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I always look forward to the annual general manager survey. Mainly because you know the Thunder are going to be a team mentioned often in it. Sam Presti has done a magical job building this franchise and organization not just into a winner, but something Oklahoma City can be very proud to support. Likeable players, dedicated ownership, smart front office — it’s a total package. And they win.
Here’s how the Thunder fit in to the annual survey:
- KD tied with LeBron getting 37 percent of votes for player you’d want to start a franchise with. GMs voted LeBron the best player and best small forward though with 77 percent. So why a tie in the other? Because KD is four years younger, hasn’t reached his full potential and is one swell dude.
- The Heat got 74.1 percent of the votes predicting they’d win the NBA Finals. Oklahoma City was second with 14.8 percent. The Thunder got 67.9 percent saying they’d win the West and 71.4 percent predicting they’d win the Northwest.
- KD beat out LeBron with 55.6 percent saying he’d win this season’s MVP. Remember though, he got 66.7 percent last season predicting the same thing.
- James Harden was picked as the player most likely to have a breakout season.
- Surprise here: Russell Westbrook finished third in best point guard behind Derrick Rose and Chris Paul. He only got 3.7 percent, but still.
- Somehow KD got 7.1 percent and finished fifth for best power forward. I know Scott Brooks likes to go small a lot, but geez.
- Serge Ibaka tied for fourth for international player most likely to breakout.
- Westbrook tied for third with 11.5 percent for best perimeter defender in the league. That seems way high to me, but I do think Westbrook’s defense is much improved over the past two seasons.
- Scott Brooks finished sixth with 7.1 percent for best coach making in-game adjustments. I guess GMs really like “Play harder!”
- Oklahoma City was picked as the third most fun to watch team behind the Heat and Clippers.
- The Thunder were picked to have the best homecourt advantage in the league with 44.4 percent. Next closest was the Jazz with 22.2 percent.
- Westbrook tied for second with John Wall for “fastest with the ball” behind Derrick Rose, and it wasn’t close. He also finished third behind Rose and LeBron for most dangerous in the open floor.
- KD finished behind Kobe for getting his own shot. Little surprised Dirk wasn’t mentioned since you basically can’t stop him, but KD certainly fits. Because he can make anything from anywhere, over anyone.
- KD tied for third for best leader.
- Here’s an interesting one: KD was second behind Kobe for player you’d want taking a shot with the game on the line with 30.8 percent. Kobe got 48.1. That’s a pretty big number for KD quite honestly.
The ownership/Presti will ultimately decide if the Thunder will be like the Spurs or the Suns... the suns didnt want to pay Joe Johnson or Amare and ended up just being an exciting footnote... the spurs locked up their big three and got four rings... Everything Presti has shown us says Spurs, but the moment of truth aproaches...
@RRRWHOAAAA Agreed that Presti clearly favors the Spurs model, and thank God for that. Although I'd maintain Phoenix was wise to let Johnson and Amare go because neither are max players nor #1 option players on a championship-caliber team.
As expected, Presti just called to ask for my feedback about trading Westbrook if he won't sign for less than the max...I told Sam he better have a solid plan in place on how to configure the rest of the roster for pennies on the dollar if it takes a max deal to keep Russ. Then he told me he'd be consulting certain other individuals on this board to help him with that.
Kinda worried about Dwight landing with the Clips : \
@Lasers they cant realistically afford him unless they unload jordan. A a free agent dwight is probably going to dallas to team up with deron williams, dallas can afford both of them.
@f5alcon Sheesh, Dallas wouldn't be fun-- trollface Cuban. Here's hoping he goes to the Nets..
@courtsense@C-Wil@Lasers@f5alconYeah, don't worry. Remember it is the Clippers. They always find a way to screw up their teams.
@C-Wil@Lasers@f5alcon Mavs would need to renounce Odom to afford Howard and Williams.
@Lasers@f5alcon holy crap that is scary. Can you imagine a scoring maniac like Dirk being the THIRD option? Dwight, Dirk, Odom, Carter, Williams all on the floor at once. :\
And with Dwight on the Clips, that would be greatly entertaining until they start beating us.
@Lasers @f5alcon They can't get rid of Jordan as that's griffins best friend on the team...that's part of the reason they signed him...idk who they would give up to get d12 since they have noone of trade value sufficient for this trade aside from griffin and Paul
@f5alcon@Lasers that team would be a problem... and id feel just a tad bit sorry for the nets
@Lasers Don't worry - they don't have the pieces to get him.
Why I am excited for the Olympics: KD and Russ get to watch and learn from Kobe and his work ethic
@RRRWHOAAAA westbrook might not make the team.
@f5alcon i think hell make it... coach K is a big fan of his... thats the other reason im excited for london, they get to learn from coach k.... man i wish he coached the thunder... and i hate duke... but i respect the coach
Anyone with ESPN Insider than can give insight as to what Hollinger is saying in his new article about the thunder?
@RRRWHOAAAA That we're winning with offense instead of defense this year. He goes into a little bit of detail about how our defense has gotten consistently worse last season - a trend that is continuing this season.
We all knew we'd have to pay our players to keep them here. This is the reality that every team faces, and hometown discounts are rare, and even when they do happen it's usually for a veteran in the last couple of years of their careers. And the fact that we're a small market doesn't help in the least. We all knew this was coming.
You don't trade Russ because of this. You try your best to get him to take less, and when he won't, you sign him anyway. You do the same for Harden and Ibaka next year. If doing your due diligence doesn't end up with a possibility of keeping all 3, you let Ibaka be the odd man out, and you use plan B and see what you can get for him.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct There has to be a plan B joke in there somewhere.
leave it to @Jax Raging Bile Duct to be a voice of reason... agreed
@Jax Raging Bile Duct Agreed 1000% with every word.
Iam all about keeping the team together. Cant be greedy
@OkcBaby yeah ask the Clips how being greedy worked out for them back pre-Blake when they had (at one point) the most talented young roster in the league
@JimboSlice YEa, now they are top heavy with no bench
stop the trade russ talk. he is such an important part of our team. Think about it like this: if one player had to sit out for 3 games, lets not say injury lets say suspension of some kind, who's loss would actually hurt more right now? I know KD is better but we've seen the thunder win without him because russ can take over and create his own shot at will... not really true for KD.... i think if we didnt have russ right now for a month it would hurt more than not having kd
Russ is already asking the max. So if it falls threw the table. He ll be a RFA anyway.
@OkcBaby I don't think Russ would be happy if we threw a table at him.
@Jooseppi Presti probably wanted to when he wanted max. hhhahah
@OkcBaby threw the table? (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
sorry couldnt resist
@f5alcon@OkcBaby
Westbrook better be careful, Nenad threw a chair once and got traded. Who knows what would happen to Russ if he went around throwing tables every where
@anonymous12345@f5alcon@OkcBaby Did someone just say Russ threw a table or chair or something at KD? Quick! Call the media!
@f5alcon@OkcBaby Spell check isn't idiot pruf.
@jallenmorris@f5alcon Here is pruf of it.
In other hypothetical news, Scott Van Pelt brought up the hypothetical, "Would you trade Griffin for Howard?" earlier today (with other pieces obviously to make the numbers work), and there were a lot of people actually saying no.
Clips say "yes" to that in a heartbeat. Even if they have to throw in DeAndre. Crazy fans influenced by SportsCenter highlights...
@Jooseppi If I'm the Clips GM, not only would i trade griffin for howard in a heartbeat, i would announce to the team that we got dwight howard, and when posed with the question "who'd we give up?" scream "We don't care!" and pretend to dunk on Blake Griffin.
I don't really get how trading Russ makes any sense (unless its for D12), when we have another more dispensable piece that can still get us a player back of similar quality to what Russ can command (because of the lack of available options of comparable players to Russ, the best we will get back will fall back closer to the Ibaka return range). I could see if there were plenty options on the table, but our options giving up Ibaka look almost as good as our options giving up Russ... so how does it make sense to drop the better of the two?
@JimboSliceIf no extension for RW, he only becomes restricted right?
@ThunderBelize yep. So worst case scenario, we still get to keep Russ.
@JimboSlice
Do you think there is a likelihood of another team running the price up? Or are we protected by the fact he is currently our player? (I vaguely remember hearing something about we can offer him and extra year + more money per year? is that correct?)
is it wise to let the market dictate his value?
@ThunderBelize thats right
@ThunderBelize@JimboSlice right
@JimboSlice
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Serge is involved in a draft day pick.
@JimboSlice You give up ibaka for a high pick he's useless at this point anyway
@JimboSlice I think it's not likely to get equal value in return for Russ. I think it's more likely to get equal value in return for Ibaka.
Just speaking hypothetically.
@Jooseppi yeah that's my point. You all but guarantee taking a loss by trading Russ. You likely could get equal if not better value trading Ibaka because of his young age and potential (and declining value to us)
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@deleted_1998213_Don'tStoptheSergeing are they going to complain that fisher hit the 3 instead of kobe?
@f5alcon@deleted_1998213_Don'tStoptheSergeing nope cause kobe loves his teammates
@deleted_1998213_Don'tStoptheSergeing
No. No, they do not.
@deleted_1998213_Don'tStoptheSergeing Skip Bayless is a lot of things. Knowledgeable about basketball is not one of them.
@deleted_1998213_Don'tStoptheSergeing lol no idk why you continue listening to them trolls same with Barkley he thinks philly is a jumpshooting team