With 2 wins and 23 losses, the Oklahoma City Thunder barely qualify as an NBA basketball team. I’m not sure they’d even dominate the D-League at this point.
Thunder fans can be happy, though, because the team is young and fun to watch, even when they lose, which is quite often.
I’m not using “fun” lightly. I mean it. When they play with energy they’re a pleasure.
Two relatively bright spots are Kevin Durant and Jeff Green. Rookie point guard Russell Westbrook has also shown talent, though he’s struggling with his shot.
The problem is, aside from that, there’s been nothing.
Durant is shooting very well (46.3% and a fantastic 48.4% from three-point range) for 23.1 points per game, but aside from his 5.1 rebounds he isn’t a player who makes teammates better just yet. He’s a scorer, but not a playmaker.
Green, who has nice versatility, is also shooting extremely well from both two and three-point range, for 15.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. He’s a nice fill-in-the-blanks type of contributor.
Westbrook is tossing up bricks, and not creating as much as hoped just yet. But he’s shown legit talent and has a bright future, though he may not turn out as good as the Thunder hoped when drafting him.
Then you have bench fodder.
The team spent several years rounding up rookie centers, but so far Johan Petro, Robert Swift and Mouhamed Sene don’t even combine to be a really good starter.
Assuming they want to hold on to Durant, Green and maybe Westbrook, the Thunder don’t have enough ammo to make a real trade that matters. They just need to keep developing their youth, round up first round picks, and continue to build for the future.
Until then, fans should enjoy the young, athletic players and focus on entertainment value, not wins-losses.
There’s been a good basketball atmosphere in Oklahoma City
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Tom Enlund) reports (via blog): Bucks coach Scott Skiles again started rookie Luc Richard Mbah a Moute at power against Miami and Charlie Villanueva came off the bench to score 20 points. Malik Allen, who had been starting at power forward, missed his fourth game with a rib sprain and is listed on the team’s injury report as day to day. Skiles is still wrestling with how he wants to handle the position once Allen get healthy again. “You’ve got to give Charlie a lot of credit,” said Skiles. “He’s accepted that (reserve role) and has played well there. But I still wouldn’t put any permanence on it. Malik was just starting to fit into that role a little bit and unfortunately he got hurt. I’d like to put Mbah a Moute back on the bench, to be honest, just to have him available for different match ups when he comes in as a defender. So maybe when we get Malik back, we’ll go back to that. But I’m starting Luc at (power forward) and it’s kind of unfair to him because he’s always over-matched physically with a bigger player.”
Stephon Marbury is a point guard who is probably best utilized as an undersized shooting guard. He’s also a member of the New York Knicks, though he’s gotten as much court time this season as you have. He’s currently banned by the team, and is on vacation in the West coast. Sweet work if you can get it. Anyway, the Knicks are in Los Angeles tonight to play the Lakers, and there’s a chance that one of the “fans” in the stands watching the game may be Marbury. The New York Post (Marc Berman) reports:
Everybody has heard of the Guinness Book of World Records, a legendary book that contains the unprecedented achievements of people from around the globe. But few have ever made an attempt to add their name to the book’s famous pages and even fewer have actually succeeded in doing so. On Saturday night, the Bucks are giving all fans in attendance the chance to both witness history AND – even better – a guarantee that they will be a part of history by helping to set two Guinness records.