Daily Thunder.com

J.A. Adande of ESPN.com on KD as Captain America of Team USA: “Even though Durant played as much basketball as anyone this year, participating in all 66 games of the lockout-shortened regular season and lasting until the end of the NBA Finals, there’s no talk of Durant skipping the Olympics to recuperate. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard and Rose are among those who won’t be there because of injuries. There could have been even more work for USA Basketball last summer if it had to qualify for the Olympics, but winning the FIBA World Championships in 2010 earned the team an automatic Olympic berth and spared the Americans that extra step. Durant’s breakout performance keeps paying dividends.”

Berry Tramel on NBA spending: “Look no further than Kendrick Perkins, the Thunder’s enforcer of a center. Perk will make $7.8 million next season, 8.5 million in 2013-14 and $9.1 million in 2014-15. Gran Torino isn’t much of an offensive threat, but he rebounds and plays defense and keeps the likes of Tim Duncan and Andrew Bynum at bay. Some think the Thunder will have to cut Perkins under the NBA’s new one-time only amnesty rule, which allows a franchise to clear a contract from its books. But Perk’s contract is value-loaded. With the most recent rash of contract offers, Perkins’ salary figures to rank in the bottom third of NBA center contracts. Looks to me like he’ll rank 21st among the league’s 30 starting centers.” Keep Reading…

Darnell Mayberry on Hasheem Thabeet: “Adding Thabeet also helps the Thunder preserve precious salary cap space, most of which will go toward paying its young players. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook already are locked into maximum-allowable contracts. Harden, Serge Ibaka and Eric Maynor are all now eligible for extensions to their rookie deals. What the Thunder is doing in bringing in Thabeet, 25, is taking a flyer on a one-time promising prospect without paying him much and hoping he can develop into the player he once was capable of being. If he does, the Thunder gets a steal. If not, the team will not have lost anything.”

An example from 2009 of how maybe Thabeet wasn’t getting the best coaching, from Ben Golliver of Blazersedge: “Thabeet’s performance was all the more impressive in light of his pregame warm-up routine which had courtside observers gawking at how misguided the drills he was participating in were. Thabeet was shooting 15 footers, 18 footers, turnaround 18 footers, 15 footers off the pick and roll, jab step 15 footers, 18 footers off the glass. It was a wonder he wasn’t shooting three pointers. Please remember he’s 7’3″. The only time he practiced any shots at the rim came after he was instructed to pump-fake from the top of the free throw circle and dribble twice down the key before making a layup. You think I’m exaggerating; I’m not. The average height of the Grizzlies assistant coaching staff (which includes Damon Stoudamire, Henry Bibby and Johnny Davis) might have something to do with this. Who knows. I wanted to intervene. Had it been Greg Oden, I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist.” Keep Reading…

Rob Mahoney for the NY Times on Team USA: “That is where Colangelo and Krzyzewski should opt for Harden’s experience in navigating an offense with two of the most ball-dominant scorers in the N.B.A. with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Harden has a seemingly innate understanding of how to balance and play off superstar-caliber players, and while Gordon did an admirable job with Team USA in 2010, he may be nudged out by a highly similar — though slightly superior — player.”

Interesting exchange on Twitter last night as Nate Jones tweeted something about Eric Gordon getting a max deal and what that would mean for James Harden on the market. KD tweeted back: “he not hittin the market.” Keep Reading…

Berry Tramel with a look at OKC’s future: “Let’s say the Thunder signs Harden and Ibaka, keeps a good roster together and goes a little over the cap. In summer 2016, if the Thunder has been over the cap for three years, and is $13 million over for 2015-16, the Thunder would be taxed $36.75 million. Did you catch that? Not only would the Thunder be spending big on salaries, it would have to write a check to the NBA for $36.75 million. From where does that money come? And here’s the sobering part. Busting the cap by $13 million probably isn’t enough. ESPN’s Tom Penn, an expert on NBA economics, said most league champions in recent years have been around $20 million over the cap. Maybe that will change when Mark Cuban and the Buss family and Micky Arison study that escalating tax. But whatever the case, this is a sobering summer for the Thunder.”

Holly MacKenzie for NBA.com on Perry Jones:  “Things will also be different for Terri Jones and her family. The Jones family will experience a much more substantial kind of different, though. Earlier this season, in an ESPN feature written by Jason King, we learned some of the struggles that Jones and his family had survived. His mother’s health issues, bouncing around from one $70-a-week hotel to another, and trying to be strong for his family while continuing to pursue his hoop dream despite the distractions, Jones has had a path more rocky than most. Helping to smooth it out is a mother who has only ever asked her son to seek out his own happiness.” Keep Reading…