Thursday Bolts – 10.7.10
The Basketball Jones ranks the small forward and KD is No. 2: “He’s not quite ready to claim the crown of the best small forward in the league just yet, but around half of the GMs in the NBA would choose him to build their franchise around if they could pick anyone. As the youngest scoring champion in NBA history, there’s really no telling what Kevin Durant’s ceiling is. Only one player has scored over 35 points per game in the past 21 seasons (Kobe in 2005-06) but it seems not only reasonable but sort of inevitable that Durant will be the next player to hit that mark. Meanwhile, his defense and rebounding will most likely continue to improve and it’s really going to be a lot of fun watching him blossom into one of the all-time greats of the game.”
Season preview from Pro Basketball Talk: “I’ve written this story before but I’ll do it one more time for our many new readers: At a late-season Clippers/Thunder matchup last season I was seated next to a couple of advanced scouts, both whose teams had upcoming games against the Thunder. Three times during that game Durant did something that left these two guys — whose job it is to watch and break down games for a living — looking at each other and just shaking their head. At one point one said, “How the (expletive) are we supposed to stop that?” If you can do that to the most jaded, you are special.”
KD says he’s not trying to win the MVP: “I don’t set individual goals like that,” Durant said. “The only goals I set for myself is to try to have a better season than I did last year. That’s about it. I don’t have to score more points, or get more rebounds or get more assists. But if I got better throughout the season is how I determine if I had a better season than last year.”
Ron Artest was asked how you stop Durant. His answer: “You gotta be Ron Artest. If you’re not Ron Artest, you don’t have a chance!”
Really great notes from Darnell Mayberry: “Jeff Green went 5-for-7 from behind the 3-point arc. Talking to him after the game, he sounds like he’s going to keep shooting them as long as they’re going in. He looks more relaxed and much less hesitant shooting from the perimeter. But he was also aggressive driving to the basket. The area that he looked shaky was one and two-dribble pull-ups. I’m not sure what his career numbers are from those different ranges, but the early indications are that he’s going to be at his best this season when he gets all the way to the basket or has his feet set behind the 3-point arc.”
Durant is on the latest cover of Dime Magazine.
Last night was a homecoming for Eric Maynor writes Jaclyn Shambaugh: “With less than an hour before tip-off of the Thunder’s preseason opener, Eric Maynor was nestled in the corner of the locker room at the Crown Coliseum, furiously scribbling on ticket envelopes. Just how many people needed the second-year guard to get them passes into the Thunder’s preseason match-up with the Charlotte Bobcats on Wednesday? “A lot of people,” Maynor said. “I was just trying to figure it out. A lot of people got their own tickets though. That was really good for me.”
Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer: “The problem Wednesday was possessions: They allowed the Thunder 18 offensive rebounds and the Bobcats turned the ball over a perplexing 27 times. You give the other team that many extra scoring opportunities, and it doesn’t matter that you shot 49 percent.”
