Thursday Bolts – 10.30.14
Tom Ziller of SB Nation says Westbrook needs to play more: “Brooks knows his team and its needs better than anyone, but from the outside it looks like the coach outsmarted himself on this one. Yes, with so much pressure on Westbrook to be the entire offense for at least the next month, keeping Westbrook fresh is a priority. Yes, the championship is won in June, not October. Yes, the other Thunderers need to find ways to stay afloat for the time being. Yes, the Thunder have a tough back-to-back finisher in L.A. against the Clippers on Thursday. But that was a winnable game, and OKC needs early-season wins. The schedule is brutal, the West is brutal and chances are the fresh, rested and excellent Clippers will beat the Thunder regardless. A biscuit in hand is worth two in the oven. You’ve got to play the odds when the odds are otherwise stacked against you. Brooks didn’t. He did the calm, process-based thing and rested someone who is going to play a lot on Thursday and in every game for the foreseeable future.”
Tom Haberstroh of ESPN Insider asks who’s gonna shoot more: Kobe or Russ?: “In the other corner, we have Westbrook, who at this rate might not have any teammates to pass to by Thanksgiving. I did some digging into the NBA StatsCube database and found that, over the past three seasons, Westbrook has shot the ball 265 times in 356 minutes without Kevin Durant on the floor, which translates to a ludicrous rate of 26.8 shots per 36 minutes. To give you an idea how crazy high that is, Basketball-Reference tells us that no guard in NBA history has shot that frequently over a full season; only Wilt Chamberlain has topped it. With Durant, Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb out of the picture, Westbrook might never get rid of the rock. Remember, this was the same guy who held on to the ball longer than any player in the postseason. Then again, we can always count on Kobe, right? Buckle up, folks.”
George Karl in a roundtable discussing how the Thunder can win without KD: “I think it opens up a window for a player like Serge Ibaka to expand his responsibilities. I mean, as a coach I kind of get excited about injuries. I get fired up because I know I’m a little bit of an underdog now, so I can take some chances; I can maybe experiment a little bit without being criticized and have the opportunity to offer certain players more responsibility in a situation. I mean, Durant is impossible to replace. So everyone’s going to have to throw in whatever, 10 percent, 20 percent extra. The first thing I thought was not to get a player who would replace Durant, but get a veteran point guard and allow Westbrook the freedom to go wild and crazy, which we know he can do. But you don’t want him to do that when he’s playing point guard.”
Anthony Slater: “Perry Jones had 41 points in the last two preseason games. For a guy who had few encouraging moments during his first two seasons, this gave the most optimistic of Thunder fans a small ray of hope. Maybe the upcoming opportunity — a huge one for Jones during an important stretch for the Thunder — would force the assertiveness he’d been lacking and turn Jones into a consistent role player. Wednesday night likely squashed that optimism. It’s only one game, but Jones looked lost. In 31 minutes, he finished 1-of-9 shooting with three points, three rebounds and zero assists. Mostly invisible on offense, he was exploited a number of times on defense (example: the play below). Rough opener for PJ3.”
LaMarcus Aldridge: “I’m not going to say that [NW division runs through us] but we should take advantage of them not being at full strength.”
