Monday Bolts – 10.20.14
Darnell Mayberry: “For the better part of his 23 minutes, Westbrook again battled frustration in yet another failed Thunder attempt at figuring out how best to survive the absence of Kevin Durant. And when frustration set in, Westbrook’s emotions got the better of him. Westbrook disagreed with that assessment after the game. But teammates and coaches saw it the same way. It was virtually impossible not to.”
Tom Haberstroh of ESPN Insider on if KD played too much: “But as teams smarten up about overworking their stars and possibly begin to follow the Spurs’ lead in resting their top players, it’s time we started to pay closer attention to the workloads of the players the league depends on most. Part of Durant’s greatness comes from his desire to be on the court all day and night. And head coach Scott Brooks had already mentioned that he’d try to scale back Durant’s minutes even before the injury. The goal for the Thunder will be to make sure Durant is healthy for the long haul. There’s no magic bullet, but it’s probably good for Durant’s long-term prospects that he doesn’t have as much pounding this season. Science is teaching us that sometimes less is more. No one is invincible. Not even Durant.”
Anthony Slater on Steven Adams: “This preseason, Adams has been given the freedom to show it more. And the opportunity and trust should only grow. Though Adams hasn’t officially been named the starting center, Brooks called it an open competition coming into the preseason. And it’s hard to believe, if it was truly open, that Adams hasn’t already won it. As he continues to string together impressive performances, Kendrick Perkins still remains sidelined with a quad injury. Kevin Durant is out for an extended stretch to start the season, meaning extra offense becomes more important in that starting unit. Adams gives the Thunder an interior threat the franchise hasn’t had at the center position since moving to OKC.”
I wrote a thing about the possible future without Kevin Durant.
Interesting stuff from Devin Kharpetian of The Brooklyn Game on what contributes to good offense: “Though long considered one of the ‘four factors’ on offense, offensive rebounding percentage had close to zero (-2.2) correlation with offensive production in the NBA last season. Only one of the NBA’s five best offensive teams ranked in the top half of the league at crashing the offensive glass — the Thunder, who ranked barely above average at 14th — and the league’s best team at offensive rebounding was the gargantuan, mercurial Pistons, who gobbled up 31.4 percent of their many missed shots en route to a bottom-12 offense. One other note: offensive rebounding can be a defensive trade-off, in that some teams decide to send their players back on defense rather than crash the glass. The Boston Celtics in their championship-contending seasons were an example of this. Sure enough, there was some correlation between poor offensive rebounding and good fast break defense, as long as you discounted the Lakers, who were somehow the worst in the NBA at both.”
Ben Golliver of SI.com says Scott Brooks is on shaky ground: “Kevin Durant’s foot injury will reveal all of Oklahoma City’s warts. Great players cover up for the shortcomings of their teammates, coaches, management and ownership in more ways than are easily seen by the naked eye, and now the Thunder will be laid bare for at least six weeks. The good news: Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka should be talented enough to keep the ship afloat, and Durant could be back as soon as late-November. The bad news: Brooks has faced criticism about his schemes for years and his team will no longer have the ultimate bail-out option to turn to when things bog down. Oklahoma City management has steadfastly backed Brooks over the years, and that is unlikely to change because of an injury to a superstar. Nevertheless, Brooks better bring his “A-game” on opening night. His detractors will be waiting to pounce.”
