I’m in no way a Thunder homer. When I saw the roster OKC put together this summer I had the Thunder rated as the No. 2 team in the West with Houston almost dead even with them like say 2a and 2b. A healthy Golden State team was my easy pick to repeat as world champions.
But here we sit in the final days of March with the Thunder 17 games behind the Rockets and praying they can hold on to the No. 4 seed in the West and possibly win 48 regular season games.
I will admit the Carmelo deal made me nervous as in will this guy be able to come to terms with what his role should be for this team. I assumed or hoped that would happen and even back in the summer I openly said he should be the Sixth Man–which by the way is no disgrace at all. As I’ve written this week, Iguodala, Eric Gordon, and Manu Ginobli just to name three all currently man the Sixth Man position. And just so Carmelo Anthony’s brain is functioning as it should–he doesn’t possess the mobility of any of these three players or any of the rings of Iguodala or Ginobli.
Steve Kerr, Mike D’Antoni, and Greg Popovich can apparently all sit down with their players and make them understand the concept of team and role—whereas apparently this cannot happen with Billy Donovan and Carmelo Anthony in Oklahoma City. Or maybe I’m being unfair and it’s possible Sam Presti doesn’t give Billy Donovan this much latitude as his head coach. I have no idea. They appear to be a cute, content couple though.
So here we sit on the cusp of the playoffs and this Oklahoma City team with a $134 million payroll is praying it can hold on to the No. 4 seed in the West and win one more game than last season’s rookie scale contract laden team.
And here’s the thing, with the exception of a defensive role player in Andre Roberson this team has stayed relatively healthy while every other team in the West has lost significant games from their superstars. Anotherwords, the breaks of the game have gone OKC’s way for the most part.
So should the Thunder have been championship contenders this season?
I would say yes.