Game 40: Dallas Mavs @ OKC Thunder Preview

Almost halfway through an NBA marathon regular season and the feeling on the Thunder in OKC in Durant’s free agency season is basically just kind of ….. blah. This was supposed to be the year Sam Presti and OKC’s ownership group ponied up and showed Kevin Durant and his management team how perhaps the best pure scorer the league has ever seen could fulfil his championship legacy by staying in Oklahoma City.

Instead– what we’ve seen are a series of trades from Sam Presti in the past twelve months which have all gone the wrong way towards that end and basically in no way have strengthened the Thunder to roll with the likes of the Warriors, Spurs, and the Cavs.

Not one move to date has gone the right way  unless you believe giving up Lance Thomas and a protected first round pick for Dion Waiters has made OKC more title viable.

The trading of Reggie Jackson for Kyle Singler and DJ Augustin hasn’t panned out either, but on that one–it had become so toxic near the deadline it’s not as if keeping Jackson was an option. But still- most people including me thought OKC would at least get two reliable bench pieces. Neither are in the rotation currently.

Later that same day, OKC acquired Enes Kanter and eventually resigned him this past summer at a cost of $70 million for four years. Granted–Kanter does give the Thunder some much needed interior scoring, but it’s a net nothing in reality  because OKC’s weakest defensive lineups all generally include Kanter resulting in a net wash. Unlike the OKC bench glory days with Harden, Collison, and Maynor when the Thunder were always getting a positive push from their bench– this bench is a liability presently. Last night a classic point in case as OKC’s bench was -28 against one of the weakest teams in the entire league.

The other thing with the signing Kanter is Presti in essence signed Mitch McGary’s playing time death knell because they’re both defensive liabilities and cannot be on the floor together with the bench units.

Later this past summer, Jeremy Lamb, who was one of the two key pieces coming back to OKC in the Harden trade , was traded to Charlotte for little of consequence. Not that I think Lamb staying here would be a game changer, because I don’t think it matters.

Perry Jones was finally traded to Boston this summer as well as he was given every chance to fill a niche role, but couldn’t on a team like the Thunder with championship aspirations. Perry Jones would have been a good player for the Russian in Brooklyn.  Presti could have told him he was the next Kevin Garnett. Maybe when Trump becomes president…Trumpy, Putin and Mikhail will clean up that mess of a franchise. Damn—that almost read like Maureen Dowd. I wonder how lenient Maureen would be with this Thunder team right now?

Then there’s the Josh Huestis Experiment, which we’ll talk about at a later time.

All in all–not a good sequence of team building moves given what we see right now with the OKC bench.

The good news is Steven Adams has worked himself into a nice basketball player, the bad news is Serge Ibaka is all  over the radar screen consistency wise.

But still–the Thunder mantra continues…’we have Durant, we have Westbrook.’  Yet if you’ve been paying attention it should be obvious that alone the two stars won’t be enough to get OKC back to the NBA Finals this summer unless Sam Presti has something in mind on the trade deadline of a significant nature which would go beyond say Ronnie Brewer, Kevin Martin, or Caron Butler.

So–on a beautiful sun washed January day in Oklahoma City—the Dallas Mavs visit OKC tonight. Both teams are coming  off games last night and could be dragging. Dallas lost to Cleveland in overtime as they allowed a sixteen point lead to go poof to LeBron James and Company. OKC comes in 27-12 and a game and a half ahead of the Clippers for the third seed. Rick Carlisle, my second favorite coach in the league behind Pop,  has his team at 22-17 as the No. 5 seed. Carlisle is another coach who would be really good with Durant and I’m almost certain Mark Cuban will whisper that in KD’s ear at some point.

Needless to say, Dallas moves the ball on the perimeter as well as in any team in the league and have three capable bombers in Dirk, Chandler Parsons, and Wesley Matthews. OKC’s porous perimeter defense is likely a key tonight.

Hopefully–Dallas is tired.