Tuesday Bolts: 04.14.20

In case you missed it, Daily Thunder did a preview (mine), recap (Olivia Panchal) and full journal entry (Brandon Rahbar) for what turned out to be a disappointing (and blurry) round of H-O-R-S-E between Chris Paul and Allie Quigley. We regret nothing.

Marc Spears (ESPN) reports that the reason Thunder VP of Basketball Ops, Troy Weaver, didn’t participate in an interview for the newly minted Bulls front office is that he viewed it as a “token” opportunity. Whether you think Arturas Karnisovas was a reasonable hire or not, I’m inclined to believe that the organization that threw Bryan Colangelo a bone in the process just might indeed have been checking a minority-interview box at the last second, despite already having their guy all but inked.

For what it’s worth, sources tell Vincent Goodwill (Yahoo!) that Oklahoma City declined to give permission for Weaver to interview.

Another ICYMI: John Hollinger and Erik Horne (The Athletic) took a long look at the Thunder’s future. “If they haven’t already, I think they’re going to spend a lot of time studying the 2013-14 Phoenix Suns … or at least they ought to. That Suns team was very similar to the Thunder in that they were in a rebuilding mode heading into the season, but experienced unexpected success and nearly made the playoffs. (They won 48 games but finished ninth in the West, making them the best team ever to miss. They would have been the No. 3 seed in the East!) However, the Suns’ unexpected success completely distorted their planning, and it led to a series of short-sighted mistakes that nuked their nascent rebuild and pushed them right down the standings, where they’ve remained ever since.”

In a retrospective of the crazy COVID-19 night in Oklahoma City, Shams Charania (The Athletic) reports that Chris Paul arranged for beer and wine to be delivered to anxious Jazz personnel awaiting tests after Rudy Gobert’s stunning confirmed case halted the game and season.

Enes Kanter told ClutchPoints that Steven Adams and Russell Westbrook have been his favorite teammates ever:

Brian Windhorst (ESPN) says that the league is eyeing a hopeful 25-day activity rampup period for a hypothetical re-start to the 2019-20 NBA season.

But medical staff and league executives tell Baxter Holmes (ESPN) that such a timeline is wearisome. “If you tell us two weeks in advance, and all we have is a two-week training camp to [get] guys back to work that have been out of work eight weeks, that’s a mess,” one NBA general manager said.”

Cole Aldrich spoke with Joe Mussatto (The Oklahoman) about his time with the Thunder. “I appreciate the coaches and Sam (Presti) for teaching me how to become a pro in a sense. My other teammates like Nazr (Mohammed) and Nick (Collison) kind of taught me invaluable lessons. Honestly it probably kept me around a handful of more years just because of that.”

Nick Crain (Forbes) breaks down a recent Instagram Live talk between Darius Bazley and Terrance Ferguson about their career paths.

SPEAKING OF. Daily Thunder is now Instagramming. If you like our artwork and humor, it’s a must-follow.

And don’t forget about our shirt collection over at Shop Good! Time is running out to get in on the first shipment of pre-orders.

Karl Anthony-Townes’ mother passed away after contracting the coronavirus. Very sad.