Rob Mahoney of SI.com: “Yet the Thunder are slowly improving as a selective-switching outfit, largely because Serge Ibaka is staying grounded more consistently and Kendrick Perkins is better at handling guards on the perimeter than most anticipate. We saw OKC’s switching success in action in the first quarter of this game, in which Minnesota was held to just 29 percent shooting overall. The aforementioned concerns about the Wolves’ offensive initiation played a part, but by switching so often the Thunder also dictated the terms of the game and forced their opponent into matchups that were clearly uncomfortable. Switching so deliberately basically leaves the offense no choice but to try to exploit perceived advantages, and yet Minnesota had a hard time isolating particular opponents to attack and re-directing their offense mid-stream. This isn’t to say that a case study against the league’s 21st-ranked offense should be sufficient for broader use, but it’s worth noting that the Thunder are flexible enough to switch against particular opponents for controlled stretches without getting completely burned.”
Darnell Mayberry: “Perk did make Pek take like two tough shots at the start of the game. Not sure I’d say it was tone-setting type stuff. But whatever. Here’s what I hate about all the hate that’s been heaped onto Perkins. It makes it tough to adequately and accurately analyze his performance. Let’s call it the Russell Westbrook effect. The same thing happened with the Thunder’s point guard. People are bagging on Perk so much that anytime anybody looks at his play through a critical analyst scope it’ll now be deemed as piling on. At the same time, anytime anyone praises Perk it’ll be judged as much ado about nothing, or, I love this one, pushing the company message. That’s what it’s come to with saying anything, good or bad, about Kendrick Perkins this season. And I wish it was not that way.”
Are the Thunder “America’s team”?
ESPN Stats and Info: “Wednesday’s win over the Timberwolves was the 20th game this season in which Kevin Durant & Russell Westbrook each scored 20+ pts. The Thunder have won 3 straight such games and are 16-4 in those games this season overall.”
Clay Bennett quote from July 2, 2008: “We will reserve the name Sonics and SuperSonics and the marks and the colors and will not use them. But we will return them if a team does indeed return to Seattle.”
Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don’t Lie: “Don’t dismiss Oklahoma City’s ever-improving defense, but the Minnesota Timberwolves look terrible offensively without Kevin Love or a fully healthy Ricky Rubio, despite the pleasant spacing that continues to hold place in Rick Adelman’s offense. With plenty of missed shots to get the Thunder going, OKC could pull away on broken plays and transition chances. Even when Russell Westbrook was getting caught in the air or the spacing wasn’t right, the Thunder still had enough to keep the Wolves at arm’s length all night. Pity, because given good health this pairing could have been something special, a nice halfway look against a great opponent at a Timberwolves team looking to make the postseason for the first time since Oliver Miller played in Minnesota.”
Hasheem Thabeet’s response to seeing the GIF of Perk snubbing him: “LMAO THIS IS TOO FUNNY … HAHAHAA CLASSIC ME.” Classic you indeed.
Ballerball asks how it feels, Seattle.
The headline from Canis Hoopus: “Yeah…Well, You Still Live In Oklahoma.”
Also, Canis Hoopus’ recap: “That’s just about it. We could complain about the fact that Kevin Durant gets to shove Andrei Kirilenko into Russell Westbrook for a foul on AK or that Westbrook gets to put a forearm bar into Luke Ridnour’s chest for a foul on Luke but that misses the basic f’ing point: It’s pretty hard to beat awesome shooting opponents in the NBA.”
Lol novak is funny to watch play defense
http://dailythunder.com/2013/01/kevin-martin-and-the-unfriendly-road/
anyone got the stats for the d league game since its half time?
@Legendary_Dork http://www.nba.com/dleague/games/20130110/TULFWN/gameinfo.html
LAMBBBBBB
Harden is horrible against Thunder this season
@tydude Yeah, it's like we know all his tendencies and have a way better team. Pretty nice, eh?
@Keith00 after the 2nd time we play him he looks very disappointed that we blow him out of the game
@justin_mia @tydude @Keith00 he's comprehensive
@tydude @Keith00 The Sun is hot.
@tydude Wouldn't you be? This is a top 10 player in the league that has regularly carved up 28 other teams, and he just can't get anything going against the one team he wants to prove wrong.
I mean, his poor games against us don't take away from his overall talent and ability, but I imagine it has to be pretty hard on him mentally to not be able to shake that monkey off his back.
We need to bring lamb back ASAP
Yeah I can only watch so much of D-League. I wish Rautins could play some D. That shot is smooth.
Anybody else totally surprised by just how dominant Harden has been. I thought he would struggle some as the #1 option I could never imagine him having anything close to the season he is having now. Heck 14 straight games of 25+ points never could have imagine it.Harden has been the 5th best player this season behind Lebron, Durant, Kobe, and Carmelo.
Really makes me disgusted about that stupid move of Presti only giving Harden 60 minutes to decide on the final offer instead of 24 hours. If Presti had given Harden 24 hours there is a good chance we would still have Harden on our team.
@MostJadedGamer I'm surprised he acclimated so quickly. But I'm not surprised he's done this well, no.
@justin_mia @MostJadedGamer I don't understand the argument, as GOOD as he is , he was NOT worth the max in OKC as the second or third best player. Not to mention we already had two guys signed to a Max contract .
@MostJadedGamer Presti's deadline was never the problem, it was always money. Harden felt he was worth the max, Presti couldn't give it to him. Harden didn't want out of a good situation, he just wanted to be fairly paid. Presti didn't want to give Harden up, but he was limited by ownership in the offer he could make.
@Keith00 @MostJadedGamer Even then, the offer they did make would have put them into the luxury tax, so it's not like they were TOTALLY skimping. It takes two parties to determine "fair". They didn't come to an agreement, and Presti parted ways, James got the max. That's how it's supposed to work. /shrug
@Tronchaser @MostJadedGamer It takes two parties to determine fair, but any objective viewer could tell the max was fair. Harden is proving it right now.
@MostJadedGamer yea he had the attire summer and training camp to make a decison on his contract and he wanted a Max
@MostJadedGamer Pretty much every indicator out there pointed to this eventuality if he became the #1 guy. His efficiency is still high, but not as ridiculously high as it was as a third option. There was no reason to think he would suddenly stop being able to drive or shoot, and passing isn't much affected by teammates (assists are, but not passing ability).
@MostJadedGamer James had months to take an offer. His agent told the Thunder after the finals that they wouldn't be taking less than max. James and his agent wanted the Thunder to give them more time so that the Rockets offer expired. Their preference was to play out the season with the Thunder and then enter free agency.
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@justin_mia @MJOKC @Keith00 @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer Im way late on this, but if you think the owners of the Thunder are making a "killing" owning the Thunder than you are very mistaken.
@MJOKC @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer Once again, why do I care how much profit the ownership group makes? Is that somehow being passed on to the fans in lower ticket prices? No. Is that creating a better product on the floor? No.
And the evidence does not support your idea that Harden wanted out. He wanted to be paid market value (below actually, since he would have settled for just the max, not the designated player max). He didn't trade himself or demand a trade. Management did that. They decided they would rather be worse than pay market value. To Justin's point above, letting Harden go is like buying cheap insulation. You save a bunch up front, but you're always hoping it doesn't get too cold outside and screw your heating bill.
@MJOKC @Keith00 @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer This is such backwards logic. "He could have made up that 5 million dollars endorsement deals". LOL. The owners make a killing with the NBA. Look at what is happening with Sacramento, the team is worth $300M and may be sold for $500M - after the league says that Forbes overvalued their franchises. The NBA is not hurting for cash, don't let your anti-Harden agenda fly in the face of common sense. Harden isn't here simply because OKC would not pay him market value for his services. If you want to hire a plumber and he charges $40/hr for his work but you pay $30/hr for the work and he leaves to get his $40/hr - is it the plumbers fault? LOL.
@MJOKC @Keith00 @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer Why couldn't they pay him that much and where did he complain about touches? He came off the bench his whole time here and there was never any peep about it. What other star player would do that? Ginobili? That's the only one.
@Keith00 @MJOKC @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer There is no explanation. Harden was traded because the team did not want to pay him market value. That's all there is to it. It's very clear that a maximum contract was market value.
@MJOKC @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer Because it's Harden's job to juggle team salary? The dude is every bit worth the max, every bit worth the designated player max even. Explain to me why it is a player's job to help a bunch of billionaires save some money. That's what I don't get in any of this. Harden is the second best player our team had, there was never any rule stopping us from paying him, but it's still his fault that he wanted to be paid fairly?
@MJOKC @OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer If Harden was offered a fair contract, he would be.
@OBoy Jones III @MostJadedGamer I think there preference was to call the thunders bluff and that the thunder would pay anyway.
@MostJadedGamer he didn't he gave him since july 1st
@f5alcon Except Harden thought he could drag it out to the last day to get the best offer possible from the Thunder, but Presti totally caught him off guard with that 60 minute crap. If Presti had played it just a little bit smarter we might still have harden on our team.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon Except Westbrook is not a good defensive player...? And rebounding is such a negligible difference between them and small part of their game. They are both primarily scorers, around 30% USG. Any player in that range is primarily a scorer. And Harden dominates Westbrook as a scorer, as their primary function. They both have about the same effect on their offenses in +/- except Westbrook plays most of his minutes with Kevin Durant. Harden is the better offensive player.
You're pretty much speaking in superlatives now with such gems as "Harden's purpose is to score purely score". Come up with something better for later in the season because I'm gonna have much more substance to this discussion than you're seeing here.
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon Westbrook primary function as a player , is to play make and put his team in the position to win. This includes, Scoring, Assisting , Defense , Rebounding as well as the gamble stats. Hardens Purpose is to score purely score.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon Even so, Westbrook would have to be very good defensive to make up for the current gap in offensive productivity. And he isn't. The gap between them as scorers is just too big for players whose primary function is to score. Westbrook gets more assists, but they are about equal there relative to their positions. Westbrook is more active on the boards but a couple percentage points on TRB is negligible for guards, especially high usage players like this.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon Why is RAPM a joke?
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon Defensive rapm is a joke rapm period infact.
@Keith00 @justin_mia @f5alcon so does my eyes.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon Defensive RAPM, he's the second worst rotation player to Martin. And just use your eyes. He's directly responsible for our first loss of the season where he got lost off the ball. That's basically Westbrook's defense in a nutshell - over pursuit of the ball which leads to breakdowns everywhere else as the rest of the team tries to cover for his mistakes. He goes under screens against shooters. He switches sometimes when his teammate doesn't know about it. And he's very bad in transition defense, even worse so because it seems to have spread to Durant.
He's better than Harden because when Westbrook is 1 on 1 without and screens and can focus on the ball he can be very good. And he makes some nice off ball plays when he gambles sometimes. But overall he is below average because he has no discippline.
@Keith00 @justin_mia @f5alcon synergy tells me westbrook is the better defender at the much tougher position.
@Lost Ones @justin_mia @f5alcon Eyes and synergy stats.
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon based on?
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon So is Westbrook.
@f5alcon @justin_mia Think about this for a moment. If Russ wasn't shooting so terribly this year, would you really care about his assist totals that much? People on this site have already been bashing KD just for passing a little bit more. Harden scores nearly as well as KD.
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon Hardens a below average defensive player.
@justin_mia lin sucking has nothing to do with harden
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon I care about defense. I just don't see why it's a major crux of this discussion since Westbrook is not a good defensive player.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon The difference between Westbrook and Harden on defense is nowhere near the difference between them offensively right now. Westbrook would need to be a good defensive player, and he isn't.
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon I cant name one title that has been won without defense being a main priority but im done arguing because you dont care about defense.
@Lost Ones @f5alcon Look more made up excuses. Last year it was because Harden was a bench player and scoring on bad players, or he wasn't shooting as much, or he was a third option. Now that he's blown all those things away, he is marginalizing his PG? All the great SG's do that to some extent. Kobe, Jordan, Brandon Roy, Wade, Ginobili. They use possessions to score, so their PG's will not have the ball as much. When you're this efficient, it's what you want to happen.
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon and defense is just as important, I would argue its more important in the grand scheme of things.
@Lost Ones @Keith00 @f5alcon Efficiency is important when you have two players using the same amount of possessions. What they do with the possessions they use is what offense is about, no? Also their TOV% is almost equal. Harden is way more efficient scoring and they turn it over about the same.
@justin_mia @f5alcon he's also one of the only SG who marginalizes their PG, he should be among the league leaders in AST% for SG
@Keith00 @f5alcon If hardens the better player why does he have a worst rebounding % ast% worse defender , average more turnovers. Its incredibly close if you want to use efficiency only to gauge a player go ahead.
Westbrook would be called selfish if he averaged such low Ast/to %
@f5alcon He absolutely demolishes Westbrook as a scorer. 10% higher TS almost on equal usage. That difference alone should clinch his superiority as an offensive player. The fact that he's also among the league leaders in AST% for SG? Come on. You've got two players who use a lot of possessions and one of them is way, way more productive with them. Westbrook may have an advantage right now on defense, but it's not big enough to make up the difference between them on offense at the moment. Though I expect Westbrook to improve some as the season continues.
@f5alcon I remember when the trade was first announced listening to Bill Simmons on a podcast with (I think) Zach Lowe. One of the more interesting points was whether they should have traded Westbrook. Lowe went to point out that while Russ is the more visually striking player in person, there was literally no concrete evidence anywhere that Harden wasn't the better player.
@justin_mia he scores more and more efficiently, but is rebounding worse has a lower ast%
@justin_mia @Keith00 @f5alcon or Wade
or Terry
@Keith00 @f5alcon He's going to mention Westbrook defending Ginobili in the playoffs. Five games' worth of proof that Westbrook can defend SG's.
@f5alcon Actually, Russ is a very problematic defender. He has tons of ability, but A) he doesn't play off the ball much at all, and B) he's so overaggressive that he runs himself right out of plays.
Russ doesn't play the 2, so I don't see why you are trying to to give him props for something he doesn't do.
@f5alcon @Keith00 westbrooks better defending 2s then harden is.
@Keith00 lol, russ is not that bad of a defender
@Keith00 @Lost Ones @f5alcon I think it doesn't sink in with some people yet that Harden is as productive if not more so than Westbrook right now.
@Keith00 @justin_mia @f5alcon Calderon and harden would struggle terrible idea. Atleast Westbrook has exceptional off the ball skils.
@Lost Ones @justin_mia @f5alcon Calderon and Davis. I'm honestly convinced we would be an even better team.
@justin_mia @f5alcon @Keith00 The sixer are going to turn up there entire team for Westbrook when holiday is a great PG in his own right. best we could have got is someone like lawson and an additional
@f5alcon Russ CAN, but DOESN'T. Does it matter what someone can do if 9 times out of 10 they don't?
@Lost Ones @f5alcon @Keith00 You can make the salaries match anyway you want by adding filler. Martin and Harden's contracts didn't match, did they?
@justin_mia @f5alcon @Keith00 Like i said yesterday harden would be great with a PG like Stephen curry
@Keith00 russ can stay in front of most point guards, I don't think harden can stay in front of any.
@justin_mia @f5alcon @Keith00 No I do not, because FIRST of all the contracts do not match.
@Lost Ones @f5alcon @Keith00 You don't think we could have gotten Jrue Holiday in return for Westbrook? I think we'd have had our choice of PG's not named Chris Paul.
@justin_mia @f5alcon @Keith00 random as f*ck
@justin_mia @f5alcon @Keith00 lol at jrue holiday
@f5alcon @Keith00 If you trade Russ you get a PG in return instead of a SG like Martin. Are we better with, say, Jrue Holiday and James Harden? Or Westbrook and Martin? I think it's a very fair argument that will probably be relevant for a long time if the Thunder don't win it all.
@f5alcon Russ and Ibaka fit the team because they are talented individuals. As for Harden at PG, Russ gets destroyed on defense most of the time too.
@Lost Ones, is it better to have a scoring PG that can't shoot or an efficient SG that can pass? You also have to take Martin out of the equation. We would have either gotten a quality PG or C instead of SG. Is the team better with Russ and Martin over Calderon and Harden? Change Lamb with Ed Davis even. Tell me that's not at least as good as what we have.
@f5alcon @Keith00 Not only That both Russ and Harden Is top 3 in there respective positions , the argument should be which position is more need imo PG is much more important.
@Keith00 It isn't that difficult of an argument, there is not a replacement PG if we trade russ instead, maynor or jackson as a starter? Harden starting at PG? he would get destroyed on defense by most point guards.
@Keith00 @f5alcon @MostJadedGamer Not difficult at all. Russ and Ibaka fits the team much better then harden.
@f5alcon @MostJadedGamer I still think there is a lot of people who are questioning whether we traded the right player. Ibaka has improved and become much more of an offensive factor, but Harden is still the better overall player. Perk may yet still be amnestied. And, the kicker, it would be difficult to make an argument that Russ is still a better player than Harden.
@MostJadedGamer so harden should have accepted, he didn't, he called the bluff and got what he wanted in a max payday, we got more than what we would have gotten if he left, which is more likely what would have happened after this season then us change our minds and offer the max. It really doesn't matter what his numbers are on houston, they would not be the same as here, he wouldn't have the shot volume. We are 27-8 it isn't like we are playing poorly.