Thursday Bolts: 10.24.19

Brandon Rahbar’s (Daily Thunder) recap of last night’s Thunder loss to the Jazz.

Thunder PR’s Dan Mahoney tells new Oklahoman beat writer Joe Musatto that the Thunder’s email nudging ticket re-sellers to show up for the home opener is not cause for alarm: “This is nothing new,” Mahoney told The Oklahoman. “We always communicate with our season ticket holders and encourage them to be in their seats for our home games.”

Nick Crain looks at how Forbes’ player-worth calculations have measured Thunder players, including Steven Adams coming in at 6.7 million underpaid: “Even as the seventh highest paid center in the NBA for the 2019-20 season, history says Adams should be worth it. Last season, based off of this methodology, he was worth over $30 million.”

Thomas Bassine (Nylon Calculus) on how difficult it is to project the value of future draft picks, which is somewhat relevant to the Oklahoma City: “Another thing we need to keep in mind is that controlling multiple picks from the same franchise is a high-risk, high-reward proposition. If the team whose draft picks you own has a bad spell, you can reap a huge reward (think Nets/Celtics). But, if the team giving up the picks remains in the playoffs, then the upside of a potential high lottery pick vanishes. Essentially, future picks of the same team are more correlated with one another than a mix of future picks from different teams. This is actually one of the major advantages of the Thunders’ return over the Pelicans’. The Thunder acquired a diversified portfolio of future Clipper, Rocket, and Heat picks while the Pelicans are heavily invested in just the Lakers’ future.”

Jonathan Wasserman (Bleacher Report) has the Thunder taking Nico Mannion #8 in his 2020 mock draft: “Shifty with pull-ups, floaters and driving ability, plus a good feel facilitating for teammates, Mannion leaves few weaknesses to nitpick on the scouting report.”

Jeff Borzello (ESPN) profiles 15-year-old Emoni Bates who is already getting LeBron-level buzz. <Insert joke about 15 being too old for the Thunder’s rebuilding timeline>

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