Happy weekend. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Do you have any idea how close the season is?
This summer, Serge Ibaka went back to his hometown in Congo. And he saw some man in a straw hat do a weird dance. But seriously, this is part one of a little video series chronicling his trip. Good stuff.
Lakers Nation on the Thunder: “Both teams will face each other with a bit of a chip on their shoulders from last season. The Thunder knocked the Lakers out of the post-season last May and made it look easy. The Thunder feel like they have a further point to prove since they were beat in the Finals by the Miami Heat, who made that look equally easy. The Thunder are the defending Western Conference champs, and that title alone delegates them as the top dogs of the West, but the Lakers feel different.”
With Leather on the awesome Thunder video: “What are the chances that you woke up this morning wishing you could hear an Oklahoma City Thunder anthem set to the tune of ‘Rawhide’, performed on a keyboard and sung by people at an Oklahoma assisted living center? If you answered, “100 percent,” you’re in luck! This officially usurps the Carly Rae Jepsen parody “Call Me KD” as the best OKC fan song we’ve ever written about at With Leather, but it’s not really fair. This one has an old lady bobbing up and down while a keyboard guy who may or may not be my dad points at her to fill in the breaks. This is the stuff dreams are made of.” Keep Reading…
Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images
We get it. The Thunder have a big decision about James Harden ahead and it’s something that’s completely hanging over the start of the season. But isn’t there more to talk about? — Royce Y.
I agree Royce Y. That said, the only emails I’ve received the past two weeks had something to do with Harden. It’s OKC’s mini version of Melodrama or Dwightmare. Fear the Free Agency? Beardemic? Hardend-of-days? (OK, that was terrible.) There might not be a catchy name for it, but the longer it drags on, the more of a distraction it becomes. It’s just unavoidable.
Once training camp starts and Oct. 31 comes and goes, eventually the questions will kind of subside. At least until the trade deadline where there will be chatter. If Harden is unsigned by the Oct. 31 deadline, opposing GMs will be calling with offers. The Thunder very well may view this season as a last hurrah with the current core with a reevaluation to come next summer. I get the feeling the Thunder know exactly what they’re doing with this situation. What that is or whether or not it makes everyone happy is still unknown.
Which is why we can’t really stop talking about it. So here are a few Harden emails… Keep Reading…
Ben Detrick of Grantland on James Harden: “Is Harden better at basketball than Kobe and Melo? Probably not. Efficiency and usage rating (a percentage of team plays used by a player when he’s on the floor) are negatively correlated, and Harden is asked to dominate the ball far less than either of them. Still, when Harden does have it, he’s more effective in a game that rewards free throws and 3-pointers while punishing missed mid-range jumpers. When you look at how the Thunder dispatched opponents last year, Harden’s fingerprints are all over the murder weapons. Oklahoma City was first in free throws made per field goal attempt, second in effective field goal percentage, and second in offensive rating. Harden might be the third option, but even on a team with Kevin Durant, he tops all three of those categories, and cutting loose the man whose DNA interlocks most closely with the team’s genetic code is unwise.”
John Hollinger of ESPN.com on Kobe Bryant: “Bryant led the NBA in usage rate by a wide margin (see chart) and very nearly led it in points per minute as well, finishing a 10th of a point behind Kevin Durant in points per 40 minutes — an amazing feat for a player age 33. Bryant looked spry coming out of the lockout in particular, racking up four straight 40-point games in January. However, he cooled off considerably the rest of the way, most notably while shooting 38.7 percent in March. He was in the top five in player efficiency rating (PER) in the first half of the season but finished 17th.” Keep Reading…
Aaron McGuire of Gothic Ginobili on Cole Aldrich: “It’s hard to find much to say about Cole Aldrich, all things considered. It’s not that he’s an awful player, but he’s certainly not a good one — for a 3-year college player that came into the NBA at the age of 22, he’s awfully unpolished. His freshman season was notable mostly in how ridiculously bad he looked — just a terrible fit on the court, seemingly several hundred steps slow on defense and several dozen steps lacking on offense. He posted a freshman PER of 7.0 and it felt a hell of a lot worse than that. Last season he had a PER of 17.7 (and a PER of 19.8 in the postseason), but I’m hesitant to really assess much value from that. First off, he was playing against busted competition — the Thunder blew out a hell of a lot of teams last year, and the vast majority of Aldrich’s minutes came in garbage time during blowout wins. In fact, the Thunder went 25-6 in the 31 games that Aldrich saw the floor last year. Kind of skews the picture a bit. What’s worse is that not only did he virtually only play in wins against poor late-game competition, he also managed to be part of bench units that were incredibly awful.”
Matt Moore of CBSSports.com on KD, who finishes ranked second: “Durant has become a force only topped by our No.1 player (you know who), and he’s just 23 years of age, 24 when the season begins. He’s just getting started and he’s already accomplished so much. To say the sky’s the ceiling gives the sky too much credit for its altitude. He’s no longer on his way. Kevin Durant has arrived. The only question is whether he can become great enough to claim this time as his own.” Keep Reading…
Big fan of this.
John Hollinger of ESPN.com with must-read Thunder player profiles: “Defensively, Westbrook has the talent to be awesome, but in reality is pretty average. Synergy Stats rated him the worst defender on the team and decidedly below the norm for his position; the Thunder weren’t any better or worse with him on the court defensively, and opposing point guards had a 15.7 player efficiency rating against him, according to 82games.com. Westbrook is actually too aggressive for his own good at this end, often running himself out of position and overgambling, offsetting his advantages in size, quickness and athleticism.”
The Lost Ogle on the Thunder hiring Sebastian Pruiti: “I like this hire for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s cool to see a blogger get recognized for his work and get real job. Sure, Pruiti also doubled as an assistant coach for the Ft. Wayne Mad Antz of the NBADL, but I really doubt working for a sports team that spells ants with a “Z” helped him get this job. Also, this hire confirms what we’ve long suspected: Sam Presti is a cool-ass nerd who reads blogs. In fact, I’ll bet Sam Presti is reading this right now. And I bet he’s now creeped out and blushing. And I’ll bet he’s now clearing his search history and about to close his internet browser.” Keep Reading…
A counter to OKC’s ‘challenges’ in the new system
On Monday I wrote about life as a small market team in the new collective bargaining agreement and how it’s unfortunately impacting the Thunder. The league is full of haves and have-nots and while the Thunder are certainly excelling currently, the structure of the league’s system still feels unfavorable.
Henry Abbott of TrueHoop naturally had an extremely smart counterpoint: It’s not that the NBA is divided by market class, it’s just economics. Keep Reading…