This season wasn’t supposed to happen in Oklahoma City. When the Thunder unloaded Paul George, Russell Westbrook, and Jerami Grant this past summer–the implications seemed to be clear.
Those being–at some point before yesterday’s trade deadline Thunder GM Sam Presti would unload both Chris Paul and Danillo Gallinari as he did in Seattle with Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis when Clay Bennett’s team was still in Seattle and we hadn’t read the emails yet.
Before taking the court on November 29th… the Thunder were 6-11 and seemed headed towards that very scenario. But then something odd happened—this team starting winning.
The three guard offense with Chris Paul, Shai G. Alexander, and Dennis Schroder turned into something special. Danillo Gallinari stayed healthy and showed why his shooting stroke is one of the smoothest in the NBA. Throw in an undrafted rookie defensive guard named Lu Dort and Nerlens Noel playing some nice bench minutes and all the sudden the season of tanking in Oklahoma City has turned into something different.
It turned into winning. Winning is fun—it’s a contagious elixir which ripples through teams in any sport when this type of trust emerges on a team…be it basketball, hockey, baseball, or football.
Since November 29th the Thunder are 26-9 overall and 13-3 on the road. Even during the glory days of Durant and Westbrook these would have been gaudy numbers. This upsets the confused white millennial ‘writers’ at Daily Thunder in as it doesn’t coincide with any of their narratives. They can’t grasp this as they sit playing backgammon, sipping gin and tonics, and collectively debating which brand of wafer cracker is their favorite. It’s vexing for them since they never played or coached any sport at a high level.
There is no metric for what it feels like when a team loves playing together and gets on a roll. It just happens and its magical.
In this latest Thunder win over Detroit it was basically the same recipe. The three guards combined for 60 points and overall the team’s best five players- Chris Paul, Schroder, Alexander, Gallinari, and Adams scored 95 points on the night.
The Thunder now sit at 32-20 overall and is in the 6th seed alone.
The Boston Celtics are in town for a special Sunday afternoon matinee game as the Thunder enter 9-1 in their last ten games.
Big game for the Thunder.. especially for a team which wasn’t supposed to be playing any big games this NBA season.