John Rohde on Westbrook: “After receiving the “T,” Westbrook continued to argue with Foster, who easily could have ejected the two-time All-Star with another technical. Westbrook was still emotional as teammates met him at midcourt and finally steered him toward the bench. OKC coach Scott Brooks routinely sends in a substitute for Westbrook around the two-minute mark of the third quarter, but rather than taking out Westbrook so he could regain his composure, Brooks opted to leave him in the game.”
From Elias: “Russell Westbrook (31 points), Kevin Durant (30) and James Harden (30) gave the Suns more than they could handle as the Thunder topped Phoenix on Wednesday night. Oklahoma City’s “big three” were the first trio of NBA teammates to each score 30 points in one game this season and they were only the second threesome of teammates to do that in franchise history, joining Dale Ellis (37), Xavier McDaniel (31) and Tom Chambers (30), who turned the trick for the SuperSonics on February 26, 1988 (against Sacramento).”
ESPN Stats and Info: “Aside from the Thunder getting THREE 30-point performances on Wednesday, only TWO other players scored a point for them in their 115-104 victory. They’re just the 5th team in the past 25 seasons to score at least 115 points, getting ALL of them for just 5 players.”
Interesting post at Hickory High on OKC’s pick-and-roll: “The Thunder may not be a conventional pick and roll team, but they remain highly successful in running it and the ensuing counters to various defenses. As the season goes on, it will be interesting to see if defenses will be able to force Oklahoma City into using Perkins, Ibaka, and Collison as scorers instead of simply screeners.”
Here’s Kate Upton’s interview from last night.
And here’s Kate Upton sitting with her Uncle Aubrey.
Mike Tokito of the Oregonian on the MVP race: “If Minnesota can get into the playoffs, it would cement Love as a legitimate MVP candidate. His numbers already make a compelling case: He is averaging 25.4 points and 13.7 rebounds, ranking fourth and second in those categories. Love is also a player you cannot hack as he is shooting 83.4 percent at the free-throw line and leads the league in made free throws with 257.”
Eddy Rivera for TrueHoop on how much playoff experience matters: “After acquiring Kendrick Perkins at the trade deadline last season, the Thunder’s first full season with this quintuplet together has been a resounding success so far. With coaches like Gregg Popovich, George Karl, and Rick Carlisle in the Western Conference casting a shadow on Scott Brooks, Oklahoma City can only hope chemistry will trump all.”
Ryan Weisart for Valley of the Suns on smallball last night: “Second, it allowed Ibaka to remain near the rim on defense and cut off the Suns path to the basket. I understand that Gentry was responding to Thunder Coach Scott Brooks’ decision to go small in crunch-time with Westbrook, Durant, Harden, Ibaka, and Royal Ivey, but his decision to follow suit as opposed to bringing in Channing to stretch the defense and pound the glass may have been the difference down the stretch.”
SI.com’s Zach Lowe on fast point guards: “For instance: Want to know the answer to the age-old debate over who the fastest point guard in the league really is? Well, STATS can’t answer that definitely yet, since only 10 of the league’s 30 arenas have the cameras installed. But those 10 arenas feature some pretty quick point guards — Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Ricky Rubio, Brandon Jennings and the quicker-than-you-think Calderon. (John Wall, for some reason, was left out of this report). But none can touch Parker in an open sprint, at least not so far this season. Parker has reached a high speed of 20.9 miles per hour in one stretch of in-game sprinting, easily the highest speed any of these guys have registered. Rubio is next, at 19.4 miles per hour, and the rest of the crew falls into the 17 range. Chicago has not invested in the STATS system, so we only have a few games worth of data on Derrick Rose; he reached a peak speed of 17.0 miles in San Antonio last month.”
According to Darnell, Trina was at the Peake. If Harden has a 30 point night with her there, let's get that girl season tickets.
@Barry Amenema Sure, as long as she isn't allowed to sit under the basket, because we all know how that works out...
So Dallas is sliding, and probably looking forward to the offseason more than ever. It would be so cool to have Shawn Marion for the playoff run...
@ATH where are we getting the cap space for it?
@f5alcon This is a trade that could work (and I think Maynor has a team option for next season), and Dallas accomplishes its goal of making Marion's $$$ disappear. http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=7mwsp6q
But yeah, I think it would put us over the cap.
@jdstorm so less ibaka or collison to play marion?
This would leave us seriously low on Z's.
@f5alcon PF. or KD plays more 4
@ATH where does he get minutes, durant uses up 35mpg at SF.
@TempBoy Brandon @f5alcon Okay, forget Maynor. I don't want to trade him if we don't absolutely have to. Just consider the impact Marion would have here. He's a better, more versatile version of Sefolosha.
@TempBoy Brandon WHAT?? You are crazy. Marion is leading Dallas' top-three defense this year. He would solve pretty much all our defensive issues. If we make the Finals, he gives us a much better shot to beat Miami. And we can get him without giving up anything we're using this season.
The big hangup is how much he duplicates Sef's skills, but I'm not confident Sef will be healthy again.
@ATH yeah but only for 1.1mm so easy to buy out or trade
@ATH Call me crazy, but I'd rather have Eric Maynor next year than Shawn Marion this year.
@f5alcon Lazar is guaranteed next year. Dallas probably wouldn't go for it.
@ATH i dunno if i want to give up maynor, i would rather do something like ivey, lazar and nazr for odom.
@ATH raptor arms?
@DavyTheWise @ATH Are you suggesting the reason Marion shoots that gawdawful set shot is because his arms aren't long enough to get the ball up over his head?
@courtsense @ATH yeah, good player though... obviously.
@DavyTheWise RAPTOR ARMS.
@ATH or pinball flippers?
go thunderoos
Does Mike Tokito think anyone who can beat Aldridge can win a MVP?Howard has worse teammates but better record than Love,no reason he is behind Love in MVP rank.
@shiki Agreed about Love/Howard. But MVP voters love team improvement, which is why Rose was such a popular MVP last year and why CP3 is getting so much love this year. That way, the voters can point to the MVP as the cause of the team's improvement. Whereas, players who simply playing amazing basketball and keeping your team competitive year in and year out get less recognition. But it wouldn't surprise me if DH gets his MVP when he eventually goes to another team, whose record will probably improve by 10 wins, while Orlando quickly becomes a bottom feeder.
(One more point about DH's MVP's campaign: The fact that he's vacillated so much as to what he wants to do while his looming free agency has been a distraction to his team doesn't seem very MVP-like. Not saying that that's necessarily a valid consideration, but it is what it is.)
@shiki no way is a 8th seed player is winning mvp lol
@Lost Ones @shiki and seeing how love's break out season was last year, could you attribute much of the wolves success to rubio?
Why do Dallas fans assume that just by signing D-Will they'll get be getting Howard in the off-season? I mean have you seen the contracts they have? Unless they plan on signing Kidd, and Terry to about 2 million a year, or they both retire how do they even plan on having cap space for both Howard and Williams? Howard made about 18 million this season, i believe in taking less to win, but if Howard wanted to sign with them he'd be signing for about 4-5 Million less, i mean what players even do that anymore? I mean that would be a scary team, but i still don't see how they can do it, They signed Odom after the new CBA, so the only person if i stand corrected that they could amnesty is Haywood.
@ElMexiThunder I honestly think that Steve Nash will be in a Maverick uniform next season. It happened before, and in all likelihood it will happen again. Who needs D-Will if you have Nash/Kidd, Terry, Marion, Dirk and Dwight Howard?
@ElMexiThunder Someone did an article on this. Provided that they clear everybody except Dirk, they still can't afford both without having basically only rookies on that team
@David_MN @ElMexiThunder not at max but if they want to win like miami, they might take a discount.
@ElMexiThunder Zach Lowe did a post on this recently and pointed out that the Mavs can't offer them both 'max' deals (max meaning the most Dallas is able to offer those two players). http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/02/28/crunching-numbers-how-dallas-could-get-dwight-howard-deron-williams/
@ElMexiThunder Odom's contract is not fully guaranteed next year.I think it is the reason they traded him.
But their big3 is great on paper.It will be big 2 in 2 years because of dirk's age,Will Cuban sign a new super star at that time?
@ElMexiThunder haywood gets amnestied and odom's contract is over. kidd and terry will sign ver minimum to win another title, they might even get nash to sign to win a title at vet minimum.
@f5alcon DWill and Nash?!! dude...
@DavyTheWise its unlikely but possible for sure
@f5alcon
Odom still has another year. Its a two year contract. Shawn still has 24 million in the remaining three years of his contract.
@ElMexiThunder it is a team option for odom
So are we saying that Scott Brooks had the insight to know Russ was going to channel his fury into a tide-turning play . . . or was Brooks just afraid to sit by him on the bench?
@ThunderChick2010 although Brooks still isn't a great coach, he seems to be generally a pretty good personality manager, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one that he figured Russ' anger could create something good.
@JimboSlice @ThunderChick2010 Anger...leads to fast breaks. Fast breaks...lead to suffering (for the other team).
Great article on the inefficiency of hero ball and specifically isolation plays. Brooks, Westbrook, and KD need to read this. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7649571/nba-kobe-bryant-not-money-think-espn-magazine
However, Abbot does mention that KD at 1.07 ppp in isolation situations is one of if not the best isolation player in the league. Supposedly Brooks tells the players to pass out of the iso if there is something else open. We all want a mature, smart team but the reality is, is that we have a team with 23 yr olds or younger who have rapidly rose to stardom, there are going to be bumps along the way, especially since they didn't have any stars to mentor them when they came in.
Oklahoma City’s “big three” were the first trio of NBA teammates to each score 30 points in one game this season . . . .
Another first for our guys :)
So, I'd like to go on record saying that I don't want this team to trade anybody and I feel horrible for even suggesting this, but I was messing around with the trade machine last night and came up with this: Kendrick Perkins and James Harden to the Suns for Marcin Gortat and Shannon Brown. Brown's deal expires after this season, which would clear room for Ibaka's extension. Again, the idea of trading Harden almost physically hurts, but I think they'd love him in Phoenix given he went to college in Arizona. Thoughts?
@sammasaaron if we are trading away good stuff might as well do this trade:
okc sends:
westbrook, collison, thabo to orlando 1st rd pick this year
perkins, nazr, cook to boston 1st rd pick next year
okc gets:
howard, rondo, von wafer
orlando sends:
howard to okc and nelson to boston
orlando gets:
westbrook, collison, thabo, ray allen, 1st rd pick
boston sends:
rondo to okc and ray allen to orlando
boston gets:
perkins, nazr, cook, nelson and 1st rd pick
our roster
starters: rondo, harden, durant, ibaka, howard
backup: reggie(maynor next year), von wafer, aldrich, with spot minutes for ivey and lazar and reid.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=78p3y6x
How about this one. It is based upon Hollinger's article today saying the Bucks are desperate to get rid of Jackson.
Realistically Cook is producing as much as Jackson for a 3rd of the price. My understanding was that the Bucks were willing to part with them to cut costs. So I gave them equal production for WAY less future cost.
@Patrick OKCSounds good but the Bucks are ganna want something alot more then Cook or Lazar,
Yeah but he comes off the books when we need to pay Harden and Ibaka if we can. Plus we get two promising forwards to soften the blow if we can't pay Ibaka, in exchange for basically giving up nothing.
@Patrick OKC not bad though jackson is expensive
@f5alcon Wow, that's a lot more creative and involved than I can handle. I really don't like Rondo, though the irony of sending Perk back to Boston while moving Rondo to OKC would make for lots of jokes, especially after Rondo insisting the Celtics were going to get Perk back.
@sammasaaron Heeeeeell naw!
@sammasaaron The obvious problem with your scenario is that Harden is the best player in the trade. Why would you give up the 3rd best player on the team just to keep Ibaka, presumably the 4th best player?
@sammasaaron no way, gortat is only good because he is playing with nash.
@f5alcon Gortat was pretty good in limited minutes playing for the magic... probably the best backup center in the league at the time
@RodneyRosavelRusanWilson yeah he was decent there but his per36 scoring is way up on the suns, 5ppg better.
@sammasaaron
Dude thats a horrible trade, if your suggesting trade Harden for another center, i rather us go ahead and trade Harden, and KP for Howard.
@sammasaaron That's literally hilarious. Please tell me you're joking. That deal is so lopsided in Phoenix's favor, even their first rounder being thrown in would still not make it close to fair or useful.
This trade only works on the assumptions that a) Kendrick Perkins is terrible and b) Marcin Gortat is the second or third best Center in the league.
Harden currently is arguably the third best two guard in the league behind Kobe and Wade (feel free to correct me because I could be forgetting someone in the Esast). Perk, while an offensive nightmare, has begun to turn his season around. Gortat is pretty good, but would even be a tough argument to place in the top 5 at his position. Brown doesn't fit on our roster anywhere, and even so, is probably in the same range of guards as Perk is to bigs. So yeah, not a good trade. Don't get caught up too much in the "we need a big man" jive that's being thrown around, because that seems like the logic behind such a trade.
@JimboSlice Wasn't so much working on the 'Perkins is terrible' angle as much as flipping a post defender for a post scorer and freeing up cap. Based on the responses, though, I just seriously overestimated Gortat's value. Also, didn't realize till just now that Gortat is 28, thought he was younger. This is why I need the DT Board, to tell me when I'm dumb, haha.
careful . . . someone might want to physically hurt YOU (Harden stays.)