Does Durant really want to sign his prime years away with Westbrook? Why does Durant care so much about leaving at the same time as Westbrook? All its been Durant's entire career is a struggle to make it work with him on the floor. If Durant is smart, he leaves Westbrook once and for all to a team where Durant is the bonifide top dog with good supporting cast around him. Boston and Miami fit that mould.
stephenie was only 70% in the 1st half of game 6, but he just dug in and bit a little harder into his pacifier and overcame. it was a performance surpassing even jordan's flu game. GOAT, in any sport.
In the age of the 3+D guys, OKC's only player who is good at both 3 and D is Kevin Durant. As for the rest of the roster, those who are good at 3s aren't good at D (Morrow) and those who are good at D are not good at 3 (Roberson). OKC went with the D guys over the 3 guys vs. GSW and it worked out well early, a part of it being that their guys got hot shooting while GSW was cold and in disarray. But they really need at least one other guy who can do both 3 and D.
I would say they had a successful season, defeating Spurs and taking Warriors to 7 games. Really how many teams can do that?
They need to rework the defense (which is already good) so Durant or Ibaka don't wind up covering Steph Curry every single 4th quarter with the game on the line - lulz.
They need a better bench, period. When they were up 3-1 I thought they were going to actually pull off the upset with Dion Waiters and Andre Roberson playing significant minutes. Then the choke hold occurred and all was right again. I think Roberson can grow into a Thabo Sefolosha lite and Waiters can play a role but they need a bench. I think even a Reggie Jackson could have put them over the top.
OKC just wasted another season by running Westbrook out there as the point and not developing Payne more as their point guard. Just like our team with Harden at the point, Westbrook is not efficient enough as a playmaker/distributor to win a championship as the lead point. Westbrook, like Harden, has to accept a primary playmaker who is much more efficient with the basketball than he is. Westbrook needs to move off the ball to the SG position where he belongs. He needs to be defending Klay and ramming it back down on Klay while Payne jacks around with Curry and forces Curry to have to run more than Curry has to run defending Westbrook who basically is a straight line driver. I do not understand why people cannot see that.
Assuming they don't lose Durant, they need to stay the course. Try to sign another shooter or two so they don't hit under 20% from downtown like they did in the last 2 games of the WCF. But otherwise, they're very close. They knocked off the 67 win Spurs convincingly and had the Warriors down 3-1 and on the ropes before they coughed up this series. There's no reason to panic.
Stephen A. just echoed this. Durant & Westbrook needs to part ways or Presti needs to bring in a Mike Conley to run the show. When it gets tight, someone else needs to be making the decisions.
Westbrook has proven to be one of the most dynamic players in the league. They don't need to take the ball out of his hands, they need other players on the team capable of making plays. They look way too much like the tmac/Yao rockets where there were only 2 players that could initiate any kind of offense. People give Westbrook crap for being too ball dominant, yet he plays next to a shooting guard who played center in college (and his skill set reflects that) and has absolutely no one coming off the bench. There is way too much burden on Westbrook and Durant offensively. Ibaka is what he is and isn't getting any better. Kanter has some post offense, but they need another perimeter threat. Reggie Jackson would be perfect if he were still on this team this makes OKC immediately worse, a 5 seed at best.
Are people really talking about blowing it up after they destroyed the Spurs and pushed the historically great Warriors to the brink?
He is one of the most dynamic players in the league but he is flawed when it comes to running a team. Russ is both intense and high-strung. Those are two different things. Intensity is good. High-strung is bad and manifests itself over and over down the stretch of games. Russ is simply incapable of being a better decision maker than he is now. He's not cool under pressure. For a lack of a better word, he finally melts down. How many times do you gotta see it?
If Roberson works on and actually improves his catch-and-shoot, corner 3, that's all that kept OKC from winning it all this year. Roberson's defense impressed me this series. He's got a lotta potential.
Well for KD all the answer has to be is "One more time" and he'll stay in OKC and waste another year of his prime before heading out in the mass exodus after next season is over. Personally I think it would be smart for KD to bail now and get on the team he plans to stay with and try to win before his prime runs out but I could see it if he wanted to stick it out another year in the sticks for the bigger payday.
People always overreact in situations like this. Remember, OKC already beat the Spurs and that team needs to reload this summer given how many old guys they have on their roster. And the Warriors are gonna have a tough time hanging onto all of their free agents(Barnes, Speights, Ezeli, Barbosa). There's no reason to panic. That's not to say the Thunder don't need to upgrade at a few positions themselves, but they're very close to winning it all. The worst thing they could do is make a bunch of rash moves because of what happened in the WCF.
OKC was tired. Donovan overplayed them and started shortening his bench as the series went on. It has been 8 seasons of Durant and WB. May be time to rebuild and reload with some SnT for Durant and/or WB next season. Don't think either will stay.
I hope you're being sarcastic. This whole "70%" thing is getting out of hand. After a long season of 73 wins and playoffs, no player is playing at 100%. Fatigue will settle in, especially when you consider how long OKC is and their stiffling defense. Steph is fine. However, I think Klay Thompson should be the MVP of the WCF. He had a phenomenal series and really rescued the team from the brink of elimination.
Y'all talking about OKC as if they were an underwhelming team. Nobody thought they would beat the Spurs and push the Warriors as much as they did. Yes, they ****ed up and didn't get to the finals, but this season was a major success considering they were up against two historical teams. OKC only needs some tweaks and internal growth, something to be expected from a team full of young players and a rookie coach.
