The Side Part: This is so much fun

I’m doing my best not to overreact here. The schedule has been a tad soft over this (glorious, golden) run the Thunder have been on of late, and there will be an inevitable come down period at some point when things gets harder. There may even be a one or two game spree where, after Durant has (hopefully, knocks on wood) returned, the team lags a bit, trying to figure out a way to properly re-assimilate him to into the wild.

So part of me doesn’t want to just go buck here. But after all the injuries, and the setbacks, and watching the Thunder run pin downs for Lance Thomas on crucial possessions, you’ll forgive me if I just take a moment to revel in the full and beautiful basketball the team is playing right now. Tuesday night in particular was just a complete joyful outburst of a game. Looked like the last night of a revival on the bench or, like, hour five of a lock-in, right after the pizza came.

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Russell Westbrook is playing basketball at a level not a lot of people have the ability to get to. He’s never been comparable to anyone that came before, and now he’s only furthering the theory that when his career ends, people will have had to make up new words to properly categorize just how different he was from everyone else. He’s a basketball eccentric. This floor game he’s slammed down on the table in front of our eyes isn’t surprising, though. If you watched him, really watched him, it was always leading here. For years he’s been the best rebounding guard in the game, and when it all ends he might be the greatest rebounding PG ever. He’s been a better passer than people have given him credit for.

And for a couple years now that midrange jumper of his has become scary consistent. After his dedication at the start of the year to take fewer threes, and to probe more, this bloody onslaught was coming. BUT MY GOD IS IT FUN TO WATCH. This guy has had surgeries, multiple, on his knees, and he’s still doing things nightly that you just shake your head at. He leaves you dizzy. Imagine having to guard him.

He’s become fully realized. All that, “Man, if he ever figures it out” type stuff, those sentences are over. He’s figured it out. We are living in the Russelldome now. The league is his lair. He’s decorated it in purple satin, and everyone who enters has to wear glasses so that they may see him more clearly.

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I was in my car next to a Grand Appliance & TV when Waiters hit his fourth three on Tuesday night. I was listening to the game on the radio, Pinto really feeling it. Matt Pinto gives you information and lots of it. Over the course of one possession you can find out a team’s record over the past 10 games, something their coach said about trying to defend Westbrook, the stat line of three of their guys, and whether or not Pinto thinks they’re any good. He talks like a more excitable version of the man they employ to read the side effects at the end of a commercial.

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They are playing this way without the reigning MVP of the league. A man who — and this is why I don’t want to go just massively, Poseidon level overboard with the way Russ is playing right now — rattled off his own unprecedented EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WAY I AM NOW OMNISCIENT run barely a year ago. See, we Thunder fans have seen something like this Russ tear before. We saw it last year. And that guy is coming back (knocks on wood again). That guy is being added to this monster. You put Russ in a PnR with Kanter and put Durant off the ball, on the wing, waiting, there’s no way his man leaves him. Fill out the rest of the lineup with Morrow and Serge. You realize the kind of spacing that affords Russ to play in? That is a court as wide and open as the sea. Some of these are sentence fragements. I just spelled fragments wrong. I’m so excited. I don’t care.

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This is a thorough basketball team now. What I mean by that is, they are taking care of everything, in every way. Reggie Jackson can go for 22 and 9 in losses to the Cavs. Kanter has given Russ (and when Durant returns, him as well) a toy that he has never had before. This is a big with soft hands that can roll to the rim and finish, or pop and hit from 18.

And back to that spacing earlier. That space in there is not only Russ and Durant’s. That’s Enes’ area, too. He’s going to be all by his lonesome in there, free to attack in whatever way he sees fit. Augustin is exactly the type of backup PG the Thunder have always needed, and Singler will be able to give Durant much needed spells as they try not to put too much strain on that foot too soon when he returns. Steve Novak is probably looking at the sale section on Columbia.com right now because he really likes their fleeces, finding them both functional, and affordable.

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When the Vines were going around of Serge and Russ dancing on Tuesday I was watching them with a massive smile across my face. I couldn’t help it. Russ talked about the spirit the team is playing with after the game, and it’s evident. It’s shooting through the television and finding its way into my bones, making me dance. They look like they are having so much fun. Gone is this burden, this weight, that makes every possession a chore. There is none of this ache that there was when you watched Perry Jones III have to try and be that dude during key fourth quarter possessions. It all feels free again. This lineup, I’ll just start typing guys that could feasibly get several minutes in a playoff game and you’d feel fine about it.

Russ

Durant

Serge

Kanter

Nick

Adams

McGary

Augustin

Waiters

Singler

Morrow

Twelve of them. Twelve guys. The Thunder haven’t been that deep before. Not ever. That is a lineup that can bend. It can play however you need it to. Small, big, fast, patient, whatever. That’s a Swiss Army Knife with a machete blade and a full length mirror so they can check themselves out, see how good they look.