Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind: End-of-Season Edition

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I sat in a Tyler Media radio booth last night with Erik Gee, Jerry Ramsey and Chisholm Holland preparing for what would become the final Thunder post-game radio show of the season for 107.7 The Franchise. A TV was tuned to the Thunder/Timberwolves game, but frankly any interest in that game was long gone. The Timberwolves had the equivalent of a junior varsity squad on the court and they were getting rolled by the Thunder. Our eyes were much more focused on Jerry’s iPad, which was showing the Spurs/Pelicans game thanks to the magic of NBA League Pass and the Internet.

Jerry would note that the Thunder season actually ended at 7:18 PM CST on Wednesday, April 15. That’s the exact time that the Pelicans took the lead over the Spurs. The Pelicans never surrendered the lead after that time. The lead eventually swelled to 23 points, but the Spurs managed to cut the lead to four late in the game. Still, even before the Thunder game ended we had a pretty good idea what was about to unfold.

Moments after the Thunder game, we went on air to discuss the Thunder’s 138-113 beat down of the Division I-AA Timberwolves. Instead, we had to deliver a eulogy. The Thunder notched a 25-point win. They scored a franchise-record 47 points in a quarter. Russell Westbrook scored 34 first-half points and finished with 37, locking up the league’s scoring title for the season. Dion Waiters matched his career high with 33 points. Enes Kanter had yet another 20/10 game for the Thunder. Much of that barely got mentioned on the show.

Most level-headed minds had been saying for months that the Thunder would get into the playoffs. There seemed to be little question, even as injuries struck down one player after another. And honestly, it sucks that the over-reactionary folks who bailed on this team when they were 3-12 correctly predicted that the Thunder would miss the playoffs. If only it were that black and white.

It’s April and there won’t be professional basketball played in Oklahoma City for another six-plus months. It’s a bummer for everyone that truly loves basketball in this state.

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Human beings are prone to throwing blame around freely when something happens they don’t like. I saw much misdirected anger towards the Spurs, who were actually trying to win their game in New Orleans. Some of us wondered if Gregg Popovich would pull his key guys and raise a white flag with the game seemingly out of hand.

But the Spurs fought back and almost pulled off a victory in the kind of performance that would have some Thunder fans belting “FIRE BROOKS” at the top of their lungs. The Pelicans and coach Monty Williams deserved a mountain of credit. Not many expected them to pull off a win last night and Williams likely secured his job for next season.

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Here’s a dumbfounding stat that came up in the post-game show last night: Ish Smith played in 30 games for the Thunder this season. Kevin Durant played in 27. I’m still staring at the Basketball-reference.com page in disbelief. That can’t possibly be right.

It also sheds a lot of light on how this season went.

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Three of the NBA’s Conference Finalists last season didn’t make the playoffs this year. Ban injuries, dammit.

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This isn’t solely in reaction to the Thunder being left out of the postseason, but put me in the camp that believes the NBA needs to fix its conference imbalance somehow. I’d say the same thing if megastar Anthony Davis were sent home instead of Russell Westbrook. I’d say the same thing if a 48-win East team was left out of the playoff picture while a far inferior West team played on. This is change that is long overdue.

If the NBA is going to allow over half of its teams into the playoffs, the time of year that attracts more eyeballs than the regular season, then it needs to start featuring its best teams regardless of geographical location. Granted, business hasn’t exactly suffered for the NBA, which is about to get approximately a bajillion dollars in TV money. You’d think, however, those TV networks would start pushing the league to make changes so they don’t have to manufacture hype for the 38-44 Brooklyn Nets or the 40-42 Boston Celtics. For crying out loud, the Utah Jazz would be a much more interesting postseason team to watch, and they finished with the same record as Brooklyn in a much tougher conference.

Conference imbalance has long been an issue ignored by the ultra-conservative, “my way or the highway” David Stern. Adam Silver has shown much more willingness to explore new ideas. Implementing anything new and radical has its challenges – those same eastern conference teams I just mentioned probably see nothing wrong with the way things are – but it needs to be on someone’s immediate agenda.

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If you’re a Thunder fan that thinks this sucks right now, imagine being a fan of the 48-win Warriors in 2007-08. That was good enough to be a FOUR SEED in the East that season.

The 46-36 Phoenix Suns were left out of the playoff picture the next season. Those 46 wins would have landed a five seed in the East. No Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal or Amare Stoudemire on national television that postseason.

Those two examples are bigger travesties than the Thunder being left out of the playoffs this season.

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I’ll probably write more about this later, but the Thunder finished this season $1,962,633 over the luxury tax line, according to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders. That’ll result in a luxury tax bill of nearly $3 million. The Thunder will also not receive any luxury tax disbursement and will probably have to pay into revenue sharing again.

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The Atlanta Hawks won 60 games, had the league’s sixth-best offense and defense, and finished the season with $4.7 million of room under the salary cap. That’s remarkable.

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Lots of speculation about the future of Scott Brooks this morning following a WojBomb. Before forming an opinion based on a headline, please read the article carefully. Woj writes that the Thunder “are expected to spend time evaluating the partnership with coach Scott Brooks before committing to bring him back”. This isn’t news. It’s standard procedure.

Woj also writes that “several league sources close to Brooks have doubts about his job security”. Again, not surprising. Brooks spoke of how he’d be disappointed in himself if the Thunder didn’t make the playoffs. Any concern he might have is warranted.

I’ll leave other in-depth analysis for another time and for other people. In short, it would not be wise to walk away from that article assuming the Thunder is on the verge of making a change.

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I actually would love to see the Thunder move up in the draft and get a top-3 pick. Not for reasons of homerism. Like The Joker, I just want to see the world burn if that were to happen.