This is a possiblility Spurs 2-2 47-35 Jazz 2-2 47-35 Wolves 3-1 47-35 Pelicans 3-2 46-36 Nuggets 3-1 46-36 Thunder 1-2 46-36 OKC lost tiebreakers to both Pelicans and Nuggets.
Updating @J.R. 's list. Only begin from #4 since the top three teams have pretty much been locked. 4. 45-33 Utah -April 5 vs LA Clippers -April 8 @ Los Angeles Lakers -April 10 vs Golden State -April 11 @ Portland 5. 45-34 San Antonio -April 7 vs Portland -April 9 vs Sacramento -April 11 @ New Orleans 6. 45-34 Oklahoma City -April 7 @ Houston -April 9 @ Miami -April 11 vs Memphis 7. 44-34 Minnesota -April 5 @ Denver -April 6 @ Los Angeles Lakers -April 9 vs Memphis -April 11 vs Denver 8. 44-34 New Orleans -April 6 @ Phoenix -April 7 @ Golden State -April 9 @ LA Clippers -April 11 vs San Antonio 9. 43-35 Denver -April 5 vs Minnesota -April 7 @ LA Clippers -April 9 vs Portland -April 11 @ Minnesota 10. 42-36 LA Clippers -April 5 @ Utah -April 7 vs Denver -April 9 vs New Orleans -April 11 vs Los Angeles Lakers
Easily. Westbrook doesn't get NEARLY the amount of criticism he should get for being a ballstopping, seflis & stats driven player. Why is this?
Media is in love with flashy highlight dunks and triple doubles. They dont give a **** about winning unless it suits whatever agenda they are pimping.
Durant leaving has basically allowed him to get a pass from critics. And his box score stats look good to the average nba fan
I blame the media. But they only feed off what the fans want. Most typical fans don't really follow the "game" of basketball. It's more about the highlight clips, shoes, cool commercials, players dancing, etc..The media caters to this type of fan. These ppl are stupid and the media plays off their stupidity
Historically those players are celebrated. Really Westbrick is just all of the worst parts of Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson's game cranked up to 11 and those guys were very much celebrated despite their ball stopping, selfish, and stats driven style of play.
Thunder Tiebreakers: Win tiebreakers over: Jazz (3-1), Clippers (3-0) Lose tiebreakers to: Timberwolves (3-1), Pelicans (2-1), Nuggets (3-1) Split series: Spurs (2-2) Note: 5-11 division record Remaining Schedule: Thunder: Rockets, Heat, Grizzlies Timberwolves: Nuggets, Lakers, Grizzlies, Nuggets Pelicans: Suns, Warriors, Clippers, Spurs Nuggets: Timberwolves, Clippers, Trail Blazers, Timberwolves Gentlemen, We need to orchestrate a 4-way tie between these teams to ensure Thunder Schadenfreude reaches maximum potency and pleasure when the Thunder drop to 9th and miss the playoffs altogether. Now, I don't have to tell you what to do; bad juju, negative vibes, gematria, illuminati intervention -- just do whatever you have to and make it happen. Godspeed!
Looks like there's no chance Jazz fall to 7. They might win all 4 of those games because Portland and GS can rest those last two games. Shame. I really wanted them to play GSW in the first round.
Patrick Redford from Deadspin - author of that post - is hear no evil/see no evil with regard to Westbrook. He was churning out "Russ is the MVP, fools" posts on a weekly basis last year. I have never read him say anything negative about Russ. No mea culpa after the dysfunctional nature of the Thunder was exposed last year in April, after Oladipo became an all star, no nothing. here's instead what you get from Redford after the playoffs last year: The other basketball guys they have are a bit better - Burneko, Ley etc, but Redford, and some others from there are pure fanboy when it comes to this.
Kobe? The same guy who won 5 rings? Westbrook will be lucky to win 1 and AI didn't have any. Apple & oranges
The same guy who was the 2nd best player on teams that won 5 rings, yes. Derek Fisher also has 5 rings....clearly that "stat" matters.
Another thing Kobe and Westbrick have in common is that Kobe too ran off the best player he ever played with and the Lakers never got another top of the line FA pickup after he started playing there. Westbrick has run off the 2 best players he's ever played with and as of yet, the Thunder have been forced to trade for players because no top of the line FA's want to play beside him. Now sure, Kobe is better than Westbrick, but they have a LOT in common. As I said, Westbrick is all of the worst things about Kobe all cranked up to 11.
Besides Durant who else has he ran off? Harden was traded away and that was completely an OKC management move not a Westbrook one. I think playing in OKC has more to with players not signing as FA compared to playing with Westbrook. I am not trying to defend the way Westbrook plays here, but what point does the focus shift to Donovan? I mean he is the coach and it doesn't look like he has even attempted to put in any sort of offensive system other than "Give WB or KD the ball" From recent post game quotes it sounds like he doesn't even really command authority over what WB should or shouldn't do. I still think WB can be a player who can be a 2nd option on a championship winning team, but certainly not playing the current style that he is in. Donovan has done nothing to address this or fix this and its been what 3 seasons now?
Part of Harden's desire to leave OKC was so that he wouldn't be buried on the bench. If not for Westbrick, that wouldn't have been the case. Either way, if we only blame him for Durant, that means Kobe and Westbrick are tied at 1 apiece for future HOFers they ran off. I don't think anyone can blame Donovan really, what can he do? Westbrick is uncoachable given that if it comes down to it the franchise is going to fire the coach for the player without a second thought about it. A legit coach would never take that job in the first place due to how terrible a position they would be put in. Westbrick thinks his awful style of basketball is amazing and I don't see him changing for anyone and that's why I don't see a scenario where he'd ever be the best or second best player on a championship team. I mean, as it stands he's currently either the second or third best player on OKC (depending on how you feel about Steven Adams) and they are struggling to even make the playoffs....and that's why the Thunder are screwed.
I wouldn't go on about how Kobe "Ran Shaq off the team", from all that I have heard, and by looking at some of the stats from their last season together, i've drawn up some interesting conclusions. The Lakers already had the highest payroll in basketball by far, and most of the team was made up of old role players. Kobe was actually the superior player to Shaq at the time, while being 6 years younger and free of any major injury history. Shaq had declined to such a point that the Pistons could put Wallace on him and not get completely destroyed, allowing for them to deny Kobe the ball, frustrating him to such an extent that he became incredibly impatient when he did get the ball, resulting in the worst finals series of his career. After that, Shaq demanded a max contract, which wouldn't have allowed the Lakers to sign Kobe to his max contract, so Shaq walked, along with most of those old, but valuable role players.
Holy **** man...literally everything can happen, so many teams playing against each other to stay alive... Utah should win 2 or 3 games there, same for the Spurs...we really need to beat OKC.
