For now, Cole Aldrich is the Thunder’s starting center.
Exhale though, just for the preseason. And maybe only for the first game, depending on how things go.
The Thunder’s preseason schedule kicks off Wednesday in Hidalgo, Texas, against the Houston Rockets. And with Kendrick Perkins out until at least the regular season rehabbing his wrist, it’s an open audition for his backup.
Aldrich was expected to have the role all to himself anyway, but with Scott Brooks saying he will start Wednesday, it’s all but confirmed that the job is Aldrich’s to lose.
As for shooting guard, Brooks said he hasn’t decided on a replacement for Thabo Sefolosha, who is temporarily out resting a thigh injury. The expectation is for Daequan Cook to start though as James Harden said last week he’s been running with the second unit and not the first.
Brooks said the starters will be limited in the preseason opener, playing less than 20 minutes.
“I think everybody’s going to get an opportunity,” Brooks said. “Our starters are not going to play heavy minutes. I can’t imagine those guys playing over 16 to 18 minutes, but maybe right at that number. … It’s a great time for them to get out there and show what they can do and how they do it within a team concept, but there are only so many minutes you can play within a game.”
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Everyone get ready to board the Cole-Train!!!
If Cole Aldrich had a chainsaw, and he was put in a room with no doors, how many of Houston's 112 unarmed power forwards could he take out before they maul him to death? This is the preseason game I want to see.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct This is honestly one of the greatest comments ever.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct I'd put my money on him getting to the last one and his chainsaw runs out of gas.
new thread. no link
@cemitten no link? no like.
We've entered a new area. This is what a championship caliber team feels like
@FREE_COLE If only it was a new arena...
http://www.dailythunder.com/2012/10/under-the-radar-and-dreaming/
On to the next one
Additionally, the latitude average has gotten progressively closer to OKC while longitude has oscillated roughly around OKC's longitude. Both charts are plots of average lat/long of champions-lat/long of the Peake vs. years since merger.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As-DytRTWS5hdE9hNm51Zkd4TWc5TDlIMTJMV3FGZXc#gid=3
Conclusion: OKC is roughly in the middle of the country.
@senseandsenescence Huh, I went further back than you. My average is still in Illinois. Close to St. Louis.
@ou_sas @senseandsenescence Wait...
http://goo.gl/SvTDE
Plots as images if you're into that.
Longitude: http://i.imgur.com/yT4sC.png
Latitude: http://i.imgur.com/qD4GE.png
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL8943 here is the flight tracker of the OKC thunder Plane to Texas for the pre season game tomorrow
@tydude
stalker......
@Bsooreal we all track the flight when they came home from Miami back in June
@tydude
Thats different lol
Anybody else notice that smiley face in the bottom left corner when you scroll all the waydown?
@EatSleepThunder Considering making this my profile picture
@OBoymuzik @EatSleepThunder
I've been watching all week--well, two days--for your new screen name. The suspense is killing me.
@EatSleepThunder Sorry, I had to, this was discussed a month ago.
@f5alcon @EatSleepThunder
But wasn't it EST who was discussing it then? There's some techy reason for it, right? Or is it just Royce reminding us of his ever-present watchfulness?
@ThunderChick2010 @f5alcon @EatSleepThunder I'm almost sure the techy reason is so that javascript has a good way to determine page height in pixels.
@ThunderChick2010 @f5alcon @EatSleepThunder
Nope it was me. Then Jax came up with that lie...
@EatSleepThunder I heard sullinger might fall into the 20s
@f5alcon @EatSleepThunder http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r518/cleandoe/Sullingerd/2T5H18865.gif
Conspiracy Theory Time:
@crow asked if anyone was interested in seeing where the average geo-location of NBA champions is. While doing a bit of arena research I found out something interesting. Four teams since the merger have won the championship in the year they moved to a new arena.
1979 Seattle
1989 Detroit (First of 2)
2000 Lakers (First of 3-peat)
2003 San Antonio (First of 3 in 5)
Additionally the 1996 Bulls won the first of their second 3-peat in the second year of the United Center (and it is very likely they would have won in the first year if Jordan hadn't retired).
Even more interesting is the Stern timeline:
1978 Joins NBA as General Council
1979 (Seattle Wins)
1980 Executive VP
1980s Magic/Bird rivalry
1984 Commissioner
1987 Last Magic/Bird Final
1989 (Detroit Wins)
1990s Jordan dominates
1998 Jordan retires
2000 (LA Wins)
2003 (SA Wins)
Coincidence? Probably. Appearance? A bit convenient.
The SA one is a bit out of the mold since they did win in 1999 too.
Conclusion: Get the best player in the league to retire or build a new arena and Stern will bring you a championship. Instead of paying for Harden's salary maybe OKC should build a new arena.
@senseandsenescence @crow I get obsessed sometimes: http://goo.gl/ZudYK (from 1946-2012)
Which leads us to: http://goo.gl/yzZvA
@ou_sas @crow All those Boston titles really catch up with it. Obviously none of this really matters, but since the league wasn't truly national until about 1960, any average starting before that is guaranteed to be skewed to the NE.
@senseandsenescence @crow True. Though working to find some of those latitude and longitudes for the older arenas was a bit rough. Got em all though.
@senseandsenescence @crow
well with the renovations i'd consider the peake brand new.
@senseandsenescence @crow We should build a new arena in Tulsa, move the team there for a few seasons while we demolish Chesapeake Arena and build a new one in the same location.
@senseandsenescence It is the nba, stern is the master of conspiracies.
Due to continual demand, I've decided to create an overflow fantasy league. If you missed out on signing up for Cleandoe's, there's a second league forming now. It's over at yahoo sports at http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/nba/54491 . You'll need a yahoo id, obviously, and the password is RoyceYoung. 19 slots left, so if you're interested, and missed out on the ESPN league, feel free to join. Draft is scheduled for Sat Oct 27 6:00pm CDT as of right now.
@ou_sas I get error #152 if I click that link
@ou_sas Is it too late to join this one?
@BlakeWolf Yahoo league's still got openings. Check the Mailbag from 10/19 for an update (it's a ways down there). Alternately, go to the main Fantasy BB page, enter "Create a team", put in the league id and PW and it should add you.
@BlakeWolf Good deal. Glad to have you on board!
@ou_sas Fantastic, cheers. I just joined, and am NY Wolfs. I believe I've read every post on here since summer 2010, but just now started becoming a bit more active, and definitely needed a league. Thanks for all this.
@ou_sas
Nice D-League.
@cleandoe Or League Cup to your FA Cup?
@cleandoe You know, Liverpool has had more European success than Man U. So there's that.
I haven't even seen it yet. Is it bad?
http://memegenerator.net/instance/28080994
@ou_sas
Fairest comparison, I guess.
You are just covering for Liverpool.
Which reminds me, lol at Suarez's dive.
#leapfrog
@cleandoe Europa's still pretty good though! I mean, obviously no CL, but it's still European competition!
@ou_sas But where is the League?
More like Europa to CL.
@ou_sas SIGNED UP.
@ou_sas
i read that , and it sounded like you where drained of all energy when you wrote it .... i dont know why.
@Bsooreal Long weekend. baby_sas had a cold, and so wasn't sleeping through the night. So I got very little sleep. It's just one of those things.
@ThunderChick2010 @Bsooreal Thanks, TC! :)
@ThunderChick2010 @ou_sas @Bsooreal Flagged in support of cleandoe.
@ou_sas @Bsooreal
That was ou_sas. This is ou_sas with exclamation points. Any questions?
Due to burgeoning interest, ou_sas has decided to create an overflow fantasy league! If you missed out on signing up for cleandoe's, this really cool second (cleandoe-free) league is forming right now! It's over at yahoo sports at http://basketball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/nba/54491 . Of course, you'll need a yahoo id, and the password is RoyceYoung. There are only 19 slots left, so act quickly to join us if you missed out on the ESPN league. Our draft is scheduled for Sat Oct 27 6:00pm CDT as of right now. Can't wait to get this going!!!
@ou_sas
I hear you. Mines is teething. She can get loud.