Kurt Helin of PBT riffing on silly Dwight Howard speculation: “OKC, you have not had a team for that long, so let me give you some advice — enjoy the journey. If your mentality is “title or bust” you’ll come off as arrogant, entitled Lakers fans. You have as good a young core as there is in the game, good players and good people who are fun to watch. Savor that, it is too rare. The titles will come. They will. Let them and enjoy the journey because that is the fun part, not the end result. As for the people who want to jump on this idea, know there is no way this happens. No. Way. It will not even be discussed. Because neither side would do it.”
Marc Gasol on which U.S. player he thinks is most dangerous: “I like Kevin (Durant) because he makes it easy. He doesn’t need to do much. He doesn’t have to dribble. He just gets the ball and shoots it. He plays well with the ball and off the ball. But with those guys, you have a No. 1 guy and then you have 1B, 1C, 1D and so on. Kobe (Bryant) is also a very dangerous player. He’d be dangerous even with cricket rules. LeBron (James) is also scary. They all have their tools.”
The Nuggets might have Thunder problems.
Marc Stein of ESPN.com on Spain: “If Marc Gasol does wind up playing alongside Pau and Oklahoma City Thunder center Serge Ibaka, Team USA will get its first up-close look at the front-line trio that, to most international basketball experts, makes Spain more of a threat than ever before and represents the biggest obstacle to the Americans repeating as Olympic champions.”
You have to check out this very cook graphic recapping last season.
David Aldridge of NBA.com on OKC’s hangover from the Finals: “A lot of promising teams — think the Sonics in ’96, the Magic in ’09 — got to the Finals once, but never got back. OKC certainly looks poised for a long run, but nothing is guaranteed. The Thunder, understandably, stood pat in the offseason. OKC took care of Scott Brooks, but needs to save whatever money it can to stay under the tax threshold to be able to pay either James Harden or Serge Ibaka — or both. The main issue for the Thunder now is the mental game. Can Oklahoma City make that last step that all champions have to make — learning how to deal with the pressure and expectations of a contender. And the pain of losing takes a while to lag.”
Congrats to Cole Aldrich who got engaged to his long time girlfriend.
new thread cant be bothered with link
@cleandoe Pssh, no like for you then.
@ou_sas hey, no fair
@cleandoe @ou_sas Well, I had to go and do the finding of the link myself. I'm lazy. :(
http://www.dailythunder.com/2012/07/usa-vs-spain-open-thread/#comments for other lazy people too.
Amare Stoudemire will pay 49 year old Hakeem Olajuwon $100,000 for two weeks of basketball workouts this summer.
@Lost Ones Hakeem worked with Lebron over last summer. The result...post moves and a championship ring.
Note to Thunder -- Send Serge to Hakeem please.
@Lost Ones didn't you say that wasn't alot of money to even serge?
@OBoymuzik yes
Chad Ford just tweeted updated offseason grades. http://t.co/Pq5ulmII
Now if only I knew someone with Insider to tell me if there's any change to the Thunder's grades...
@ou_sas http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story?id=8158678&_slug_=nba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fstory%3fid%3d8158678%26_slug_%3dnba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fstory%3fid%3d8158678%26_slug_%3dnba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fstory%3fid%3d8158678%26_slug_%3dnba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fstory%3fid%3d8158678%26_slug_%3dnba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fstory%3fid%3d8158678%26_slug_%3dnba-2012-offseason-grades-every-team
is this good enough as my fiirst post?
@thunder_ph Sweet! Thanks!
@thunder_ph Oh, something like this, I seriously doubt anyone cares about, so you're fine.
@ou_sas and this is where i learned how to unlock these articles in the first place, so i'm just returning the favor. Just delete &action=login from the url , and starting from where you deleted (almost always starts with &appRedirect) highlight the rest of the url, copy it, then paste it 4x at the end the url.
Just tell me if it's not allowed to post this here, I'll delete it. thanks.
@thunder_ph Yeah, I'm starting to notice the pattern to the links posted on these. I seem to recall someone explaining how to do it a couple of weeks back, but I didn't remember how. Something about repeating the redirect part of the url 3 times using copy-paste.
That's a pretty rockin' first post though. Nice.
@ou_sas it's actually pretty easy to read most of the insider articles. I can probably tell you how to do it here if there won;t be any problem.
@thunder_ph @ou_sas how did the celtics get a grade of A
@ou_sas @f5alcon @thunder_ph How dare you!
@f5alcon @thunder_ph @ou_sas I would give them an A too. They are Stacked with potential and have a good mix of veterans and newbies
@f5alcon @thunder_ph Somebody needs to take off the rose-tinted glasses on Jeff Green, i think.
@ou_sas No change to the Thunder's blurb.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct Didn't figure so, but thought I'd ask anyways.
@ou_sas *yells* PANCAKES!!!! come work your magic
who has a link for a live stream of the game today?
@booles espn3 should have it
@OBoymuzik @booles And it's on ESPN 2 if you have cable.
Yep, that sure is a very cook graphic.
@Arent Daequan made it all by himself.
You guys are going probably kick me for this but--
I wonder why Coach K picked up Anthony Davis for the team if we are in desperate need for a backup 5? I feel like the logical addition would've been Demarcus Cousins-- I heard Anthony couldn't even practice that much because of the ankle. I know hindsight is 20/20 but, Spain can exploit our weakness today...
thoughts?
@Tricia_status I think it was intended to just be a training stint for Anthony and show him USA Basketball cares. By the time it became apparent that everybody in the world was injured, it was too late to get anybody else insured, which is why they didn't expand the roster.
@Jooseppi Insured? Can you talk a little bit more about that?
@Jooseppi @Tricia_status @OBoymuzik @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! Probably play the hot hand with that too - if you have a guard/sf who's got a hotter hand at 3 than Iggy, ride that.
@ou_sas @Tricia_status @OBoymuzik @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! If that's what they want to go to in the frontcourt when Chandler is off the court, I don't see much of a downside to a CP3, Russ, Iggy, LeBron and Durant lineup.
@Jooseppi @Tricia_status @OBoymuzik @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! If Durant and Bron are really playing PF and C, then put in Russ and let him drive the lane every possession. You're either having your bigs play in to guard the lane or cover Bron and KD. Can't do both.
@Tricia_status @OBoymuzik @ou_sas @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! The encouraging thing is how the US matches up with Spain is as big of a problem for them as it is for Coach K. LeBron and Durant are harder covers for them at PF and C than their lineups are for the US, but the team can't fall asleep like it did Sunday.
@Tricia_status @OBoymuzik @ou_sas @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! I agree with you about the bigs. Rebounding can be a serious issue with this team. The only two outstanding rebounders are Love (who is MIA) and Chandler (who can't seem to get / stay on the court over those strange 3 SF lineups). Durant and LeBron are good for their position, but I don't think you can ask those two to carry the load on the boards in addition to the offense.
@Jooseppi @OBoymuzik @ou_sas @dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! okay I guess this answers it. I'm just reading how Spain beat Argentina by 20 and we beat them by only 6. Team USA need to shoot lights out today...the fact that we're just a shooting team though is a problem.
@Tricia_status USA Basketball has to get insurance on all the Team USA players and their contracts or else they probably won't play on the advice of their agents.
I was trying to remember what I saw and the barrier was actually the paperwork to get into the drug testing program required for the Olympics: http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/basketball/u-s-mens-basketball-team-gets-time-to-find-answers.html
This was post Howard and Aldridge injuries but before Bosh pulled out. I imagine they thought they were good with Griffin, Bosh, Chandler and Love as bigs with LeBron, Durant and Melo able to play there, as well. Two injures later and they don't have much of a choice.
@Tricia_status Monroe's the better player but didn't even get named to the select team (probably meaningless, but generally a sign K and Colangelo like the player. Cousins, Favors, Gibson and Blair are on the select team. Anderson was on it at some point but pulled out. At least two of those could reasonably be expected to contribute more than Davis.
@Tricia_status I feel Monroe would have been a better choice.
@dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! @Tricia_status Monroe wasn't even on the select team
@dancassidy35/FreeMonroefromDET! @diddoff @Tricia_status Remember, Steimsma was originally added to the team before he pulled out. Yup. Steimsma.
In any case, Monroe wasn't very pleased. http://on.freep.com/Olb3MU
@diddoff @Tricia_status I realize that, that doesn't change the fact that I believe he'd be a better fit
@Tricia_status I think we should have went with monroe, but i also do think davis is a better fit than love
@Tricia_status cousins must really be an ass because no one gives the guy a break...i thought he deserved it and it would have helped his growth tremendously
@Tricia_status I think it was because Collangelo thinks Cousins is still too immature.
@Tricia_status Couisns was not one of the finalist for team USA so they had to pick 1 of the 3 alternates if someone does get injury
excited 4 teh gaem 2day
@C-Wil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poT4i5UnOt4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
@MartzMimic Still disappointed you don't have Mike Martz as your avatar.
What time does Team USA play today? 4:30 ET is that 3:30 in Oklahoma?
@Marty_McFly321 thanks for the eastern time
@Marty_McFly321 Yup.
@Marty_McFly321 correct calculation