Kevin Durant leads Team USA to gold, wins MVP

@justin

Playing off the ball more is a legitimate reason for Westbrook's A/TO being lower than the other PGs but 1.4 is pretty low even for SG. The NBA average for big minute SGs was 1.7 and a PG at SG should have a skill advantage to maybe find a few more, especially with the cast of options available in mostly easy games. But congrats.

@Elegy444
weird. its a site i found on google that's selling a shirt that says "durant" written in the oldschool dream team era font and in the box underneath it it says "basketball savior".. try this one..
http://nbaoffseason.spreadshirt.com/durant-basketball-savior-A6399833/customize/color/4

man it was awesome being able to have some Thunder basketball in the off-season. Now I really hope they take about two weeks off and rest up for the season.

anyone know where we could get KD's advanced stats for the entire tourney? bb ref has only up to before lithuania. I'd also be interested to know his game score for the last couple of games.

james harden’s beard :have any of you guys seen this? (sorry if its already been posted..)http://pleasedontstare.com/PDS/team-usa-durant-basketball-savior-shirt/

Not sure about the rest of the content on that site - but I got a blocked violation @ my office for it being sexually explicit. If it happens to be, you may want to add the NSFW tag on there.

Mark! :These championship games have made me sad that we don’t have a competent big man. KD and Russ both played so well with one. Here’s hoping Aldrich is that man, otherwise we’ll probably be waiting a long time…

KD played well AS the big man! He played center for a good chunk of the second half didn't he? [not saying this would translate to the NBA obviously]

I wouldn't worry too much about Russ' A:TO since he played off the ball so much. Much more than Rose, at any rate.

Mark! :These championship games have made me sad that we don’t have a competent big man. KD and Russ both played so well with one. Here’s hoping Aldrich is that man, otherwise we’ll probably be waiting a long time…

Agreed.

We knew KD could score but his toughness and leadership over this team surprised me most.

I don't have access to Synergy from work but I'd like to see how often we used KD as the handler or the screener in PnR situations. We seemed to do it very successfully in FIBA. This is yet another thing I hope Brooks adds to the playbook.

have any of you guys seen this? (sorry if its already been posted..)
http://pleasedontstare.com/PDS/team-usa-durant-basketball-savior-shirt/

Westbrook makes an amazing 6th-man on an all-star level team. I'm guessing he makes the 2012 team as a "wrecking ball." Coach K loves him.

Great work guys! I love it!

To clarify, Noah was mentioned as a decent candidate to win one who they also could have gotten and not the leading contender. (If he wins, so will Rose presumably.) The leading contenders are James and Bosh. If they succeed this season, it will be success in season 8 for both.

Youth is promising, sometimes great. But since the 2000 draft, only 2 players taken in the top 10 have played leading roles in championships. Gasol twice and Wade once (with Shaq still in or near prime). Unless I missed someone. There can be players from outside the top 10 like Rondo of course. 3 others played bit roles in championships.

Who will be next?

Noah? He got an NCAA title.

The top 10 guys from drafts in the 90s have around 25 titles, most in leading roles. It might be worth checking the average length in the league before they got it but I think it is probably at least 7 years and I don't feel like adding it up at the moment.

Love got to play with Durant and reunite with Westbrook. In 2012 Durant or both may get to play with Oden. There are hypothetical scenarios where Love and Oden might move by team choice or their own choice, though the odds are probably fairly low and may be very low.

Maybe the plan "works" fairly well or very well without importing a big beyond what they have in the pipeline. Maybe that issue will get re-visited along the way and resolved most favorably or in the end not solved as favorably as needed. Passing on Love, Lopez and a few others will remain a question until the design leads to the top or near enough to the top to fully let it go.

2nd post up, make that...

But wonder how Oden will look, not "so" much on Nov. 4 and 12...

Don't know if he'll play at all or much in those games or whether he will impress a lot or not so much. But those games are so early I'd try not to over-react to them. Got to sustain it.

Blazers got to #1 on offense with Roy and Aldridge in 08-09 and company. If they can get back closer to that and if Oden, Camby, Joel P. help them move up from 13th on defensive efficiency to in or near the top 5 they will be quite strong. Dual strength is typical of the very best teams.

Durant could have taken them higher in terms of absolute offensive strength and he probably wouldn't cost them anything on defense either, might even help them. But we'll see what they can do with Oden. Maybe.

@JFalc

I understand the motivation for that Portland sign idea. But wonder how Oden will look, not much on Nov. 4 and 12, but rather on Mar. 27 and April 1 and perhaps in the playoffs. I don't imagine it will shake your desire to say a big thank you but it may change the way the Blazer fans react or the degree to which folks, of these teams or neutral, see it as a win-win outcome. Ultimately it is a chase between them for a team title or the most titles.

In comparing Rose and Westbrook this time it should go beyond just the raw personal boxscore stats and also look at team offensive and defensive efficiencies and team +/- when they were at the helm. Unadjusted or adjusted as they wish.
And do the same with their NBA data from the next 2 seasons.

There are at least 8 contenders with a good chance of having 2 bigs over PER 17 in the playoffs. I'd guess the winner is likely to meet that criteria.

The champs over the last 3 seasons always had at 2 bigs over PER 13 in the playoffs and this season the Lakers had 3. Ibaka and Kristic were the 2 and if you bent the rules Durant might be considered sort of a third.

The champs though also always had at least one big over PER 17 and the average was 2. Last season the Lakers had 3. OKC none this time. They are the team you probably have to beat to get out of the west. Essentially as constituted now they can't match the Lakers on big man offense and would have to win with defense and / or perimeter scoring. Durant as full wattage would have made a big difference. This tournament probably helps but he'll still have to beat Artest and the Lakers team defense.

In 07-08 the Cavs only had one other guy above PER13 in the playoffs alongside LeBron. In 08-09 they had 5 total, barely. In 09-10 it fell back to 4, and when that failed in the second round, the star left and the coach and GM were not retained.

That might change dramatically in 2-3 years but it will be affected by various decisions to retain or not, bring in a significant free agent or not, trade up or not.

These championship games have made me sad that we don't have a competent big man. KD and Russ both played so well with one. Here's hoping Aldrich is that man, otherwise we'll probably be waiting a long time...

The % of total minutes played by those with 5+ years of experience for the Thunder was about 40% of league average.

3 of the 5 were greatly helped in being above PER 13 because of their shooting efficiency. 3 were helped greatly by strong rebounding and blocking. All did fine on turnovers. Only Westbrook was helped much by assists.

Westbrook might have been the "best player" overall who played PG but he had the worst A/TO by far. Westbrook at 1.4, Rose a bit above 2, Billups a bit above 3. But maybe that wouldn't be as big a deal when Wade and James are around.

A few other tidbits:

A study shows that the last few years saw guys with 5+ years of experience play among the highest % of total league minutes in the last 33 years.

A check of the Lakers, Celtics, Cavs and Magic over the last 3 seasons showed the NBA finalists always had 5 or more guys over PER 13 in the playoffs. When the Cavs and Magic failed to have that they were bounced in the second round. The Lakers were at 5. Their finals opponent was actually always higher. The Thunder actually managed 5 in the playoffs. 3 starters, 2 bench.

@Filipe
Agreed, in my opinion for international play, Westbrook showed that he was the #1 PG from this team. Now just how many of the Olympic team come back is the question.

Make that "PG".

@Filipe

That sounds right Filipe. It could go either way. Hard to say until they know how many top guys are available for each role- PGF, wing and big. I assume they take more bigs next time but not sure how many and maybe my guess is wrong.

@Crow
I think he has a decent shot of going as 3rd string PG. I do think he finished tournment ahead of Rose for this. Unless Coach K decides between Lebron and Wade he doesn't need three PGs.

Westbrook's chances depend on how many of Wade, Williams, Paul and Bryant are able, willing and wanted and whether they take him over Rose.

Maybe 6 go.

I'd guess 5 or less of the guys on this team go the 2012 Olympics, unless Colangelo decides to reward more of them on principle or politics and stick it to some of the guys who sat out.

Durant was silky smooth in the first half and I texted my OKC bud during the game and he said...wow, we are so lucky to have him here for five years, and I said, yes, Thank you Portland.

So when the trailblazers come to the Ford Center this year, I might paste a draft day picture of Durant on some posterboard with the note "Thank You Portland".

USA team broke away and started playing well in the second half but the first half was ALL DURANT. Him (and Odom) were the only thing going on in the first half. USA Basketball was fortunate to have him this year. If Durant was not on this team, they would not have won the Gold. That cannot be said about any other player.

Nice gold for the US. They just rode KD to the title. The world couldn't stop him, and very soon, most NBA teams will have the same problem. OKC will make the finals (but unfortunately, probably lose to the Heat). Well done USA, now go OKC!

Durant and Westbrook just reminded the world who has the best basketball players. Sorry for the nationalistic Jingoism, OKC Thunder players just scored more than 50% of our points over the last 3 FIBA games, we just earned some nationalistic jingoism, and we had better respect the talent we have playing in our state!

That was a lot of fun. Durant was really in the zone, just hitting 3 after 3. It just looked like he couldn't miss. Even Russell hit two 3 pointers. If that doesn't tell you that things were going your way, I don't know what would.

Congrats USA. Congrats KD and Russ.

Where does he play---OKC!!!

I remember as a kid seeing Kevin Durant come into the NBA and I said, "That player is going somewhere. He's got 'it'."

Cheers!

Great tournament! The Thunder boys played some great ball - can't wait for the season to start and hope they bring that elevated defense back to OKC.