Monday Bolts – 2.7.11

Curry could have surpassed Westbrook at PG and we would have never saw RW like he is now? Who knows

I like Harden a whole bunch and think he could fit in perfectly next to Westbrook. But if he never starts on this team (due to his own shortcomings or our coach's bullheadedness) then the pick was the wrong one. Because there's no way Curry wouldn't be starting.

@prye05

Why would Curry demand a bigger contract to resign than Harden if he would suck more on our team than Harden?

Butterfly affect. We dont know how Curry would have fit into this team. Curry was a shooting guard. We needed a serviceable backup PG. I think Harden was a good pick over Curry.

Another way of thinking about this is if you are constantly drafting BPA, we'd have a whole lot tweeners and combo guards which is already something people on this forum complain about. Instead, the Thunder said we want a SG who compliments Westbrook as a PG, and Durant as a SF, without requiring us to in the future forfeit our chances of having a good PF or C because we can't afford to pay anybody due to paying PG,SG,SF max contracts.

@Mark!
The idea of not drafting a star is that it's not needed all the time... which sounds crazy, but think about it. If Durant and Westbrook are the building blocks of this team, they don't need lots of other "stars" on the team, they need people that compliment them. Besides being a good shooter, Curry really isn't a great compliment to Durant and Westbrook, and will require a much bigger salary when he is up for a raise as opposed to Harden. Which if we're talking about salary commitment (hence where star quality becomes important) what teams do you know that are successful with their top 3 highest paid players all being guards and small forward? So if you already have the PG, SF, that means that you don't need a SG who is a star just a very solid contributing hopefully capable defensively and potentially able to knock down a 3pt shot (things Harden can do). How is drafting need a bad thing if we aren't going to get a big FA? What does Curry really bring to the team that Harden doesn't? Hopefully, it's not that he can score on a team that's terrible when given 20 shots a game, because that's not the role he'd have on this team, and if it is this team probably isn't that much better than that Warriors team.

prye05 :@Mark!I agree Curry is a good player. But your point about consolidating depth… we didn’t have Maynor at that point in time. Also who knows how a Westbrook/Curry tandem would actually work? Just like we can look back and say things could be different if we did this and that, we can’t say what would happen if we actually did those things. In the scheme of things, Harden wasn’t a MISS, he filled a role that this team needed, and still actually has the potential to get better. IF the goal currently is to build around Westbrook, Durant, and Ibaka(or some other post player) than Harden makes more since as he is more of a role player. IF the idea was to build around Westbrook, Harden, Durant there is a bigger issue because it’s hard to find cheap effective post players to consistently fill that whole, and as a small market team good luck trying to afford a whole lot of big contracts as stated above.

It doesn't matter that we didn't have Maynor at the time, drafting a SG instead of drafting (or trading/signing) a higher quality backup PG meant we were going w/ a 4 man rotation at the 1-2 instead of 3. It's not a question of talent or who/what/when, it's just the number of players.

If Harden never makes it into the starting lineup, I'm calling Harden a miss. If he does break into the starting lineup and gets starter's minutes, it's not terrible. Still think Curry would've been a home run. I hold onto this Curry miss a lot more than I do the Green over Noah scenario. No one was suggesting Noah should've been drafted that high. It wasn't so clear cut w/ Curry. We drafted need instead of BPA, which seems like a poor idea if we really are a team not interested in acquiring a big free agent. Worst case scenario, Curry would've been better trade bait than Harden. Just IMO.

Not sure how drafting someone because he won't be a star represents good draft strategy.

Pleiss is averaging 6.7 pts, 6.3 reb, and like 1blk, 1 ast, only 1 TO, but not many steals in 19 mins per game. He's shooting 40% from the field on about 5 shots a game, is 4/9 from 3pt land, and 15/19 on FTs in 10 games.

To whomever writes the blogs on this site, can you please do a report on Tibor Pleiss? I can't really find any recent information when I try searching on the internet. I'd just like to see how he's doing in his German/International play. Thanks

@Heysloth
I would agree with f5alcon in saying basketball age is a big deal, but would also add that years in the league and role with the team make a big difference as well. By that I mean in your first 3 years in the NBA you're probably going to learn a lot more about what the competition level is like, what the 82 game schedule compared to a college schedule, the difference in physical maturity, the game plans on offense or defense of the NBA, etc. After those first 3 years hopefully players are still improving, but it's not necessarily like that of those first few years. Which coincidentally is also why summer league is for those players.

@Heysloth
i think it is more basketball age, if they played 4 years of college, they are much closer to their peak, with less minutes, but say ibaka who started later in life might develop at an older age and more minutes.

I feel like people are giving up on Harden a little too quickly. The kid is in his second year and really has been kept on a short leash. I do have a question for those posters who have been watching basketball for longer than I have. When looking at development of young players which is more important age, games played, or minutes? The reason I ask is because when I look at KD and Westbrooks stats it seems they "turned the corner" somewhere between 3000 and 4000 minutes, and Harden sits right at 3000

@prye05
yeah that would work, thats what i was trying to achieve with non guaranteed contracts in later years of the deal, and by allowing them to be RFAs the team could match any deal they make elsewhere but is more fair to players than voiding.

@andrew
That's my point exactly is that a Curry/Westbook pairing isn't necessarily the greatest, and who even knows if either player would be as good as they are today if they were paired together. The great minds in GS thought Curry and Ellis are a great fit, but it's not exactly winning tons of games for them, and throwing in necessary shots that the Thunder should obviously give to Durant and a Curry, Westbrook, Durant core would be a lot messier than people realize in my opinion. I think the Harden pick was a good pick not just because of the defensive match-up standpoint but also the idea of he was picked not with the intention of being a star at least from what I've read.

The one pick I wish we could have back is passing on Deandre Jordan. We take a chance on a million raw Center prospects and miss on the one who actually develops into a quality big man? UGH.

@Mark!
Good point. I think a lot of people - maybe not on here, but in general - forget we were down to Mike Wilks as our backup PG after Livingston, Weaver and Ollie all went down in short order.

@f5alcon
I think one of the interesting things I've heard rumored lately has been the concept of giving teams the right to void a contract. This would make it so that if a team signed a player to an outrageous contract and that player were hurt the team could then void the contract, and would be able to find a healthy contributing player without needing to worry about being tied down by an albatross deal. However, there would have to be some things figured out contractually so that a team couldn't just void every contract and wouldn't sign back loaded contracts and void them when they become expensive and stuff like that.

Also I think personally there should be more incentive laced contracts like what MLB contracts look like, this would make it so that players who want to make more money aren't just playing well in the final years of their contract, but every year.

Both these things I think would help keep teams a bit more competitive by getting rid of albatross contracts on non-competitive players, and would also generate a better explanation for why players deserve huge contracts.

I can't believe that we are still rehashing the Harden pick. Curry is a PG, and we already have an All-Star PG. Why do we want to play Westbrook out of position(and off the ball) when he is so effective with the ball? Does a Westbrook/Curry pairing match up well against Kobe, Ginobili/Parker, or even Kidd/Terry? Not better than Westbrook/Harden imo...

@f5alcon
hard cap*

@Keith
I'm not talking about nationally. I just mean (in addition to his obvious awesomeness on the court) I think it would be cool to have one of our own on this team. He'd be huge here. Definitely bigger than KD which is saying quite a lot. Also, I think he'd do a lot of stuff in the community and be more visible. Who's that tall guy at Classen grill/ Charlestons/ McNellies/ where ever? It's Blake!

@Keith
And I agree that those are the people I would target for building around a core. Those types of players can be available on a small market team just as much as a large market team which my point was that small market teams can be elite teams they just don't always have the luxary of a team like the Knicks who can apparently waste 60 mil or whatever on Eddy Curry over 6 years.

@Mark!
I agree Curry is a good player. But your point about consolidating depth... we didn't have Maynor at that point in time. Also who knows how a Westbrook/Curry tandem would actually work? Just like we can look back and say things could be different if we did this and that, we can't say what would happen if we actually did those things. In the scheme of things, Harden wasn't a MISS, he filled a role that this team needed, and still actually has the potential to get better. IF the goal currently is to build around Westbrook, Durant, and Ibaka(or some other post player) than Harden makes more since as he is more of a role player. IF the idea was to build around Westbrook, Harden, Durant there is a bigger issue because it's hard to find cheap effective post players to consistently fill that whole, and as a small market team good luck trying to afford a whole lot of big contracts as stated above.

Honestly, draft wise, I think the Westbrook pick makes up for a lot. I don't remember anyone liking that one.

@Josh
i dont think it needs to be extreme as the nfl's cap to be fair to smaller markets. Hard cap hurts teams because they cant resign stars, would we want to give up ibaka because of a hardware.

Here is what i would do(some ideas are probably not going to happen)

Cut season to 76 games(4 games against division teams, 3 games against same conference, 2 games again opposite conference)due to less games played salaries can be cut by 7%.

create a progressive luxury tax, something like for every 5 million over tax rate goes up 10%, so a team 10 million over cap would pay a 12 million dollar tax.

profit share tv revenue and have more national tv games(at least 1 per day, even if it is just nba tv local broadcast style)

limit guaranteed contracts to 3 years(years 4,5 and 6 will be non guaranteed with opt out options for both team and players however player will be RFA.

Only lottery picks have to be signed to nba contracts(rather than all 1st rd picks)

eliminate age restrictions for d league and allow for players to be signed to hybrid contracts like minor league baseball.

eliminate mid level exception.

@Mark!

We didn't have Maynor at the time, but we knew that Ollie wasn't going to be our long term answer at backup PG. That depth was going to be filled at some point. Would be interesting to see what we could've done w/ the cap space we still would've had without the Maynor trade.

I still think missing out on Curry was a huge mistake. I'll excuse the possibility that we could have had two 40/50/90 players on the same team (!) because that's largely hindsight.

The main reason I liked Curry over Harden was consolidating backcourt depth. Curry would basically replace two players (Maynor and Harden) because he would be a backup PG (better than Maynor) and 3P shooter (better than Harden). A backcourt pair of Curry + Westbrook isn't as good defensively as Westbrook + Harden, but we don't see much W/H as is. Thabo would still be on the team, and if the defensive assignment was resulting in a net negative, Thabo could just play more minutes.

Keep in mind that if Curry came off the bench at backup PG 30-35 MPG, that means Russ would be defending 2s for, at most, 18-27 minutes while they shared the court (assuming Russ plays 36-40 MPG). The low end estimate (18 minutes) would be the scenario where Thabo gets a few more minutes. I don't think that's disasterous, especially considering the things we saw Westbrook do in Turkey while defending off the ball. On offense, Russ would be the PG whenever they're together.

There might be something to say about having a PG more talented than Maynor playing behind Westbrook too. I hate to pick nits about Westbrook since he's having a great season, but he's still prone to lose focus (ball hogging on offense/hero complex, lax defense.)

Even if Evans improved this year, I don't think he would've been a good pick. There aren't enough basketballs on the court for him, Westbrook and Durant; even if he was BPA, I don't think he would show like a BPA on the Thunder.

It might be unfair to criticize the front office for past draft choices, claiming 20/20 hindsight or whatever. But IMO if you're going to try to build a championship team through the draft, your team better look pretty damn good w/ 20/20 hindsight.

@prye05
We would likely have to fill the rest of our positions with more defensively oriented players (tend to be cheaper) or vets chasing rings.

@prye05
Ultimately my point is that even good teams make mistakes. The difference is that good FOs outweigh their mistakes with their successes. I would argue that there's really no good comparison between Harden and Curry given how poorly managed this team is, but Curry is the better overall player. Even if he wasn't an ideal defensive fit next to Westbrook, he has a lot more value in a trade than Harden does. Evans seems torpedoed by bad coaching. He actually seemed to get worse as time went on, as his coach stopped caring if he played defense, and no one in the entire organization held him accountable for poor behavior or on-court play.

@Thomas
Would it really be bigger than LA, where's he's turned the worst franchise in sports into a thriller every night? Being a hometown boy probably can't make up for what he's done to a completely hopeless franchise.

@qrex
I would say media attention, desirability of living conditions (weather, night-life, etc.), and winning tradition, in that order. These players generally have huge egos, and being in media centers puts the attention on them all the time (plus greater sponsorship opportunities). Actual living conditions are second as these guys have the money to live anywhere, so might as well live somewhere they enjoy year-round. Winning tradition is vastly overrated, but matters to older vets and players choosing between teams with equal measures in the first two parts. NJ is on Dwight's list, that should tell you how little winning matters when compared to media attention.

@Josh
Small market teams can afford to pay their good players. The problem is when "mid level players" demand huge contracts that they really aren't worth. Small market teams can't afford to miss on long mid-level bloated contracts. Think of it as Jeff Green if he gets a 12mil/yr contract it cripples this franchises ability to make decisions, if he signs an 8mil/year contract this team still has lots of flexibility. Plus small market teams normally don't compete on a FA scale anyway, they typically improve through the draft and resigning the good players, and then trades where they trade for more young talent or get players that fit their team. If the Thunder were to get Howard it would most likely be in a S&T situation, where they'd have to send out some salary in order to get him and his contract on the books, but the Thunder COULD afford to have him, Durant, and Westbrook. The bigger issue is what kind of contracts people would want to play on that team with them.

@qrex
Depends on the player

Tyreke Evans has been worse than Harden this season. Blame it on injuries or Westphal or what, but he's been the most disappointing ROY sophomore I can remember.

@Josh
Is it city size or winning reputation that make a franchise more desirable to play for?

I don't care about Howard anyway. Blake Griffin is who I want to see in a Thunder uniform alongside KD and Russ someday. Can you imagine how big of a celebrity that kid would be around here?

@Keith
It's easy to look back on past drafts and talk about oh well this person would have been a better pick. But looking back at the time who are the Thunder really going to draft over Jeff Green: Al Thornton, Splitter, Thad Young, Wilson Chandler, Yi, Joakim Noah? Who knows how any of those people would turn out for the Thunder. Mullens over Beaubois look at what this team needs, I don't think anybody would say this team needs an undersized speed guard over a potentially talented post player (I'd make that pick in the mid-20s pretty much every time). As far as Harden vs Evans vs Curry who knows what those players would be like? Sure Curry is a good shooter and would seem to compliment Westbrook and Durant, but would Westbrook be the beast he is now if both him and Curry were trying to figure out their roles? Do you really think a Tyreke, Westbrook, Durant backcourt has enough balls to keep everyone involved and productive and that's not even including any post players. It's easy to look back at drafts and say oh well that player is better than the player we have because he's successful in that organizations system. Nobody knows the future, we can only deal with the information we have available at the time of the pick. If the Blazers knew what was going to happen to Oden don't you think they would have taken Durant and then where would we be?

I dont see okc building a city where big free agents want to go or that we could even afford to have that kind of talent for an expanded time anytime soon or in the future. In terms of long term viability, Thunder fans better hope that the owners make a killing after this season and turn the next cba into a version of the nfl's cba (i.e. Hard cap, franchise tag, pay scale, etc). Like it or not, the owners winning in the next round of negotiations with their employees is better for small market teams.

Is it super bowl hangover, or has a good week suppressed all the whiners?

Wow, that's a cool bit from Elias about Russ's game against the Jazz. I knew it was a good game, but I never would've thought he'd have done something that hadn't been done in 9 years. Kinda hard to believe.

On another note, I have officially found the worst article I've ever read concerning the Thunder. This just goes to prove that in a time when anyone can blog, it doesn't mean that everyone should. There are so many things wrong with this article, I don't even know where to start:

http://arizona.sbnation.com/phoenix-suns/2011/2/4/1975613/russell-westbrook-has-no-remorse-usurping-steve-nash-nba-all-star-team

Being down should be a temporary condition and thru the draft it is a springboard back up if you play it right. Getting to back 40-45 wins is something but not that much. Getting to 50 wins is more than an average bounce but I showed previously that almost every NBA franchise has gotten to 50 wins at some point in the last 10-15 years. Sustaining it is harder, harder after a few years than it is to talk about it early in a run.

@KingGondo

I don't really think you can put Serge in the super star category, and not even close to putting him in the same class as Westbrook and KD.

There are definately a lot of teams that would like to be in our situation right now. 2 years ago, there's a lot of teams who didn't want to be in our situation right now. Grizzlies have done a pretty good job, they have some talent on that team, and I think the Golden State will do a decent job if you give the new ownership some time.

We definately have a good foundation, We'll see what happens from here.

@Keith
i guess they are assuming he will take a discount to win, the lakers and knicks dont have money for him either.

Rebuilding jobs will be barely remembered after awhile and especially outside a home city unless you almost get to the finals or more.

Another stat combo, just to see what it says...
15 FGAs / less than 40% FG% and 4+ turnovers
http://bkref.com/tiny/zLCHz

@TaoMaas
Depth doesn't win NBA championships, starters do. If KD or Russ go down in the NBA finals, it would essentially be game over. Players have way too much individual impact compared to the NFL.

@f5alcon
I didn't see any realistic way to trade for Howard in the first place, and I can't see how we have the cap space to sign him outright. And of course he wants a big market, that's what everyone seems to want. I guess I wouldn't put it past him to sign somewhere primed for a championship rather than just a big market, but I'm not holding my breath either.

@prye05
The problem with rebuilding through the draft is that it still requires as much smart handling as any method of getting good. You still have to draft the right people, still have to develop them well, and still have to put quality role players around your core. Good teams with good management find ways to get better and retool through savvy drafts and trades (Spurs, Lakers). Bad teams with bad management will never be good no matter how many high draft picks they are handed (Clippers).

The real problem is that every success story is overblown and romanticized. The Thunder are doing well, but let's be honest, we've never gotten out of the first round and do not have a championship roster. We've made mistakes in our process as much as successes. Green has been a bust as a #5 pick. Letting go of Beaubois for Mullens was terrible. Harden over Evans and Curry has been the wrong move. You could even say we are still looking for a coach.

I don't want to take anything away from the Thunder and Presti, obviously our good moves have outweighed our bad ones. But it took strokes of genius and some luck for that. Most teams can't reasonably follow that pattern.

KingGondo :
I think the Thunder will be looked back upon as one of the most unique rebuilding jobs in NBA history. Not only are we rebuilding with talent, it’s superstar-level talent. The Wiz, Grizzlies, Wolves, Warriors, etc. all want to be us, but there’s one big difference: we have Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and a bunch of good young supporting players. They don’t.

While it's true the Thunder have a great group of guys now, they've also had a few more years than some of those teams like the Wizards. I'd say for one year of going from Arenas, Jamison, and Butler to what they have now is quite a turn around. Building around John Wall, plus probably a top 5 pick this year, Javale McGee, and all the other young players isn't a bad start to the foundation of a decent team. But yes I'm glad the Thunder have our leaders as opposed to those running the Griz, Warriors, or Wolves. Though to be fair there are some talented players on those teams they just get squandered around the fact that the organization is so messed up.

@TaoMaas
There is a difference between depth in football and depth in basketball. I would trade depth if it meant we had a team with Durant, Westbrook, and Dwight on it. While not always the easiest to find other pieces can be assembled to build around those players. For example, look at what the Heat did this year building around their big 3. Veterans, role players, rookies, can all be found to fill out "depth", you can't just get elite talent players. Otherwise you wouldn't see a top heavy league like the NBA right now with the Lakers, Spurs, Bulls, Pistons, and Celtics being responsible for almost every title in the past 30 years.

I think the Thunder will be looked back upon as one of the most unique rebuilding jobs in NBA history. Not only are we rebuilding with talent, it's superstar-level talent. The Wiz, Grizzlies, Wolves, Warriors, etc. all want to be us, but there's one big difference: we have Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and a bunch of good young supporting players. They don't.

TaoMaas :
We’d have to give up too much to get Howard. I believe that depth wins championships. Would Green Bay be the Super Bowl champs this morning if their defense had folded when Woodson went out and they’d had no backup to Driver?
The NBA is not the NFL. Depth is HIGHLY overrated in the playoffs, as we saw last year. Our bench was better than the Lakers' bench (by any reasonable estimation), yet the structure and pace of playoff basketball tends to favor teams that have a better starting 5.

Coaches push their starters to play more minutes, timeouts are longer because of TV, and there's more rest between games. If you want to win a title, the best 5 players matter far more than the best 8 or 9.

We'd have to give up too much to get Howard. I believe that depth wins championships. Would Green Bay be the Super Bowl champs this morning if their defense had folded when Woodson went out and they'd had no backup to Driver?

To the Dwight Howard thing... lots of things change every year, did anyone really think the Heat would be signing Lebron, Wade, and Bosh a few years ago?

To the Wizards post: There are lots of teams that are starting to see the benefits of building through the draft and build around a solid core of players. This will make the NBA interesting because currently a lot of people say the Thunder aren't true title contenders yet... but if more teams start to go into this rebuild mode after seeing a few successful teams turn their franchises around that's when players can become available that can be the difference makers in a title run. For example, Ray Allen to Boston for the rights to the number 5 pick (Jeff Green), helped a young team build a nucleus and helped a team taking a shot at the moon get a necessary piece for a title. If the Thunder are going to make some moves the teams they should look at aren't teams currently rebuilding but teams that might look to blow up their team.

howard wants the big market, top tier FAs are not going to be coming here anytime soon, unless we have a population boom and more stuff for players to do. I would really like to see a massive OK expansion, but probably will not happen.

memphis scares me a bit with randolph/gasol.

This was a good week to be a Thunder fan.