Daily Thunder.com

Excellent stuff here emailed in by a reader. I’m a bit of a stat guy myself, but I don’t think there’s anything that can judge “Can the guy ball?” And like I wrote about last week, Russell Westbrook can absolutely ball. Here’s a better way of saying it.

By John Mietus

One key element little discussed in this year’s NBA rookie of the year race is the importance of intuitive feel for the game, basketball genius for lack of better term. Some coaches and statisticians try to refer to this “feel” as Basketball IQ, but that attempts to quantify with numbers (high or low) a player’s innate feel for the game. The truth of the matter is that most great basketball players simply feel the game out, and no statistical measure accurately captures the beauty or volatility of such play. That’s why team’s can write PER measurements on Ricky Rubio or Larry Bird without ever fully realizing the “win potential” of either player.

I’m not always a fan of what Charley Rosen, the FoxSports.com NBA writer, says about basketball. Rosen tends to be negative to the point of absurdity when discussing the greatest basketball players in the world, but he makes valid points on the contributions of players in regards to a team concept. Rosen points out that 90 percent of the players on the court at any given time of a game do not hold onto the basketball. That implies that 90 percent of the game happens away from the ball. And even in the NBA, even in a league designed to be played one-on-one, plenty of opportunity for improvisation and contribution occurs when a player does not actually have the basketball in their hands. It goes well beyond, “Is this guy setting a screen where he should be?”, and has more to do with a feel for spacing, for angles, for opportunities to make plays. It happens on both ends of the floor and allows an intuitive player to separate himself from players of average ability. But can it be measured? Not concretely. It can only be felt.

I want to talk about Russell Westbrook and the critical measures of a player’s capability. Watching Russell play this year on television or live and you can see the joy of his game. He’s like a child who has yet to realize all the limitations and boxes life will attempt to put around him. People get concerned over his turnovers or his “low” shooting percentage but they may miss his bouncy athleticism, his intuitive ability to make plays, his general court sense. Russell’s been out trying things this year, experimenting, pushing the boundaries of statistical analysis. Keep Reading…

Update: David Thorpe has a really cool Rookie Watch out – which player should each rookie study? For Russell Westbrook, he says Dwyane Wade: ”When Wade is at his smoking-hot best, he’s both a dynamic athlete and a skilled midrange shooter. That combination is necessary for Wade to be special, because some teams often build a wall around the rim and force him to make jumpers. Westbrook is incredibly athletic with and without the ball, so imposing his will on most possessions by using that gift gives him an advantage almost every time. And he is learning to do that now. But if he also gets his midrange game to work efficiently, he’ll be headed to the All-Star Game and the Thunder will be playing in late spring.” Also interesting is who he has O.J. Mayo studying.

Good to see P.J. Carlesimo has found work: “I can’t remember the last time I saw Carlesimo on-air, but I don’t remember him being that bad. He always seemed to have a surly disposition to me, but maybe a fun environment like TNT Basketball is what the former coach needs. We shall see.”

In the comments of Darnell’s blog he says he’ll have a Serge Ibaka update Monday in the paper and had this interesting note: “Basically, the front office loves how he’s developing over in Spain. The plan is to bring him over to join the team for summer league play and evaluate him in an NBA-type setting. It’s still unclear if the team will bring him over for next season. My guess is no. But again, that’s just my guess.”

Kevin Durant evidently bruised his hip against the Spurs, but he acts like he’s OK: “I couldn’t run like normal,” Durant said. “I just wanted to stick it out and fight through it. After I get some treatment [Wednesday] hopefully I’ll be all right.” Oklahoma City’s next game isn’t until Friday against the Blazers.” He did it early in the second quarter and he went on to score 15 more points so yeah, I think he’s OK.   Keep Reading…

Defense is one of the most difficult things to quantify in basketball. It’s not as simple as just figuring out how much the guy a certain player is guarding scores and then you have a number to with which to judge. In basketball the team context in unavoidable. The schemes teams run rely on “teamwork” defense, helping, rotating, switching, double teaming, etc., making player defensive evaluation sort of a nebulous concept.

But we acquired Thabo in late February at the deadline and he came with a defensive reputation. I don’t claim to know everything there is to know about playing defense in the NBA, but when you see a player like Thabo get after it defensively for the first time, you know your seeing aggressive, intense defensive effort.  Great defense may be a little difficult to quantify, but you sure know it when you see it; especially after some of the porous performances we saw in December.

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of our offensive and defensive numbers broken down by months since Keep Reading…

Sort of surprising when I first read this, but I am starting to see some logic in it.  Darnell Mayberry reported today:

Rookies D.J. White and Kyle Weaver have been assigned to the Tulsa 66ers, the Thunder’s D-League affiliate.

It’s the third time White has been sent to Tulsa and the first time Weaver has been sent down.

In four games with Tulsa, White has averages of 14.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.0 assists in 30.8 minutes. Weaver has played in 49 games for the Thunder, 17 as a starter, and is averaging 5.4 point, 2.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 20 minutes a game.

The goal is to get both players extended minutes with the 66ers, more than they currently would with the Thunder. Both players are expected to be in uniform tonight when the 66ers face the Austin Toros but expect both players to be recalled before the end of the season.

Weaver had his best month in March and is a solid part of the rotation as the 7/8 man.  He shot 51% from the field and 41% from downtown and scored 7.1 ppg in March.  My guess is that they want to keep him busy and get him some big burn (hopefully they let him run the point now that Livingston is with the big club). Most Thunder fans like his game at 20 minutes per night. Perhaps we can see what he does in Tulsa with say 36 minutes.

We only have one more game this week, on Friday, but next week is a busy week with 5 games. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Kyle back for next week’s 5 games.

I would like to see D.J. get  a little burn with the big team also. This is the third trip down and so he can’t go down again this season if he is recalled.