Smart Thoughts of the Week: Dec. 11 – 18

Throughout the week some of you drop some brilliant or at least somewhat thoughtful comments and so this is a try at highlighting some of them. Disclaimer: It’s not that I necessarily agree with all of them, but they were interesting and for the most part, well put. Consider everything [sic’d].

I believe he’s at six thousand words per minute, all incredibly alliterated. (Aaron): Oh yeah, I forgot to mention another that bothers me about Pinto. I feel like he is constantly trying to set a record for words spoken per minute. Every time I’m listening to a game on the radio I worry that I’m gonna flip my car cause I’m concentrating on the radio so intensely.

Go inside the paint young man. And score. Score points. (Mark!): Throwing my hat into the Jeff Green discussion… My biggest gripe with Green isn’t his offensive style, size, ability to defend in the post, or his rebounding rate.

And while I love his locker room chemistry, work ethic, potential and versatility… I think he has to be the guy to take the ball inside, get hacked and pull us through in tough games like the one last night against Cleveland. No one wanted to penetrate, and we gave up the game trying to match 3s with a team on fire from deep.

I can’t get mad at a guy like Durant — who has amazing shooting ability and a slight build — for not wanting to pound the ball in crunch time. He’s our super star, his skills are elsewhere, I *want* his body preserved. But Green is athletic enough and skilled enough that he should be able to take it to the hole and get the fouls. If he’s going to make his mark by being a “jack of all trades” he’s going to have to want the win more than anyone else.

The only player we have on our team willing and ready to play this way is James Harden. I wonder if the game would’ve turned out differently if he had been subbed in sooner in the 4th (he sat by the scorer’s table a long time waiting to come in.) Jeff has to be willing to do this. I’m not sure what else he can bring to the table that makes him long term viable unless he makes a miraculous turn around on his per-minute production compared with other players at his position. I think that’s an unrealistic expectation.

Interesting. Indeedy. (justin): Interesting thing I found. In the last 20 years, only 16 times has a starting point guard shot less than 40% from the field and had an A:TO ratio worse than 2:1. Only two point guards did this more than once, Gilbert Arenas and Allen Iverson.

Russell Westbrook is on pace to do it twice. If he does it for the second time do we feel like that’s the kind of player we have on our hands? Is that the type of point guard we want running the offense?

I hope you’ve been very good this year. (girlballer): I want to play!! #13-how about a losing streak/set of mild but debilitating injuries/or some such combo for Houston or Portland so we might better our P-word chances? #14-an end to the DirectTV/Cox/Fox sports conspiracy to make us pay to watch the boys in blue in HD! Criminal!!

#15- a roaming hot-dog vendor/beer guy in the arena so you don’t have to hike all the way around the Thunderdome to get your $6 hotdog then let it get cold before the “stop sign Nazis” let you get back down to your seat! #16- A tattoo of the state of Oklahoma on KD somewhere. (Hey, my kid asks Santa for a horse EVERY CHRISTMAS, and this is just as likely to happen as that!)

I do not believe it is dumb. Hence, it being contained within this post. (Warren): This may sound dumb, but its the only way I can think to say it. Jeff Green, along with Westbrook, is a 50 50 guy. 50% of the time he is good 50% he is either bad or just gone. Reading the comments is funny if you think about it like this, if you like Green, you see all the good, if you dislike Green, you see all the bad. I have never been a Green “fan”, I tried, I really did, but I cant get over some things.

But when I think of who I would replace him with, I think about him hitting those timely 3’s and think, “well who ever replaces him has to be able to hit that shot”. Then I look at the options of 3 point shooting pf’s and the list is very short since you have to be realistic with who we could really get. I will take the good with the bad, but my 2 cents is I dont think he is our lont term starting pf. I do hope he stays in OKC for his career though.

Aye. (HoyaChris): Jeff’s rebound numbers are also depressed by the nature of the Thunder offense. With Westbrook, Durant and sometimes Thabo close to the basket on offense, Jeff is usually hustling back on defense for floor balance. Watch how many times that Jeff is either the only Thunder player back or is one of two. It is hard to get offensive rebounds when one is backpeddling.

Basically, just read the whole discussion from the PL&T post this week. It’s all pretty smart.