Friday Bolts – 3.13.15
avid Thorpe of ESPN Insider on Mitch McGary: “McGary is not as athletic as he once looked after suffering injuries during his sophomore season at Michigan (lower back) and earlier this season (foot). Perhaps he will recover fully by next season. Still, he plays extremely hard and hustles to do the little things, like setting ball screens away from where he is or going to the offensive glass. He also tries to run on every offensive possession he is supposed to (sometimes the rebounder needs to trail the play), giving him chances to get rim buckets because Russell Westbrook commands so much attention. McGary has shown good hands, making him very useful in the pick-and-roll game, and his perimeter jumper looks good, too. By next season the Thunder will either put him in the rotation because they will have traded one of their other bigs, or move him for some valuable assets because he showed enough in his limited time to interest teams.”
Daniel Lewis of Hardwood Paroxysm on how to keep KD: “Commission a 35 foot tall statue to go outside Chesapeake Energy. The arena is in the downtown area of Oklahoma City, and a few blocks away is the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. There are three statues outside that venue, one for Oklahoma native Mickey Mantle, another for Johnny Bench, and a third for Warren Spahn, who retired in Oklahoma. The first basketball statue needs to be Durant, and it has to be 35 feet tall, matching his jersey number.”
Albert Burneko of Deadspin on CP3 versus Russ: “This time around, he timed it with even more sadistic brilliance. Russell Westbrook very justifiably has been the toast of the NBA over the past month or so, unlocking a new level of whirlwind basketball fury as he pretty much singlehandedly drags the shitty and injury-depleted Thunder along in his pursuit of a playoff berth. Since Feb. 1 he’s averaging 32.5 points, 10.3 assists, and 9.5 rebounds per game, the kind of numbers that would make your buddies assume you were playing on Easy Mode if you told them your created player was posting them in a goddamn video game. He was the West’s Player of the Month for February, and the West’s Player of the Week for the first week of March. He’s a fucking superhero, and at this rate, he might just be the MVP.”
The Tony Allen-KD thing is so stupid.
Andrew Gilman of Fox Sports Southwest: “Things probably get a bit better as soon as Friday, too. The Timberwovles come into town, followed by the Bulls on Sunday, so the Thunder and Westbrook will get a chance to steer the narrative back toward the one where he dominates and the Thunder become worthy of a team on the way to the playoffs. But until then you kind of have to wonder what it will take to get this team into the postseason because near impossible to believe that in a season where Westbrook has been compared to Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the past few weeks this team needs help to get into the playoffs. Yet, here we are. What an odd, strange journey it’s been. Seems like it shouldn’t quite be like this.”
Darnell Mayberry on the Kanter-Adams duo: “Rarely, if ever, has the Thunder been able to dictate matchups with its size and skill up front. Kanter and Adams afford OKC a chance to now do so. If teams try to play small, for example, the Thunder can go big and pound them inside with post scoring, rebounding and putbacks. It’s a luxury that has the potential to make the Thunder more dangerous than ever.”
