Alex Abrines

I’m a fair guy at heart. I was tough on Alex Abrines earlier this season as I called him frilly and soft. I said he wasn’t worthy of being in the rotation.

But I was wrong. Since that home court disaster loss to the Milwaukee Bucks–Abrines has worked his tail off and become what I would call a viable NBA player.

His defense has become worlds better. His lateral movement has improved markedly. His overall defensive toughness has gone from a soft Euro to a decent NBA player.

But even more importantly—he’s been scoring the ball as well.

Alex Abrines deserves to be in Billy Donovan’s nine man rotation as the Thunder enter post season play. It’s time for the rookie Ferguson to sit and time to reward Abrines on with minutes since this team is such a horrid three point shooting team and needs shooting.

Alex Abrines is trending and in a good way.

Donovan should shave some of Carmelo’s minutes and start giving them to Abrines, Jerami Grant, and Pat Patterson depending on who’s hitting shots on a given night.

Carmelo should be given 22 minutes a night. If his play warrants it—then he gets fed more minutes. Carmelo is not an elite NBA player. He was an elite NBA player and it’s time either a coach or a general manager explain this to him in a subtle private setting. But again, on those nights when he’s able to move and be an asset.. feed him minutes. If not–limit his exposure.

My nine man rotation goes in this order…1 Westbrook, 2 Paul George, 3 Steven Adams, 4 Carmelo Anthony, 5 Corey Brewer, 6 Ray Felton, 7 Jerami Grant, 8 Alex Abrines, and 9 Pat Patterson. An NBA coach has to orchestrate 240 minutes of playing time in a regulation game. Little league at the Girl’s North Edmond Soccer League time is over. Billy Donovan needs to tighten it up and get with it.

Westbrook Can’t Beat Warriors by Himself in 111-107 Loss

Some of the Thunder fans were still booing Kevin Durant last night in a 111-107 home loss to the Golden State Warriors. Shame on every one of them. Seriously.

This was a night when some booing might have been in order, but if a person sitting inside of the Peake was going to boo their boos should have been directed at various Thunder players or a head coach or maybe even a general manager.

But to continue to boo Kevin Durant is beyond stupid because every time you watch this Thunder team play another game this season it validates Durant’s decision to leave OKC as fairly smart from a basketball standpoint.

In a regular season of NBA play in Oklahoma City marked by massive underachievement, this game may stand upon others as a prime example of a franchise which has itself viewed as being much, much better than it is from multiple standpoints.

Who would I have booed first if I were actually in attendance last night?

I would have booed Billy Donovan first for being stupid enough to allow Carmelo Anthony to have 36 minutes of playing time on a night in which he couldn’t have hit the Pacific Ocean if he were standing next to it.

I then would have booed Carmelo Anthony for not being a stand up guy on this team long ago and having helped Billy Donovan understand his role on this team should be much smaller.

I would have booed Paul George for playing like he was already back in Los Angeles in this game and in essence leaving Russell Westbrook by himself to keep this game as remarkably close as it was.

On a night where Golden State didn’t have Steph Curry, Iguodala, or Shawn Livingston—Sam Presti’s two big pickups from this summer went a combined 9-35 from the field and a combined 3-18 shooting threes. Carmelo was especially feeble in going 0-9 from distance.

What’s next for Sam Presti? Maybe trading Westbrook for Ginobli and Tony Parker this summer?

But I’m not going to boo Russell Westbrook. Because Westbrook played his ass off on a night when in reality you might have to say Alex Abrines of all people might have been the Thunder’s second best player on the floor.

I’ve never booed Durant and I will never boo Russell Westbrook. Period.

So some of you dumbasses who attend games at the Peake and who probably never followed the NBA much at all previous pre-Hurricane Katrina need to rise above your limited NBA exposure and smarten up NBA wise.

Because if you’re going to boo at least be smart enough to boo the appropriate parties.

As I wrote yesterday before the game it doesn’t matter where the Thunder end up seeding wise because they’ll beat themselves eventually, but it’s extremely unlikely they will beat a viable playoff contender four times in a two week period.

Teams That Can’t Make Free Throws

You know, the Thunder host the Golden State Warriors tonight and I’m honestly not stoked all that much. I hope the OKC fans don’t evoke the Cupcake chant and have come to terms with things so to speak.

The reality of the Thunder is they’re just not that good. Consider this, this is a team which lost Andre Roberson for the season and yet somehow became an even worse team shooting free throws than they were last year.

Consider the enormity of the above paragraph and you have this Thunder season in a proverbial nutshell.

It might have been iconic OCU coach Abe Lemons who once uttered this basketball proverb, but regardless of the source, it is a golden platitude of post season basketball at any level.

It states: “Teams which can’t make free throws are like dogs who play in the street–neither last very long.”

So as we near the sentencing segment of the this Thunder basketball season those Abe Lemons words I will hold close to my basketball heart knowing this group of Thunder out patients aren’t long for this basketball world being they’re the 29th worst team in the NBA in making free throws.

I’m not even at this point interested in which seed the Thunder fall in as in I don’t think it matters because the Thunder are their own toughest team on the schedule every night.

Seriously, if you divided the Thunder into two teams and they played each other do you really think either team would be able to win four games in two weeks?

Hell, Barry Tramel would be inside Chesapeake waiting until August for that to happen.

Way back early in the season I compared this team to Little Miss Sunshine, but thinking at some point they would grow beyond their dysfunction and that Billy Donovan would earn his $6 million and somewhat display the presence of a coach in a charge.

I was wrong. None of that happened.

These people have worn me out even almost as much as the Trump people except for the fact Thunder fans can’t affect the U.S. Treasury or start wars.

Anyway, Golden State at OKC tonight, but Toronto is at Cleveland as well at the same time.

Know what I mean?

By pure accident, I once ran into Abe Lemons in his front yard of all places, with him wearing his white bath robe trying to fix the tiny hose on his windshield wipers which squirts out water. He asked me to help him fix the hose and I did. One hour later–I had experienced the funniest conversation of my lifetime with another human being.

Villanova Too Much for the Big German

I did actually have Villanova winning the national championship on my bracket sheet. Only thing is…I had them either playing Virginia or North Carolina in winning their third national championship.

Villanova was the one obvious pick and Jay Wright’s squad held true in routing Mo Wagner and Michigan by a 79-62 count on Monday night in San Antonio.

The Big 12 was a little bit better than I thought they were in getting four teams to the Sweet 16. I had three Big 12 teams getting there, but not K State. I had Kansas getting beat in the Elite 8 game versus Duke–so I thought it was a good tournament for the Big 12.

The PAC 12 was horrific. The ACC had a bad tournament with Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke all torching. The SEC wasn’t much. To me, the storylines were Villanova, Sister Jean, and the Big 12 showing itself as the most balanced conference in this year’s tournament.

But Villanova was the one constant and they won their third national championship in the modern era on Monday night with relative ease as Donte D stole the show over Mo Wagner with an epic 31 point performance.

Thunder Find a Way Against Pelicans on Easter, 109-104

It was Easter. The Thunder game in New Orleans was not one of my top priorities as family and personal reflection took center stage over the basketball game.

I’m not suffering anymore with this team. This is their team and their legacy as players. I’ll watch, but I won’t be venting and ranting anymore.

This isn’t life or death. These guys are pro basketball players and it’s not like they do meaningful things for society like teach, nurse, or protect society from harm. You would hope a collective pride would manifest itself, but I’m not holding my breath anymore.

Anyway… a relatively big win for the Thunder on Sunday afternoon on the road in New Orleans by a 109-104 count which snaps a three game losing streak.

The Thunder improve to 45-33 with four games remaining and are currently clinging to the No. 5 seed in the West. You would think these guys would do everything possible to avoid a first round matchup with either Houston or Portland.

Oddly, and this may sound crazy, but I actually think a first round series against a Warriors team without Steph Curry could possibly be interesting.

In this game Westbrook, George, Adams, and Melo combined for 84 points. Jerami Grant played well again, but the rest of the Thunder bench struggled.

Westbrook and Paul combined to go 14-17 from the free throw line which is something the Thunder will need from these two if they are to be competitive in the playoffs.

Four games left and if the Thunder split the four games they finish with an identical record of 47-35 just like last season.

Golden State visits on Tuesday night and who would really know what these Thunder will do against a Warriors team which is locked in as the No. 2 seed regardless of how they finish the regular season.

I think little about the Paul George situation anymore in that I assume he’s probably going to leave unless this Thunder team does something in post season which would be a deviation from the norm this basketball season.

But you never know. Maybe they’ll start making free throws and playing like they care…or maybe they won’t.

That’s a horrible thing for me to write about this team, but it’s just the way I feel about them. I don’t respect this team for their body of work this season. I detest their mental laziness.

But I trudge on with the death knell basketball season march.

Golden State in OKC on Tuesday night.

How ironic it would be if these two teams somehow meet in the first round.