Wednesday Bolts – 9.2.15
Amin Elhassan of ESPN Insider: “The Thunder also made a switch in the coaching department, where Billy Donovan attempts to make the jump from collegiate ranks to coaching grown men, and his ability to adjust to the pro game also will play a role. Finally, although the Thunder made their moves last February, injuries robbed them of the chance of building much on-court chemistry. Durant never played with the trade-deadline acquisitions of Enes Kanter, Kyle Singler and D.J. Augustin (although he did play collegiately with Augustin), and Serge Ibaka appeared in only 10 games with them. New-ish teammates, new playbooks, injury recovery and the cloud of 2016 is a lot of uncertainty to take into account when talking about winning the West.”
Kurt Helin of PBT on the Heat as a Durant threat: “Miami will be a fascinating team this season — they could be the second best team in the East, they could be sixth, they are hard to read — but they are not ready to compete with Cleveland. They need more talent. Obviously, Durant would be that guy. Before the people from OKC start emailing/commenting, I’ll try to be clear once again — this does not mean Durant is going to the Heat, or even leaving the Thunder. It is just an example of how a number of teams — the Wizards, Lakers, Knicks, and the list goes on — are lining up to take a run at KD. That means some financial jockeying for some these squads.”
Slightly interesting: Despite being fifth in record projections, ESPN Forecast has OKC as the third most likely title team out West.
Three cheers for Kirk Goldsberry of Grantland: “NBA players are taking more 3-pointers than ever in part because an average NBA 3-pointer currently has an expected value 17 percent higher than an average 2-pointer. Yet, to achieve that plus–33 percent difference in expected value we saw in the pickup game, an NBA player would have to make more than 40 percent of his 3s. In other words, you’d have to shoot like Kevin Durant. But at Woollen Gym, even the average 3-point shot is as relatively valuable as a Durant shot in the NBA. When everyone is Kevin Durant, guess what: Nobody is Kevin Durant. For that to change, pickup players need to adopt the same scoring system that the Oklahoma City star plays within: It’s time to get rid of 1s-and-2s and start using 2s-and-3s.”
TrueHoop TV with some Thunder talk.
Berry Tramel with his thoughts on rule changes: “Each team gets six timeouts, plus TV timeouts. It kills the flow of the game in the final four minutes. In the final minute, there often are more timeouts than possession. A timeout is followed by a possession, which is followed by a timeout, which is followed by a possession, which is followed by a timeout. The game slows down to baseball pace. And sometimes you get the worst of all worlds. Consecutive timeouts, with no action. Timeouts need to be reduced drastically. Not to five. How about to two?”
