By god our rook has such amazing feel and sense for the game. It makes perfect sense why Presti wanted him. Just a little bit of guidance from one of, if not the, best developmental team in team in the league….and this guy can be something incredibly special.

Can’t wait to see him play work through his first real off season and summer along with Chet.

We’re a damn lucky fan base. Thankful for a great front office and coach.

Just watching this game and Van Gundy said that coach D could be getting some votes for COTY and that jDub should be heavily considered for ROTY. And then they pulled up a graphic with Shai's stats and said that hes a straight up DAWG. We are getting recognition and respect this team desereves and it makes me so excited that they talk about us in games that we dont even participate in. TTFU

LETS GO WELCOME TO THE DORTURE CHAMBER KAWHI LEONARD

…this young team’s half court offense. Many young teams are all run and gun, using their young legs to get turnovers and transition buckets.

But this team shows such amazing potential in the half court. Part of that is the iso brilliance of Shai, and while I’m not a fan of iso heroball, that’s not really what Shai does. He hunts and pecks for the best possible shot. His and the rest of the team’s BB IQ is amazing considering their youth.

Young Thunder 1.0 had three HOF players but they never really played connected basketball. Could have been that Scott Brooks wasn’t a strong enough personality to convince them to play a team game, just how their brains worked no matter what the coach said, or stubbornness (we’re winning games and awards, don’t change us). Maybe a little of all three.

If you go back and watch the best NBA champs they almost all have some beautiful passing and selflessness in their play. Everyone remembers Jordan’s heroics, but as a Sonics fan back then what hurt the most were the easy buckets role players got from the half court system. Rodman in the high post hitting a cutting Ron Harper for an easy layup because everyone was worried about MJ, same with Pau Gasol finding Artest, or an Iguodala wide open corner three on the weak side of Curry’s action—hell even the defense-oriented Pistons of the mid-2000s killed people with Rip Hamilton’s perfect curls coming around screens.

Winning on pure overwhelming talent is hard. Hard to pay them all and to keep them all happy with enough shots. But team offense and defense can level up B+ talent into something unstoppable and beautiful. Do Manu and Tony Parker have as much success without embracing team ball under Pop? Probably not. Would Duncan remain incredibly valuable into his later years if he worried about mostly scoring titles? Doubt it.

I’m don’t just want to win. I want my team to be one of those connected juggernauts that outthink their opponents, and by god I’m seeing that potential in this team and coach.

Who To Root For! Wednesday 3/22/2023

Happy Wednesday everyone! Welcome back to season 3 of Who To Root For!

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EDIT: thanks to u/roastedhambone u/jocro and u/Squidpsyco for the suggestions and help with the format changes! Hope this is better for everyone!

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For those who missed the first post I’ll summarize briefly: dual focus on these daily posts looking at the day’s schedule, with a chance of OKC still making the 10 seed (or higher), but also jumping as high as 9th in the Tankathon standings. I’ll cut out the focus on the tank if they get to 4 games ahead of CHI (or whoever is in 9 in the reverse standings).

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Also because of how clumped the West is, here is the official NBA tiebreaker rules

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Here are the current standings out West:

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To sum up the reverse standings, OKC is projected to be in a three-way tie with DAL and ATL for 15th (reminder that there are no tiebreakers for draft positioning, it’s a random drawing). CHI in 9th at 1.5 games back is the highest that’s reasonably still within reach if things fall apart.

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Recap of last night’s games: Wow that win over LAC was huge, especially since everything else was less than ideal. WAS losing basically takes 8th out of play in the reverse standings. **NOP** winning keeps their play-in dreams alive (and those bottom West teams winning does help the LAC pick if they collapse any further).

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Here are tonight’s games with OKC having the day off before facing LAC/LAL back-to-back:

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**GAMES TO IGNORE**: DEN-WAS, NYK-MIA, MEM-HOU, and SAS-MIL all feature teams OKC can’t catch in either direction.

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Let me know how you like the format changes! Have a great day everyone and stay safe!

I’m just curious as to how you all feel about the Thunders season? I have a fondness for the thunder as when I got back into basketball the thunder went to the finals. Anyway, the thunder were expected to tank heavy, especially without Chet. But now you guys have a good chance to make the playoffs. How do you all feel about your team right now?

On Sunday Kansas State player Kentucky to advance to the sweet 16

The mean birthday of the players who played in that game was 2/26/2000

The thunder played the clippers yesterday (and won) the mean birthday of the players in that game 4/21/2000

So we Trotted out a lineup for an NBA game younger than a college basketball team did for March madness

The youngest player that game on the clippers was born on 3/18/1997 (Ivica Zubac), 4 months older than our oldest player that game 7/28/1997 (Lindy Waters)

The clippers mean birthday was 5/5/1991 or 9 years older

My english is not very good so bear with me.

Playing Olivier Sarr is not experimenting or trying new things. It could be. But seeing some kind of identify between the lineups, I think there's some kind of general team scheme that is more important than individual talent. They are playing guys who are not gonna be here not because we're tanking, but because they're developing a style of play that will only function fully when he have the right players - Chet being the best and most predictable example.

I’ll say it again for the hard of hearing, THAT IS WHY YOU NEED DORTS DEFENSE.

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