Thursday Bolts – 12.15.11

The balance of power shifted a bit more towards Los Angeles last night with the Clippers finally nabbing Chris Paul. Huge trade and it’ll make the Clips a certain must-watch team for the rest of the season.

Ball Don’t Lie’s blue ribbon Thunder preview: “This is a team to love, and not because of the feel-good story of the small market club and their superstar that Tweeted news about his contract extension rather than heading to ESPN on prime time first. The old hype? It was a reason to be bored by the Thunder. But this group? Provided OKC settles its offense in the latter stages of close games, it can do amazing things. And it wouldn’t be out of order. Not in the slightest, with this talent. This team is a three-word answer to any barroom kvetch, nasty comment on a blog, Facebook post or angry Tweet from anyone swearing up and down that they’re sick about the NBA. I don’t care that mainstream media paints them with a white hat — the Oklahoma City Thunder should be adored by millions even without such broad strokes.”

At HoopSpeak a 5-on-5 talking about Westbrook and CP3, which doesn’t matter anymore: “Rob Mahoney: CP had a very strong campaign last season despite playing heavy minutes alongside Marco Belinelli, Willie Green, and Aaron Gray. With that in mind, the thought of what he could do with Kevin Durant, James Harden, Serge Ibaka, and an altogether deep Thunder team puts me in a tizzy. We shouldn’t undersell the impact of teammate quality in comparing Paul and Westbrook, and that alone helps to counterbalance some of Westbrook’s contextual advantages. With a better team — like that one in OKC — Paul could very easily vault his production back toward the jaw-dropping level of his 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons, and render these kinds of debates irrelevant.”

Market size and winning really isn’t related.

Perk tweeted this last night: “I want yall to know this I have loss weight but I have not loss strength I will still be a yung HAWG in that paint u better believe that lol.”

Watching Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan find out about the trade is seriously amazing.

Ian Thompson of SI on the deal: “The Hornets will be seeking an improved lease from the state and a buyer who will commit to keeping the team in New Orleans. In the meantime, other NBA franchises will be applying some of the highly successful methods used by the Hornets to increase their season-ticket base to more than 10,000, which is a remarkable achievement for a city that one short year ago was bracing for the worst. It was understood that Paul was likely to leave, and there were well-founded fears that the franchise may move to another city as well. Now Paul is gone, but the future is not so dark as it appeared to be one week ago. By draft day next summer, the Hornets may yet be in surprisingly strong health.”

The Thunder’s logo and uniforms re-designed.

Chuck Klosterman on Grantland about the Triangle: “When I look at Oklahoma City,” the anonymous coach said, “I see a team that is built to run the Triangle. They are so designed to run the Triangle that it’s almost a joke. Imagine them running a two-man game on the weak side with [Kevin] Durant and [Russell] Westbrook. Who the f— is gonna stop that?” In theory, no one. In practice, everyone, because Oklahoma City doesn’t run the Triangle. Nobody does. And that reality is more complicated than the offense itself.”

Justin Havens of ESPN Stats and Info: “Not only is the gap rapidly closing, but the two players closest to Paul last season were Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose, who posted PERs within 0.5 percent of Paul’s. Westbrook and Rose will both be 23 in 2011-12, meaning the gap is likely to close completely — or reverse itself — this season.”

Via the AP, Lazar Hayward wants to push KD: “Hayward got instructions from coach Scott Brooks that he’d be guarding Durant most days in practice and the second-year forward out of Marquette said he embraced the role immediately. “During practice, I told him I would be going up against him all the time,” Hayward said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to push you, I’m going to fight you, I’m going to try and make you mad,’ but at the end of the day it’ll help him because when those guys guard him, they’re not going to let him do whatever he wants. “It wouldn’t be fair to him if I didn’t bring my best every night in guarding him in practice. At the end of the day, it’s good for both of us.”

Brian Phillips of Grantland on the Thunder: “There’s a good chance, in other words, that to understand what’s going on with Durant and Westbrook and the Thunder, we’re going to have to actually watch the Thunder, not just run an autocomplete on whatever preconceived trope has loaded itself on TV. Whether this cookies-and-media-savvy approach can work long-term, I have no idea. I don’t even know whether what we’re looking at is authenticity or the opposite of authenticity or some bizarre evolution that makes the whole concept of authenticity irrelevant. That’s kind of the whole point. Wherever they go from here, the Thunder are writing their own history.”