I finally took some time from my serious NBA basketball watching to catch a Thunder game last night and to say I was underwhelmed is an understatement. I almost fell asleep watching the Thunder sleepwalk their way to a misleading 119-107 win over a JV Utah team which is in essence tanking.
But the Thunder are a nice young team which I have ranked maybe No. 5 or No. 6 in my overall NBA Power Poll with fourteen games in the regular season.
The three dudes are clearly very good players and I’ve always loved Dort, but we’ll just have to see how this team reacts once the games are for real in the playoffs.
I have Chet second in my Rookie of the Year Award to Wemby. I have Coach Mark as my Deveopmental Coach of the Year. I have Shai third in the MVP race behind 1 Anthony Edwards and 2 Jokic.
As far as Shai goes we know nothing about him as a serious NBA Playoff player because the Thunder have basically done nothing in post season play since Shai became a Thunderer and was a member of the team which lost to Houston in seven games in the first Covid season and then just last season got trashed by the TimberWolves in the second round of the play-in games.
It just depends on who the Thunder end up playing in the first round is how I see it. I think three teams off the top of my head would give the Thunder problems…those being the Lakers, the Mavericks, and the Pelicans…assuming all three are healthy heading into the playoffs.
Shai at this point needs to stop hunting stats the rest of the season because I don’t think he’s going to win the MVP. He was hobbling around out there last night and just getting another 30 point game means nothing if he isn’t ready to go in the playoffs.
I hate the stat hunting like Westbrook grabbing away rebounds from other teammates to get a tawdry triple double in a regular season game against a bottom half team or Durant not taking half court heaves to protect his shooting percentages. I was hopeful this part of the Thunder culture would change.
One other thing… as this season has moved along and Shai has gotten more natioal pub ( which he derserves) he seems to always be arguing for calls even though he’s on the line more than any player in the league.
I was hopeful as a fan of the game this wouldn’t happen with Shai as it did with Durant and Westbrook. The Thunder culture I would hope corrects itself this time around as we witness Boom Town II soon to be a sequel by Sam Anderson or maybe a Michael Lewis book.
But here’s my bottomline with these three dudes…if Sam Presti can honestly correct all the cultural mistakes he along the way during Boom Town I….I could very well see the Thunder in another NBA Final if I’m lucky enough to still be around.
I think tomorrow I’ll post my favorite book review of Boom Town so as to tie it up nicely with this post because I would guess 95% of the Thunder fan base haven’t even read the book.
March Madness has shown me nothing so far. The game I’m wanting to see tonight is NC State vs. Texas Tech. Plus, of course all the games in the East Region.
One of the best sports days of the year. Have a nice March Madness.
MJ