Thursday Bolts – 5.15.14
: “Kenny Smith said that he believes Westbrook will be MVP of this league in two years. After witnessing this season, let me take a page from Westbrook and say #whynot. His game has gone to another level against Chris Paul, a.k.a. Point God. Paul, widely considered the best point guard of our day, is being outperformed by Point Godzilla in these playoffs. His freakish athleticism, matched with an unadulterated, almost psychotic passion to win, is something we must embrace if we want to survive the age of Point Godzilla.”
Bill Simmons is coming around: “You could always find them a better coach, someone who would do things like “run an actual offense with plays and stuff” and “figure out on the fly how to get Durant the ball when he’s being defended by someone who’s 10 inches shorter.” And eventually, you could find them a real point guard, someone who allows both guys to play off the ball. But you could never replace what they have. It’s the rarest of basketball partnerships — two alpha dogs coexisting and complementing each other (for the most part, anyway), with their friendship transcending every conceivable landmine. Why would you break THAT up? Keep that window pried open, baby. For as long as you can.”
An introduction to KD’s entourage.
Charles P. Pierce of Grantland: “For centuries, athletes subcontracted the job of creating their professional identities to bards and newspapermen, to novelists and TV producers, to agents and admen and all the other subspecies of huckster that arose as new industries did. Now, it is in their hands to make or break the identity on which the myth depends. Donald Sterling discovered that, due to the way we get our information these days, there’s far less latitude to be a bigot than there used to be. Kevin Durant discovered that, by saying the right things, the way we get our information these days, you can reintroduce yourself to the public in a whole new way. And then everybody has to go out and try to win an ordinary basketball game, a game like all the others, all the way back to when word of mouth actually meant that very thing.”
Are triple-doubles more common in the playoffs?
David Vertsberger of Hickory High: “It’s not about taking the good with the bad when it comes to Russell Westbrook, because every player brings their goods and bads, from Kevin Seraphin to LeBron James. It’s enjoying the backwardness of Westbrook instead of scrutinizing it, because at the end of the day he is a good player, even one of the best. The “how” of his being among the NBA’s elite can either be chastised or savored. The NBA’s rarely seen such a specimen of both skill and quirkiness, especially at Westbrook’s position. This is something special that shouldn’t be actively ignored or condemned. I prefer to sit back, smile and revel in Westbrook being Westbrook. Those who don’t should try it sometime.”
Berry Tramel on KD’s worth to the Thunder: “The Thunder is one of the NBA’s most profitable and most popular franchises, despite a market size a fraction the size of the biggest cities in the league. Durant is the reason why. He’s made the Thunder an NBA contender and nearly doubled the value of the franchise, which was purchased in 2006 for $350 million and was estimated to be worth $590 million last year by Forbes.”
The league’s statement on the possession call: “With 11.3 seconds left in the game, the basketball went out of bounds on the baseline and the referees ruled the ball belonged to the Thunder,” the league’s president of basketball operations, Rod Thorn, said in a statement Wednesday. “The referees then used instant replay to review the play. In order to reverse the call made on the court, there has to be ‘clear and conclusive’ evidence. Since no replay provided such evidence, the play correctly stood as called with the Thunder retaining possession.”
Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com on video review: “Unfairness happens, and while refs should aspire to fairness in the moment, athletes, coaches and fans will always have to cope with what Rivers felt Tuesday night. Someone is likely to have an understandable gripe after every close contest, regardless of how many replays the NBA incorporates. Smothering the game with reviews won’t excise the feeling of having been painfully wronged — it could make the game boring though. The encroaching process of review stands a better chance of harming what we enjoy than mitigating what frustrates us.”