Friday Bolts – 10.31.14
Matt Moore of CBSSports.com: “The other issue is that OKC as 15 players on guaranteed deals. They have no wiggle room to add a free agent without buying someone out or making a trade. How bad could this get? Even with the playoffs six months away, there’s a chance that OKC could dig itself into a hole so deep that it’s left competing with the Pelicans and Nuggets or some other team for the 8th spot in the West, just because the league is that competitive at this point. They can apply for the hardship but that’s only going to get them an extra roster spot. Westbrook was going to carry the load and establish his own star power with Durant out. Now, he could miss a significant chunk of time that Durant was set to be out. Things are about to get very desperate for OKC, and we’re about to find out just how good of a coach Scott Brooks is.”
J.A. Adande of ESPN.com: “The West is too competitive for the Thunder to have any margin for error. They’re already 0-2. There’s an instant urgency of the type normally found in the NFL. The thought was Westbrook could keep them afloat while Durant took a month or so to recover from surgery for a broken bone in his right foot. It even figured to be as entertaining as Westbrook’s 38-point outburst in a loss in Portland on opening night. Just get in the playoffs and try to make a run. It worked for the San Francisco Giants, right? With no Westbrook? Well, let’s just hear it from Sebastian Telfair, the guy who figures to get the most additional court time in Westbrook’s absence.”
Kelly Dwyer of BDL: “It’s not yet November. The Oklahoma City Thunder could welcome back two of the league’s best players to its roster with three shopping weeks left before Christmas and make up for a lost November with heaps of wins by the time February hits. Things look rather dour now in OKC, and Perkins’ inadvertent culpability in this has to be more than frustrating for Thunder fans who are aware of the team’s anti-amnesty history. It’s early, though. It’s a long season, and we’re just beginning. Early on, though … what an awful start to things.”
Kevin Pelton of ESPN Insider: “If the Thunder are going to survive, it will be with the kind of defense they played Thursday night in L.A. Even with Perry Jones’ career-high 32 points, Oklahoma City scored just 94.7 points per 100 possessions, a rate that would rank last in the league by a mile. Yet the Thunder were a 3-pointer away from forcing overtime by virtue of holding the Clippers to sub-40 percent shooting. Realistically, Oklahoma City could go somewhere around 4-10 over the next four weeks if Westbrook is sidelined that long. Any wins this M.A.S.H. unit can pick up will be crucial in terms of playoff positioning. As long as Durant and Westbrook return on schedule and the Thunder play at their usual 60-win clip when healthy, Oklahoma City still has a shot at home-court advantage in the first round. But an inevitable slow start might make it impossible to climb into the conference’s top two or three spots, and losses against Western Conference rivals now could factor into tie-breaking scenarios at the end of the season.”
Bethlehem Shoals for GQ: “We’ll get back the same Russell we’ve always known and the same Thunder squad. Except our perception of Westbrook has been turned on its head. He’s craftier, shrewder, and probably just plain smarter than any of us realized. His game is flexible, versatile, and has reservoirs of talent we didn’t previous know about. If Westbrook does become the unquestioned focus of a team at some point, it won’t be a calculated risk. A franchise won’t be courting disaster by opting to build around Westbrook. Maybe this is an overreaction to a single night of exemplary play and good behavior. Then again, maybe it’s a must-deserved correction on the part of all NBA observers, myself included. Where others have demonized Westbrook, I’ve spent far too much time romanticizing his more outré qualities.”
Zach Lowe: “Thunder are 0-2, and if Westbrook is really out 4-6 weeks, facing maybe 20 games w/o Durant and Russ. In the West, that is real danger.”
Darnell Mayberry: “The early indication is that Russell Westbrook could miss four to six weeks after fracturing the second metacarpal in his right hand Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers. It could keep the Thunder’s electric point guard sidelined through mid-December and add him to an already ridiculously long list of injured Oklahoma City players who are expected to miss the season’s first month. The projected recovery time would cost Westbrook 15 games on the low end and as many as 21 contests. He would rejoin the lineup between Nov. 28 and Dec. 12. Westbrook is scheduled to undergo further tests Friday in Oklahoma City.”
Ben Golliver of SI.com wrote this yesterday and it was really good but now it’s sad: “While some Twitter critics argued that Brooks let a potential win slip away against the Blazers by leaving Westbrook on the bench for so long during the second half, it is clear that his handling of Westbrook was a matter of restraint and not forgetfulness. The Thunder are dead in the water if anything happens to Westbrook, they are set for a tough back-to-back against the Clippers on Thursday, and Westbrook arguably plays at a higher energy level, possession to possession, than anyone in the NBA. In this particular case, restraint should be applauded.”
