Thursday Bolts – 3.26.15

Larry Bird on Russell Westbrook: “Here’s a young man that has had serious injuries — bad knee injuries throughout his career — yet every time he walks on the court, you know you’re going to get 100 percent from him. He attacks, he’s fearless and he plays the way it should be played, so I’m all for him. I hope he wins 10 MVPs in a row. I just love players that compete on a nightly basis and really take the challenge to their opponents.”

Sean Deveney of Sporting News: “If Presti’s problem is that his two best players are too good to stay together, just about any GM in the league would gladly switch roles. It’s a nice problem to have. But the next time Durant takes the floor, it will be the opening of the 2015-16 season, and Durant is slated to be a free agent the following summer — that means he will be inundated with free-agency speculation for all of next season. That takes a toll on a player, as it did on guys like Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard.”

It was a confusing performance by the Thunder last night in San Antonio.

Neil Paine of 538: “That research forms the basis for Basketball-Reference.com’s MVP tracker tool, which currently gives Westbrook about twice as good a shot at the award as James. While James’ team has been better, winning 64 percent of its games — compared with 58 percent for Oklahoma City — Westbrook’s edges over James in points, rebounds and assists per game are traditionally more than enough to offset the difference in team records. The Thunder’s winning percentage would have to drop to 48 percent for Westbrook and James to have the same MVP probability per the Basketball-Reference.com model.”

Interesting thing about the league’s best transition offenses.

Also: I wrote something about Sam Presti yesterday too.

Darnell Mayberry: “For the better part of the next three hours, the Spurs then took turns shredding the Thunder and, after an eventual 130-91 blowout, sent yet another reminder of exactly how much needs fixing. Things got so bad here inside the AT&T Center that Brooks had no choice but to throw in the towel with 5:29 remaining in the third quarter. OKC was down by 30. And somehow, even with the Thunder yielding, things still managed to go from bad to ugly.”

Kevin Durant is just like that guy from One Direction.

Matt Moore of CBSSports.com on the playoff situation: “The Thunder lost, but so did the Suns and the Pelicans. So not only did the Thunder not lose ground, but gained ground on their magic number which drops to eight for a playoff spot. They play the Suns Sunday. Sunday is high noon for Phoenix. A loss could put them back by four or more games, and give OKC the tiebreaker. That would be it for the Suns’ playoff hopes. The Pelicans lost a heartbreaker to the Rockets on Wednesday. That one they can lose. But now they face the Kings, Wolves, Lakers and Kings again. They have to sweep these next four games even with the Thunder’s tough schedule in the next two weeks, or they might be sunk. They need some momentum back.”