OKC in Portland tonight for an 8:00pm tip. Good thing the Packers-Redskins game should be over or else I’d be a late viewer joining in to watch the Thunder play another bad team in the West. Great week-end of sports with NFL Wildcard Weekend and OU’s basketball Sooners led by Buddy Hield continuing to be a national story. Even Clay Bennett would have to admit his team with two of the best players in the world on it remain a distant third as far as sport relevant stories in the Oklahoma City market this week-end. Think about what I just wrote and let that sink in for a few seconds.
The NFL Super Bowl Tournament is one of the great American spectacles in sport …no surprise there. But OU basketball for the first time since the Thunder moved to Oklahoma City is sold out for the remainder of their season. The thought of this occurring four years ago was unthinkable if Durant and Westbrook were still in Oklahoma City. But here we are in 2016—and the OU basketball team is quite frankly a more riveting sports story than the OKC Thunder almost forty games into what was supposed to be a redemption season of sorts in OKC.
OKC is 26-11 and the No. 3 seed in the West, but the only regular season drama I perceive is if this OKC squad is good enough to hold off the Clippers for the No. 3 seed. The thought of this team being disciplined enough, mentally tough enough, or basketball smart enough to get beyond the second round in post season is a thought I have on hold currently.
I write this in spite of kind of liking from what I’ve seen from Billy Donovan so far. I don’t feel Donovan is the problem. But the Thunder culture pretty much remains the same from when Scott Brooks was pleading for his team to ‘play harder’ and ‘run back faster’.
Durant and Westbrook are both having fabulous offensive seasons. Steven Adams seems to be making palpable improvement on the offensive end every week. And even though I don’t like his hair—he’s slowly worked himself into a dependable two way player. Rookie wunderkind Cam Payne is becoming a nice player as well, so I’d keep feeding him at least 16 minutes a game and live with the mistakes.
Roberson, Collison, Singler, and Morrow are all specific niche role players…and I’m for the most part okay with what they’ve brought to the table given what I expected from them before the start of the season… even Kyle Singler of late.
Mitch McGary, DJ Augustin, and Steve Novak aren’t seeing much of the floor–so there can’t be any angst there from me or anyone else in Thunder Nation.
This leaves Serge Ibaka, Dion Waiters, and Enes Kanter, who combined are being paid around $34 million this year to be OKC’s third, fourth, and fifth offensive options. Three players who Durant and Westbrook need to be able to depend on, can lean on, and not be afraid to feed the ball to in a critical situations. Three players who have to play smarter, play tougher, and show some professional mental toughness game in and game out if OKC’s Thunder has any serious aspirations of becoming a top tier contender versus just being on a par with the Bulls or Clippers come April.
To me…these three players are holding Oklahoma City back. Their lack of consistency is killing any real progress the Thunder can make if they want to be a serious threat to Golden State, San Antonio, or Cleveland.
Portland is 15-24 and have lost four of their last five games coming into tonight. This is a team which lost four of their five starters to free agency last summer. OKC comes off what I think is clearly their worse week of the season by losing to the neurotic Sacramento Kings and by actually allowing the dumpster fire Lakers to have a chance to win on their last possession. Good thing Kobe defended Lou Williams on that last Laker possession.
OKC won the team’s only previous meeting this season by a 106-90 score in Oklahoma City back on December 16th.
Maybe OKC will come out motivated tonight.
Either way, I’ll be waiting for the Packers game to finish first. Not trying to be snarky, but a little urgency from the Thunder would be appreciated from the fan base tonight.
Go Packers!