Thunder Subdues Dallas Subs, Kanter Fractures Own Arm

Just when it appeared the Oklahoma City Thunder finally got Steven Adams, Victor Oladipo, and Cameron Payne all back and healthy–Enes Kanter did pretty much the most stupid thing to date I’ve witnessed during the Thunder era when he fractured his own right arm on his bench seat in an act of frustration as to how bad he was playing on Thursday night. The arm is fractured and Kanter will now miss 6-8 weeks just when you were getting the impression they could improve and make a run at No. 4 seed in the West.

Kanter’s numbers for the season before his self inflicted fractured arm were…14.4 ppg, 6.7 rpg, and a PER of 24.6. But right now he’s getting a -2 on my TSN scale for appearing to be even dumber than the average Oklahoman who voted for Caligula Lite in November. Kanter is OKC’s fourth best player and makes around 17.5 million and in essence is OKC’s bench scoring per se.. Now all of that is gone until the last week of March.

To be honest, depending on what Presti could get for Kanter–it wouldn’t kill me if Presti could trade Kanter for a wing who could score 16 points a game and then maybe find an affordable vet big banger for the stretch run. If you think Enes Kanter is the future for OKC becoming a serious contender then you wouldn’t make a trade, but in the West the name of the game minus Karl-Anthony Townes is going to be who can create the most adaptable small ball or even medium size lineups.

As far as this game against the wretched Dallas Mavs…OKC finally beat them by a score of 109-98. The Mavs pretty much left their starting lineup back in Dallas and the game shouldn’t have been as close as it was.

Russell Westbrook didn’t triple double but did score 45 points on a 16-29 shooting night. Victor Oladipo scored 17 points while Steven Adams added 15 points.

As far as this game goes it wasn’t much to watch as both teams were on the second night of a back to back and OKC was playing its third game in four nights. The Thunder improve to 28-19, but lose their best bench player and any lineups which would have featured Adams and Kanter playing together. One would think this means Sabonis and Lauvernge will get heavier minutes and the always smart Nick Collison could play a valuable role. And then of course, Donovan will have to be very smart using multiple small and medium sized lineups while Enes Kanter and his 17.5 million dollar salary sit as the Thunder hit the most important stretch of the season heading into February and March.

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