Thursday Bolts – 12.8.16
Jordan Conn of The Ringer: ‘After Thunder wins, Westbrook sometimes ventures out. Locals
say that they’ve seen him more often around the city, and at least a couple of times, he has shown up at Durant’s old haunt, Deep Deuce Grill. He’s been known to arrive alongside Andre Roberson and Cameron Payne, and together they’ll get a table and eat and laugh, unobtrusive and undisturbed. Eventually, they’ll leave, and Westbrook will take care of the bill. Afterward, the restaurant’s servers say, they notice one big difference between Westbrook’s visits and the visits from Durant and his crew. Westbrook leaves much bigger tips.”
Erik Horne: “Westbrook hasn’t been the only explosive player during the Thunder’s six-game winning streak. Alongside Westbrook’s string of six triple-doubles has been Oladipo’s dynamic all-around play. Headed into the season, the Oladipo-Westbrook tandem was being talked about as arguably the most explosive backcourt in the NBA. While Oladipo had shown flashes in his 21 games leading into Monday’s one-off road contest in Atlanta, no play had detonated like his jam on Howard. It was such an emphatic dunk – Oladipo throwing his hands toward the Thunder bench, polishing off the celebration with a high leg kick – he lost his gum on the play.”
KD says it was almost the Clippers.
James Herbert of CBSSports.com: “Before seeing Westbrook pile up these rebounds, I would not have believed that any 6-foot-3 player could average double figures in that category. The way the Thunder play, though, he could keep it up. Often, their wings and bigs are focused on boxing out their opponents so Westbrook can run in, grab the rebound and sprint the other way. He’s probably the only person in the league who has enough energy to do this all the time. It’s also notable that James brought up the number of possessions in today’s game, as that is what makes Westbrook’s numbers so staggering. Oklahoma City averages 99 possessions per game, while Robertson’s 1961-62 Cincinnati Royals averaged 124.9 possessions per game. If the league still played at that pace, then James would have averaged a triple-double by now, too.”
John Cregan of ESPN.com says KD over Russ… in fantasy: “Just yesterday, our own Joe Kaiser put Westbrook at No. 1 on our fantasy rankings. Kevin Durant: No. 3. But while I respect Joe Kaiser as one of Fantasyland’s wisest, craftiest, smartest, most camera-ready experts, I respectfully agree to disagree. Durant vs. Westbrook? Kevin Durant is the fantasy MVP. Hands down. Pull up a chair. Because it’s not even as close as you think. Because I would be hard-pressed to put Westbrook in my top five.”
Billy Donovan on Steve Kerr’s comments about marijuana: “You have that physical pain, and you also have a lot of people deal with emotional pain,” Donovan said. “And I think when you get into a position where you’re relying on some kind of substance to alleviate pain, I think we all got to acknowledge and understand that those situations can lead into someone having deeper problems later on in life.”
