steals/turnovers. But otherwise we go to a half-court set nearly every time.
Now what we do from there varies. It may be the Westbrook or Durant drive to the basket or Durant shooting over his man (either way being a case of playing on mis-matches). Or it may just be a pass, pass, pass, until the open man is found. Or, more often then not, a pick and pop. Occasionally a pick and roll. Or, more frequently, lots a movement until a cutter is found near the basket. Etc. Etc.
The point is that half-court set up is our usual offense. Telling Portland to force us to play half-court is not very useful advice in and of itself. Match that with swarming defense -- active hands, pushing around, physical play, hands-in-faces, and so on -- now THAT would probably do the trick.
@f5alcon
Last year it seemed the games on KSBI did worse: Thunder TV ratings sagging
@Boots
I'm not sure if Royce posted this earlier this week, but this is encouraging: Thunder sets ratings record
Maybe the town is starting to catch on after all.
@crick
Yeah, I think you might be a tad too picky. There's really nothing wrong with what Dave said there. There was a stretch in the middle of last month where Russell was brutal. And remember him prior to the Maynor trade? Definitely head bang worthy. And I don't think that paragraph infers that all of Russell's assists are going to KD, but I'm sure several of them do.
I don't think you can expect a game preview to take all factors into consideration. You expect just the general idea, and I think that was accomplished.
Not that there is anything to argue about, I just happen to think Dave did a good job on the preview.
@RH
Thanks I didnt look in the comments on that page.
This is from the comments:
"Oklahoma City Thunder FS Oklahoma 1.74 (39.2%) 12,000 (NA)"
So our national market went up 39% from last year which is pretty good. It is also worth mentioning that 1.74 may be a low number, but there are 11 teams lower than us on that. I think we will only get higher as people care more about seeing KD
another complaint -- he's short-changing our bench:
"The supporting cast isn't the strongest in the world but they know how to play around the three main guys and are more than capable of not losing the game for Durant, Westbrook, and Green."
ok, that's not that harsh, but then later, he gives advice for winning the game:
"Bayless and Miller have to penetrate and get fouled, particularly if that speeds the Thunder into their bench players. "
I think he's underestimating the Thunder bench. They're quite good actually and have hurt some really good teams. Also, given the way that Scottie mixes his rotation thruout the game, the advice above isn't very useful.
what do those ratings numbers even mean (okc with 12k)?
$350 headphones!!! cool gift
@crick
Agree with most of this. I did bang my head a few times earlier this season, but the last few months RW has been pretty solid. I didn't even realize he hasn't been shooting too many 3s, and I am glad you pointed that out.
@Boots
If you look at the comments on the ratings post, they list the TV share and total numbers by team. You're right, our numbers are low because Oklahoma is a small market, but the share is also low: 1.74. While it's not the lowest in the league, my guess is that the Thunder would like to be viewed as the beloved team in the market that the town embraces, similar to Phoenix, Utah, Portland, San Antonio, etc., all of whom have excellent ratings. While it's a little unfair to cherry pick these teams because they're established teams and have been some of the most consistent teams of the past 15-20 years, it's something worth striving for.
But that's probably it - at the end of the day, consistently good play will bring ratings and attention. Even up-and-coming teams like Atlanta and Orlando (who has been good for a few years now) do not get great local TV shares.
As for League Pass, I'm sure the Thunder are getting great ratings there, but unfortunately that doesn't help the team market to local advertisers.
I think the lame HORSE competition comes down to superstars not wanting to get embaressed by KD.
another nit:
"On one side of KD is point guard Russell Westbrook who is having a hard time shooting the ball this year (a miserable time from three-point range) but still gets his shots and averaged 7.5 assists (thanks, Kevin!) and 5 rebounds besides his 16 points. One some nights he looks like a bona fide star. On others he makes you bang your head against a wall."
That line of argument is a little out of date, to me. The bit about making you want to bang your head against the wall is a better description of Westbrook last year. We've not seen much of that lately. He's thrown in a few disappointing games this season, but most of those were early in year. He's playing far more steadily now. He has average games, good games, and even outstanding games, but rarely does he ever throw in a stinker any more.
Yes, his 3 point shooting is bad. But the good news is that he's nearly stopped taking them. And his mid-range jumper is falling more often than not. So his shooting woes are considerably less of an issue lately.
Also, the "thanks, Kevin!" next to the comment about assists is misleading. It is not primarily because of KD that Russell's assists are going up. If anything, Kevin has probably hurt Russell's numbers on that point lately since he's had a few cold shooting nights where he missed a shot on a dime from Westbrook. Instead it's others, notably Krstic, but also Green, Harden, Sefolosha, Collison... a whole host of other players that Russell is getting his assist numbers from.
i think tv would be better if more games were on ksbi and not on FSO, i wonder what away game vs home game difference is.