Are you ready for the playoffs? Because NEXT IS NOW

OMG!!
How did we miss Sherman Alexie being in town Friday!!! The "professional basketball players as Greek gods" guy from the Sonics trial was here on the day the Thunder beat down the Lakers?

http://newsok.com/american-indian-author-filmmaker-honored-at-ou/article/3449558

how a about a post limit per topic here? especially posts that are so off topic.

You'll most probably get none of the 4 above lilrip133. Still they'll probably get somebody by next trade deadline probably by trade and maybe not til the deadline. I don't know how it will actually play out. I was just noting a couple possible scenarios that make some sense to me to get it out of my system. Probably won't do much what-if again, at least for awhile.

holy god this is a super jinx

@Crow
Honestly I'd prefer none of the above. Mentally, all three are soft, and that is possibly one of the Thunder's strongest points. They're mature beyond their years, and have a strong committment to defense and hard work from horn to horn. So despite their playing style being a fit, I don't think it would be a move in the right direction. I'd rather see what we could get in a trade, or fill in some other holes and wait for another year to see how the market develops. We're a good team, heck, even a great team at times, so I see no reason to jump the gun and sell ourselves short to try some championship now-type move that could potentially hurt our dynasty chances in later years.

(You could pull Kirilenko out too...but the rest are PFs and Cs.)

(On second thought Tim Thomas probably shouldn't count given the low minutes. And to be fair, since he mainly plays SF, I shouldn't have counted Marion. That still leaves Dallas with 3 true bigs over PER14.)

Ibaka probably goes noticeably over PER 14 next season but how much I don't know.

Green has gone 9.8 season 1, 13.9 season 2 and is up to 14.1 right now.

PER is far from complete, especially lacking shot defense. But still...everybody else in the playoffs has some big that exceed this modest level.

White doesn't really count 'til he really plays.

OKC with no bigs much over PER14, while Lakers have 3, Suns 3, Jazz 4, Spurs 2, Mavs 5, Nuggets 2, Blazers 2 (and 2 more coming back).

NEXT IS NOW and achieving ultimate goals in 2012 or later (which has probably been the plan and I assume it still is)... you can probably have both at this point but sometimes there are choices and opportunities to seize the moment. No trades at this deadline, maybe nothing good can up. I'd hope something major does this summer or by next deadline.

Yeah I saw that. And Martin is injured again, though I think it is not a big deal, this time.

On a completely unrelated note, has anyone seen that the Lakers are kicking the crap out of Houston by 20+ in the mid-fourth quarter. They seem to have a fire under their derrieres. I wonder why. 8)

Alright I'll admit Magliore is not going to get much support.

Cut Green to 30 and make 10 of it at SF and Love could play 28 at PF next season. Or you might use him occasionally at Center. Maybe tap his outlet passing some. Minny uses him half the time there. Not great results there on defense but that isn't a great situation. If the defense can be good with Krstic or Collison I'd think it has a decent chance with Love who is something of a blend of those two. The season after next and beyond is more wide open on minute availability and that is more important than one season.

Though I'd rather use the spot otherwise.

If they wanted to bring Etan back and he wanted to come back and they agreed on a decent price, I'm not upset.

I live in S. Florida and have seen Magloire many many times. 'Big Cat' can barely move laterally anymore. He's got a 47% TS this season. Any vet minimum guy would be able to replicate his end of bench production..

Williams might be OK as an end of bench guy, better than Magloire, but still. I'd rather they hang onto White or Mullens, who might at least have some upside.

Johnson is different because he's played well before in limited minutes and still might have something to show (like Andray Blatche).

If Presti signs or trades for a big man I expect it'll be a rotation guy.. he has plenty of picks and project big men to round out the rotation at the end of the bench if needed, you know?

I'm not sure where Kevin Love plays here if we're hanging on to Jeff Green, unless we trade Green to get him. I'd be for such a trade.

grr... "main" not name

should be... Magliore probably going to have "to take"

The name advantage of Magliore over Thomas is length and Presti generally likes that.

I don't know the situation but I don't immediately see as strong basis for Anthony over Magliore other than he is younger. They've been pushing a pretty long time to "develop" him but his stats show virtually no change. But Anthony makes Magliore available and he is probably going to have a role under 20 minutes a game, maybe 10-15, maybe spot duty or insurance. Which is what next season might have available. He'd be more important as a playoff piece against certain teams... if you believed he still had enough.

Williams wouldn't necessarily play much next season but get him this summer and he might learn the system and be a cheap rotation piece for future years if they don't want to pay enough to bring back Krstic or Collison in summer 2011. He can post up some if you want to try to add that a few minute here or there.

Johnson is the most appealing on age and the only one you might say still had upside.

Love is the best big man on PER in the league playing under 30 minutes... and you might want to keep it that way. You could fit that into the design I'd think. Help the offense.

K Love would be interesting prospect...pretty much all year until these last few weeks all I could think about was the prospects we could sign, trade, or draft for the next coming season. I found that it was majorly taking away my ability to fully enjoy this amazing season. I am super pumped about the off season but man we got to much to look forward to in the playoffs!

magloire isnt even as good as etan.

i.e. Collison / Krstic are better than Williams or Magloire so neither would get any time here.

I'd take a stab at Amir Johnson on the cheap, but Magloire's lost his job in Miami to Joel Anthony, and Shelden Williams is pretty bad. I don't think either of those players are worth anything to us.

As for bigger name trade targets, the only one that I can think of that hasn't been discussed before is Kevin Love.

Try to front-load it.

Looking at what the team needs, these guys mainly shoot inside and do it alright or better. None are premier post players but they each have some shots they can get off, if asked and frankly with the Thunder's perimeter there are not going to be a lot of shots available unless things change dramatically. They all have good defensive rebound impacts. They defend at least their own man and may have some help value. And there reasons why it their current team might be outbid without going overboard. 1-3 year contract.

Thinking a bit more about the off-season options I laid out a few days ago I'm going to narrow in and say if you focused on modest guys you might be able to get I'd focus on Magliore if you want a center and Amir Johnson (if his practice / off the court check comes back ok) or Shelden Williams if you wanted a PF. There are better players but these are the guys I'd go after if you only plan to offer 10-20 minutes a game.

If they go for a bigger name I'd guess it is more likely thru a trade than free agency.

How bout a shirt that has Ibaka sitting on a throne with a miniture basketball goal as a scepter, maybe even a crown cocked to the side, titled "KING CONGO" :-)

Surprised you didn't get sued by the NBAPA for the last batch of shirts. Players have to get their cut! :)

@James Harden Beard

Yeah you can't do that. I think it should pretty obvious what it's about. But if you use logos and names, you get sued.

sweet tee, y'all!

So who besides us on this site is gonna know what this even means? There isn't a single mention of the okc thunder or even their logo. Not even anything to signify its referring to the nba. I assume this may be due to trademarks though. I like it other than that, I just don't think its really getting the point out there.

I love it! I bet Westbrook will like it too!! Well played sirs!

You need to keep up the tradition and get Russ to put that as his twitter background

awesome, and right now the odds are 65% we still make playoffs even if we go 0-11, so i dont think its possible to jinx it

Love the slogan. NEXT IS NOW!

@justin
...back when professional baseball was relevant, has no barring on professional basketball today.

Whenever I see Why Not? I think of the 1989 'Why Not?' Baltimore Orioles, who missed winning the pennant by an eyelash..

Couldn't have picked a worse jinx..!

Cool, now if only we could get an Ibaka shirt... :-)