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B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
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Cj McCullum starting?! Wtf?!
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Wow there's a lot of "f them" mentality here for blazers fans. I hate the thunder as much as everyone else, but I don't want to see their failure come on the back end of an injury to their star.
Wow there's a lot of "f them" mentality here for blazers fans. I hate the thunder as much as everyone else, but I don't want to see their failure come on the back end of an injury to their star.
Tough shit. Durant's words
Never was high on Westbrook. He and Kyrie are the most overrated PGs in the league IMO.
Kyrie is truth man. Probably end up being one of the best.
Irving will be fine in the Cavs offense, LeBron and Love are both extremely unselfish players. I honestly believe he could lead them in scoring, LeBron will always get his 25-28 points, 7-10 rebounds and 7-10 assists but Irving has the opportunity to put up a ton of points as well... If Wade (In healthy years) could put up 25 a night with LBJ I'm positive Irving can as well as he is far more talented than Wade ever was (from a skill standpoint).
Unfortunate injury, but oh well. Nobody ever cares when players from our teams got injured.
Talented as Wade ever was? You got to remember Wade won a championship without James right?
Kyrie is more skilled, better ball handler, cleaner shot and can create better shots. Wade was extremely athletic though.
That 2006 Heat team was loaded btw with Shaq, Mourning, White Chocolate, Gary Payton, a prime Haslem and Antoine Walker (When he was a solid player),
Jury is out on Kyre right now. Wade has proven that he can lead his team to a title without LBJ. And you can talk about what players were on that Miami title team, but it was obvious that Wade was the "Go-to-guy". Kyre has proven that he can lead his team to the lotto each and every year.
OKC was fool's gold last year. They road KD during the regular season, but their extreme lack of depth was exposed during the playoffs. I called i when Westbrook went down - they'd play better as a team with Reggie Jacskon as a starter (which they did) because it would let Durant dominate (which he did).
After Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka, their starters suck and they have a very thin bench. Perkins and Sefolosha combined to average less than 7ppg in the post season. With those two starting, they were playing 3 on 5 on offense (I can't believe their tight ass owners let James Harden walk because they were too cheap to amnesty the corpse of Kendrick Perkins). They were forced to move Reggie Jackson into the starting line up, which meant their crappy bench got even crappier. Their big off season pick up was Anthony Morrow. Better scorer than Sefolosha, but worse on defense. No matter what Westbrook thinks, Kevin Durant IS that team. Without him, they will be sub-.500.
BNM
"If this is really a 15- or 20-game injury, the Thunder will be fine. Their early-season schedule is on the easy side for a Western Conference team, and they have the horses to tread water. They’ll win three or four fewer games than they would manage at full health, but this team at full health is so damn vicious that it might not even be enough to drop them outside the top three in the West."
"Prioritizing defense above all else will snuff out the Thunder offense. We see it every year. The Thunder starting lineup, with total offensive zeroes at shooting guard and center, goes through long fits of untenable brickage against tuned-in defenses. The plan until Sunday had been to continue that model, with Andre Roberson at shooting guard and Kendrick Perkins at center."
"Lots of variables went into Oklahoma City’s thought process in dealing Harden, but retaining financial flexibility — and nabbing some interesting assets in the process — was the most important. The Thunder didn’t want to pay the luxury tax, and signing a fourth massive deal would have made it difficult to construct a team below the tax — especially as those four core players came up for new contracts.
But the cap and tax are set to jump faster than anyone projected then, and it’s possible the Thunder could have given Harden the max and paid the tax in only one measly season — the 2013-14 campaign. That path would have required some hardships, including the use of the amnesty provision on Perkins and the likely loss of Reggie Jackson, but it appears to have been a financially viable path all the same."
A few interesting quotes from the article:
3 or 4 more losses could mean the difference between HCA and not in the highly competitive Western Conference. At the very least, it probably means they will not get the best record in the conference which means a tougher road to the finals.
This is the point I was making about OKC playing 3 on 5 on offense with Perkins and Sefolosha starting last year. And that didn't work very well in the playoffs even when they had Durant, the most deadly scorer in the world. No way in hell it works without Durant. In spite of the easy schedule, I think Durant missing 15 - 20 games will translate into more than 3 or 4 additional losses.
I said it at the time of the Harden trade, their ownership through away a chance at a dynasty because they were too cheap to pay Perkins not to play for them. And it's not like he's played worth a damn. The guy totally sucks. They could have easily picked up a guy for the vet minimum that wold have given them as much, if not more, than Perkins has. So, they gave away James Harden and all it would have cost them was one season of luxury tax - if they would have kept Perkins, or zero seasons of luxury tax if they would have anmestied his worthless ass.
Think Scott Brooks doesn't wish he had James Harden now to help them get through these first 15 - 20 games without Durant? I wonder how many rings the refusal to either pay luxury tax, or jettison Perkins cost the Thunder. I also think, the refusal to pay luxury tax when the team is on the verge of title contention will also play into Durant's willingness to resign with OKC after next season. The Thunder got extremely lucky. They were able to assemble a very young Big 3 through the draft, but then were too stupid/cheap to keep them together long enough to win a title.
Oh well, tough shit. They'll never get that lucky again and OKC will never be a destination for top free agents. They have cheap ass owners and there isn't exactly a lot of overlap in the lifestyles of NBA players and pro rodeo riders.
BNM
Even more so. If this is a 15-20 game injury that means the Blazers will have a chance to play OKC not just once but twice without KD. Once here and once there. There are no guarantees of getting a win but the chances get better without a doubt. Taking a 2-0 lead in the season series could very likely be a giant step toward taking the division.
I wonder how the rest of the Thunder players will respond if Westbrook is, in fact, leading the league in shots and scoring during Durant's absence as the article writer predicts.