Sunday, November 2, 2008

Thunder lose to Rockets, improve to 0-2.


Here's the lead sentence from Darnell Mayberry's writeup:
"In the final six minutes of Saturday night’s first half, Kevin Durant picked up his Thunder teammates, put them on his shoulders and carried them to a respectable one-point halftime road deficit..."
Wow, no shit? A one-point deficit? At halftime? On the road?? That's downright heroic. I know the final 6 minutes of the first half are where legends are made, but if it were me writing I'd save the "put the team on his shoulders" line for when they actually win. Or are at least winning. But I guess Darnell has an uncanny ability to see the positives. Maybe that's why he predicted this team would win 37 games this year. I am not making that up. 37 games. Maybe that's why he's also predicting the Thunder will beat Boston when they come to town next week. Yeah, I guess those 37 wins are gonna have to come from somewhere unexpected if you can't even make it competitive against Milwaukee. At home. On the "biggest night in OKC history".

But anywho, glancing at the boxscore I'm struck by the fact that the Thunder as a team were a combined 0-4 from 3-point range tonight. Wow. That's an area the front office might want to look into. If only the Thunder had a proven knock-down three point shooter with the purest stroke in basketball that could stretch the defense for Durant and um, you know, whoever else it is that scores for the Thunder. Someone like, oh I don't know, Ray Allen. Oh right. He's busy winning championships. And I forgot that the Thunder are a defensive-minded team all of a sudden and we all know Ray Allen is a defensive liability, which I guess is why Boston is so bad at defense now. But I'm not worried because Mike Baldwin says Jeff Green is the next Scottie Pippen. I guess I can't argue with the fact that he is probably the 2nd best player on a team with one really good player, which makes him Pippen. Just like Lamar Odom.

Fortunately, the Thunderworld has a pretty good idea for addressing some of these deficiencies, which is to trade Chris Wilcox for Danny Granger and Jarrett Jack. Sure, why the hell not. And then after that we could pick up Derrick Rose for Earl Watson and cash.

When Damien Wilkins is rocking the shooting sleeve, the trend is officially dead.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Next time will you please put up another beautiful photo of Robert Swift and his creepy tattoos? He makes my day.

I also wanted to let you know that some bar in Seattle was playing the Laker / Thunder game a few weeks ago and they wouldn't turn it off. Talk about a travesty!

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! They actually failed to lose a game last night...

Royce Young said...

Funny, how Claymate has serious "convenient" comprehension difficulties. I said trade Chris Wilcox and a FIRST ROUND PICK for Danny Granger. If you're going to make it a habit to call me out, at least quote me right. Appreciate it.

Anonymous said...

Attendance in home game number two was 1,000 below attendance in home game number one. The Ford center will be half-empty by March, and all those Oklahomans who said Seattle didn't deserve a team will look mighty stupid.

Claymate said...

No problem Royce, let me see if I've got your trade scenario straight:

For poetic justice, on the day you made that post Danny Granger signed a 5-yr extension worth around $65 million. After you wrote "Indiana would probably go for unloading both to free up cap space." Wrong.

You also write, "best of all, he's got an expiring contract". Why exactly is that good, let alone "best of all" about Granger? He was still under his rookie contract scale, and is earning $2.3 million this year. So you're proposing we trade for Danny Granger and let his contract expire? So we can clear $2.3 mil in cap space? Seriously? Why? And if you want to keep Granger, which you don't apparently, you're going to have to pay him in the $65 mil range over 5 years. But you think we should let him walk for that extra $2.3 mil. And also give up a shot at your boy Blake Griffin.

Which is all predicated on the fact that Indiana would give up Danny Granger for Chris Wilcox and an unknown. Which they wouldn't.

I'll take your non-response to mean you agree with everything I've just said.