Author: Mike

Interesting matchup tonight in OKC as the Sixers in Year 3 of Sam Hinkie’s rebuild plan through tanking take on an OKC club which once again finds itself without Kevin Durant. OKC enters tonight at 5-3 and in third place in the West after a Tuesday night blowout win over the Wizards. Sixers enter tonight as the league’s only winless team at 0-8 with a league worse team differential of -13.6 per game.

For Sixer fans—the Hinkie tanking plan to date has been trying. In 2013-14, the Sixers went 19-63 while losing 26 straight games at one juncture. The 2014-15 season was worse with an 0-16 start and an eventual season mark of 18-64. The tangible pieces assembled to date ‘on the court’ are Nerlens Noel a power forward defensive specialist who missed his first season due to a knee injury. Joel Embiid, a center from Kansas who will probably miss his first two NBA seasons due to chronic foot issues and surgeries. Plus, Jahlil Okafor who was taken third in the 2015 draft from Duke and is a nice low post offensive center who struggles defensively. Undrafted TJ McConnell from Arizona at point guard, Nik Staukas from Michigan at shooting guard, and Jerami Grant from Syracuse round out the starting five. Philadelphia is coached by former Spurs assistant Bret Brown.

For a prestigious franchise like the Sixers who have won three NBA titles and had players like Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham, Julius Erving, Mo Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson—the Hinkie Era has been tough to swallow.

OKC enters a string of at least five games without Kevin Durant who is sitting a minimum of 7-10 days due to a strained hamstring sustained against the Wizards. Russell Westbrook has been spectacular offensively this season and will lead a starting  lineup rounded out by Serge Ibaka, Anthony Morrow, Steven Adams and Andre Roberson. Much will be needed offensively from Enes Kanter off the bench in these games without Durant.

Westbrook leads the NBA in assists while OKC has already amassed four games with at least 25 assists. It will be intriguing to see if Westbrook can continue to remain patient distributing the ball with Durant sitting. Ibaka, Waiters and Kanter all have to be solid scoring the ball when they have open looks.

Despite the lack of Durant and the Sixers’ 0-8 league worse record it will be an interesting game to watch from a standpoint of seeing how Westbrook adjusts his play without Durant, and to see if Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor can lead their team to a win and avoid the 0-9 start.

 

 

MJ

Kevin Durant missed 55 games last season and basically was absent from high level basketball for eight months. He was just rounding back into form when this minor hamstring strain occurred in the last minute of the first half against the Wizards. This hurts because Durant and this team are all in the process of learning their new roles under Billy Donovan.

Even more to the point, the 9-0 Golden State Warriors have come out of the gate as a defending champion with an obvious focus on not only repeating, but maybe setting their sights on a 70 win regular season. They won 67 regular season games a year ago  enroute to their championship–so I don’t think it’s crazy talk, especially considering Memphis and New Orleans don’t appear to be what many of us thought they might be this year–namely two tough, grinding teams in the West. The Pelicans under first year coach Alvin Gentry have been horrible. How can you have a player like Anthony Davis and be 1-7? They never should have fired Monty Williams. In Memphis—there’s talk of moving Zach Randolph and owner Robert Pera possibly considering removing Dave Joerger as head coach. So–in essence the West may not be as tough asmost thought it might be this season beyond the top five teams in Golden State, San Antonio, OKC, LA Clippers and Houston. The young Timberwolves will come back to earth as the marathon season unwinds.

From what I’ve read–Durant’s strain is the most minor degree of a hamstring strain. With rest—the hope is he’ll be back on Nov. 22 when the Thunder host the Dallas Mavericks.

The interim five games are against my pathetic Philly 76’ers (more on the idiot Sam Hinkie tomorrow), Boston Celtics, Robert Pera’s Grizzlies, the NBA’s most disappointing team in the Pelicans and the NY Knicks. Combined these five teams are 11-25 into this young season. So there’s that working for the Thunder in the next ten days or so.

Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, Dion Waiters and Enes Kanter have all been solid offensively as of late. This trend will need to continue during Durant’s absence–however long that turns out to be. Role players like Steven Adams, Andre Roberson, DJ Augustin, Nick Collison, Mitch McGary, Kyle Singler and Anthony Morrow need to do fill their roles. Be professionals. Especially Singler and Morrow in that they’re basically small forwards and need to help fill the Durant vaccum at small forward or call it finesse forward if you will. If I’m Donovan—I’m challenging both of these guys in private to show me who wants to play rotational minutes once Durant returns.

Westbrook has been spectacular offensively this season, defensively not so much. But Westbrook will have to be the guy and while being the guy not suffocate the progress Ibaka, Waiters and Kanter have made in recent games.

Good thing they start with my former favorite team in the Philly 76’ers who for some reason have used all their tanking to date to draft a defensive zone only player in Noels, a big man with chronic foot problems in Joel Embiid who will miss his second straight season since being drafted by the analytics savant Sam Hinkie, and of course, Jahil Okafor from Duke in the recent NBA draft. Okafor can actually score the ball from within six feet, but can’t make free throws and couldn’t defend Byron Mullins, but at least he can make some baskets.

So take heart Thunder fans–it could be way worse. You could be a Philadelphia 76’er fan and been forced  to watch Sam Hinkie’s bullshit for three years running. I’m sure Tramel will have his Annual Sam Hinkie Progress Report at newsok. Can’t wait. First F bomb on my blog…f–k Sam Hinkie.

More on Bain Capital’s  Sam Hinkie tomorrow.

 

Mike Jackson

 

Kevin Durant will be out for at least seven to ten days with a strained hamstring he sustained late in the second period last night in D.C. He’s to be re-evaluated then…heard that before. Mitigating ‘good’ news is that OKC plays the Sixers, Celtics, Grizzlies, Pelicans and Knicks during this span. Grizzlies and Pelicans have both been early season disappointments—so maybe this won’t be too tough. Dave Joerger may even be in trouble in Memphis.  Dion Waiters should get the starts as good as he’s been playing of late.

No Nene. No Bradley Beal. Not even Kevin Durant in the second half after a hamstring strain late in the first half. Nary any drama from the Wizard crowd in regards to Durant’s impending free agency. But most of all no contest whatsoever in an alleged battle of elite point guards as Russell Westbrook destroyed John Wall while leading the Thunder to a no mas blowout 125-101 win over the punchless Wizards.

Vintage Russell Westbrook. Triple double No. 20 in the Westbrook File. In twenty-eight minutes it went 22 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists and most importantly a message sent….why would Kevin Durant leave Russell Westbrook to join John Wall if he’s serious about winning an NBA championship? Know what I mean?

Russell Westbrook is my OKCThunderGround No. 1 Star of the Game.

Another very good game from Dion Waiters. He was second on my list. That’s two back to back seconds for Dion in his pursuit of this prestigious award. Waiters finished with 25 points on a 7-10 night from the field. He wasn’t just good, he was excellent.

 

Other things…..

With Durant—OKC won the first half 68-50. Without Durant–OKC won the second half 57-51.

OKC had 27 assists to 12 turnovers.

Thirteen different Thunder players scored. Even Anthony Morrow, who went 1-6 in 16 minutes.

Have to keep an eye on that Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, Kanter, Roberson lineup as the season moves along and how often Billy Donovan employs it against good teams.

OKC is the No. 1 rebounding team in the league and showed it pounding the Wizards 53-41 on the night.

John Kasich and Jeb Bush, the two guys who worked for Lehman Brothers are in serious trouble…they couldn’t answer the banking question. Oh, wait—this is a basketball blog.

Thunder shot 51.2% from the field and an even gaudier 15-23 from beyond the arc.

Kevin Durant garnered a first half double double with 17 points, 10 rebounds in 17 minutes.

Kyle Singler must have seen my Duke video of him here on the blog and decided it was time not to suck. Dude knows what Thunder blog to follow.

OKC improves to 5-3 with the easy walk-off win. My former Philly 76’ers in OKC Friday night on Friday the 13th. Just me, but I wouldn’t even allow Kevin Durant to dress out for this one.

Mike Jackson

 

 

 

The national narrative on this one will be is this Kevin Durant’s last game in D.C. wearing a Thunder uniform as his free agency creeps closer. Durant’s free agency in July of 2016 is there, as Thunder fans we all know it, we dread it, but in the end know either way it goes Kevin Durant will forever be a part of Oklahoma not only for what he’s done on the court, but off the court as well. So much of what Oklahomans love about Durant is his quiet humility, his desire to get better, and to ultimately be part of a championship in Oklahoma City. If he does decide to leave we know it will be with a quiet sense of dignity which was absent in the branding of LeBron James in Miami.

I’ve always thought of Durant as a Tim Duncan or a Dirk in a sense in that he appears to be very comfortable in his own skin and doesn’t need to play in New York or LA or Miami to define his own legacy. You never know though. But either way, even if he leaves, he has me as a fan for life because the guy exudes class which is so often missing in our contemporary sports stars.

Now the preview. OKC at 4-3 visits the 3-3 Wizards tonight. Should be a good game. Wizards have a solid starting five in John Wall, Nene, Gortat, Bradley Beal and the emerging Otto Porter. Both teams looking to play better and get something going with their respective seasons.

The Anthony Morrow talk continues to dominate the local Thunder talk both on the internet and radio sports talk. I’ve written all I’m going to write on it though. Billy Donovan is the coach. It’s his call.

I would expect Nick Collison to reassume the minutes Mitch McGary possessed on Sunday night in that it’s a road game against a pretty good team in the Wizards. Maybe home at Philly later in the week is a better spot for getting McGary into some sort of flow.

Russell Westbrook – John Wall matchup should be fun.

Otherwise—should be a good game with the Thunder hoping to get some answers to their early season identity as a team. OKC 1-2 on the road so far–with the only win coming in the miracle finish at Orlando.

July 3, 2014 –Three weeks after losing in six games in the Western Conference Finals to San Antonio.

 

Kyle Singler is a player I enjoyed watching at Duke. Loved his game, his swagger, his court attitude. I was okay with the trade.  I see none of this in his game with the Thunder to date. If he’s going to play in the rotation over Morrow–then I’m hopeful he’ll relax,  play with an attitude and start making open looks.