Thursday Bolts – 8.22.13
Raymond Felton tries to say Melo is a better scorer than KD: “There’s a lot of guys who can score the basketball in this league. Kevin Durant, by far, is one of the top ones. Him and Melo could be neck-and-neck — those guys can score in a lot of ways. But Melo can score in more ways than KD, because Melo can post up, he can score off the dribble, he can score in the mid-range, he can score finishing at the rim, and he can shoot threes. You’re talking about a guy who has a total, complete game, and he’s big and strong — 6-8, big body, strong body. A lot of people like to talk about how he takes a lot of shots, this and that. Listen man: We need him to score.”
Andrew Unterberger of TBJ says Jeremy Lamb is OKC’s most interesting returning player: “Presti’s other shot at exorcising the demons of the James Harden deal is through the young prospect they received in the deal, and maybe the closest thing OKC has to a true Harden replacement. Lamb did little in limited minutes for the Thunder last year, but I believe OKC was mostly using last year to season him in the D-League, using their Tulsa squad like a baseball team uses their Triple A affiliate, and that this is the year they’ll actually give him the responsibility of being a true rotation cog. From his play at the Summer League in Orlando, in which he shot somewhat erratically but generally looked to be in a totally different class of experience than most of the other newbies on the court, it seems like he should be up to it. I believe in Jeremy Lamb.”
Jason Quick of The Oregonian wrote more about his experiences: “Over the next 13 years, the balancing act between gaining trust and telling the truth was the most difficult aspect about covering the Blazers. There was a time, as a favor to the coach, I sat on a story about a particularly troublesome player leading a group of Blazers to a strip club the night before a 32-point blowout loss. The coach said the team was close to trading the cancer and he was afraid the story would damage the trade efforts. He promised to tip me off when the trade was about to happen. That never paid off, however, as the Blazers were never able to unload the player.”
A Thunder take from a fan in Australia.
KD throwing down dunks at The Goodman.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss of TrueHoop: “Just based on the raw numbers, signing Sanders to this deal makes no sense. Unless you’re a nerd — the kind who appreciates Sanders’ mastery of angles, the timing of his jumps and his penchant for adhering to his defensive responsibilities. To the NBA geek, this validation of Sanders is a validation of looking deeper than mere “counting stats.” Though Sanders is the big winner with a hefty pile of cash, his success is a giant victory for basketball nerds all over.”
Russell Westbrook being hassled by paparazzi and getting hit on by some drive-by ladies.
