Thunderfan86
01-09-2015, 08:24 PM
Pretty good read: http://newsok.com/article/5383199
Here's the Q&A from the article. Durant gets a little annoyed with the line of questioning.
But at the team's Friday morning's shootaround, Durant grew defiant when questioned about the team's reliance on him and Westbrook.
From the outside looking in it looks like you guys are overly reliant on you and Russell. Do you feel that on the court, that you guys just have so much responsibility and have to do it all offensively?
"The key thing you said is outside looking in," Durant said. "So, no."
So you don't feel like that on the court, when you guys don't play well and score at least 50 or more combined that you guys struggle offensively?
"I mean, we get paid to come through for our team. That's what we're here for," Durant said. "As a scorer we're here to make plays. If any team's two best players don't play well they're going to struggle. That's just a part of the game. But there's time where we have struggled and we won some big games because of it, because our teammates stepped up and our teammates made plays for us as well. Of course the majority of the time when we struggled as bad as we've struggled shooting the basketball the last few games we're going to struggle as a team because we're the two best players."
Moving on.
Westbrook's performance was particularly disturbing. The team's point guard went 8-for-40 on the two-game trip. He was 1-for-10 from 3-point range and had nine assists and nine turnovers. When in doubt, Westbrook kept shooting, sticking to his well-established motto of staying in attack mode. All the while, no one appeared to try to get the point guard in check.
When Russ is struggling like he is with his shot and his turnovers, like he did in Sacramento especially, what's the best way to kind of calm him down and get him out of that?
"Russell wants to do so well and I think he gets so mad at himself when he makes bad plays and he doesn't shoot the ball well or turns the ball over," Durant said. "We just got to tell him just to believe in himself, have faith in it and just move on. Because we're all still players learning in this league, and I do it a lot to, dwell on the last play. We're all learning to just get past it. We need Russell to be aggressive no matter what. It's times where he hasn't shot the ball well, but he always comes through for us at the end. It's just the last few games we dug ourselves in a huge hole. So we just need him to continue to be himself, man, and keep being aggressive."
Do you guys tell him that that aggressiveness doesn't always have to be shots?
"Well, that sounds like something you want to tell him," Durant said. "So I'll bring him over here so you can tell him."
So I could take that as a no? Nobody says anything to him about it?
"We need Russell to be aggressive," Durant said. "We need him to be who he is. We don't take anything away from anybody's game here. We kind of channel it to what we want to do. But we don't take anything away from anybody's game. But I'll tell him you said that."
Somebody needs to.
This is Year 7, and the Thunder's offense is still a glorified two-man game.
Here's the Q&A from the article. Durant gets a little annoyed with the line of questioning.
But at the team's Friday morning's shootaround, Durant grew defiant when questioned about the team's reliance on him and Westbrook.
From the outside looking in it looks like you guys are overly reliant on you and Russell. Do you feel that on the court, that you guys just have so much responsibility and have to do it all offensively?
"The key thing you said is outside looking in," Durant said. "So, no."
So you don't feel like that on the court, when you guys don't play well and score at least 50 or more combined that you guys struggle offensively?
"I mean, we get paid to come through for our team. That's what we're here for," Durant said. "As a scorer we're here to make plays. If any team's two best players don't play well they're going to struggle. That's just a part of the game. But there's time where we have struggled and we won some big games because of it, because our teammates stepped up and our teammates made plays for us as well. Of course the majority of the time when we struggled as bad as we've struggled shooting the basketball the last few games we're going to struggle as a team because we're the two best players."
Moving on.
Westbrook's performance was particularly disturbing. The team's point guard went 8-for-40 on the two-game trip. He was 1-for-10 from 3-point range and had nine assists and nine turnovers. When in doubt, Westbrook kept shooting, sticking to his well-established motto of staying in attack mode. All the while, no one appeared to try to get the point guard in check.
When Russ is struggling like he is with his shot and his turnovers, like he did in Sacramento especially, what's the best way to kind of calm him down and get him out of that?
"Russell wants to do so well and I think he gets so mad at himself when he makes bad plays and he doesn't shoot the ball well or turns the ball over," Durant said. "We just got to tell him just to believe in himself, have faith in it and just move on. Because we're all still players learning in this league, and I do it a lot to, dwell on the last play. We're all learning to just get past it. We need Russell to be aggressive no matter what. It's times where he hasn't shot the ball well, but he always comes through for us at the end. It's just the last few games we dug ourselves in a huge hole. So we just need him to continue to be himself, man, and keep being aggressive."
Do you guys tell him that that aggressiveness doesn't always have to be shots?
"Well, that sounds like something you want to tell him," Durant said. "So I'll bring him over here so you can tell him."
So I could take that as a no? Nobody says anything to him about it?
"We need Russell to be aggressive," Durant said. "We need him to be who he is. We don't take anything away from anybody's game here. We kind of channel it to what we want to do. But we don't take anything away from anybody's game. But I'll tell him you said that."
Somebody needs to.
This is Year 7, and the Thunder's offense is still a glorified two-man game.