How old is he? Ok let us assume he won't return to MVP status at least he can still be an Allstar. Is that too much to ask for?
The same age as Penny when he suffered his first major injury. Close to the same age Grant Hill's career took a turn for the worse. It will be weird seeing Durant as anything other than MVP status.
Their best three players missed a large chunk of the season. Suppose harden was out for the 1st 30 games do the rockets make the playoffs?
The problem moving forward is the same one looking back. Westbrook is just too ball-dominant of an ISO player and the system encourages it. It doesn't matter if Durant is healthy because the two stars don't complement each other; they're redundant and both offensive ISO stars. You look around the NBA and every star combo has more complementary attributes or a smarter system to feed off each other and the rest of the team.
Kevin Ollie? : <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>UConn’s Kevin Ollie Being ‘Seriously Considered’ for OKC*Job <a href="http://t.co/FRcaLX7PAS">http://t.co/FRcaLX7PAS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SNYtv">@SNYtv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tsnmike">@tsnmike</a></p>— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamZagoria/status/590228978704736258">April 20, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At this point he would be, at worst, a lateral move from Brooks. OKC will be the 2010's version of the 80s Rockets, the mid 90s Magic, the 2000's Kings, etc. They had everything going for them until the NBA Gods decided "....nah your team's time is over"
I have a feeling you could pencil in OKC as a contender for Aldridge. Houston/OKC? Which one is closer to Dallas(Aldridge's home town)?
Could they afford him after paying Ibaka, re-signing durant, re-signing Westbrook, re-signing Kanter? I, mean, they DID cry poverty to the point they decided Harden was expendable.
The problem for OKC is pretty simple: they chose the wrong guy to send to Houston for Kmart and picks. WB is a great individual player, but just like Iverson he hasn't learned how to play team ball and his individual performance brings his team down. OKC tried to be like Philly and surround WB and KD with low usage defensive guys, unfortunately in the West that's not enough and as KD and WB get older its gonna be harder and harder to maintain their elite status in the cutthroat West. I know WB supporters are gonna deny it but the guy cost his team a playoff spot whilst compiling "historic" numbers...his team shouldn't be that bad with Ibaka, Stevens, Kanter and a couple other guys but they couldn't do anything as WB was taking more shots than the rest of the starters COMBINED.
Except they are consistently excellent when they have all their players healthy. They didn't have Ibaka for the last 18 games. They were in the playoffs up until that point. They are a 3-star team that had 2 of its stars missing and still managed to finish the season 10-8.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Oklahoma City has fired coach Scott Brooks, league source tells Yahoo Sports.</p>— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/WojYahooNBA/status/590929834999734272">April 22, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Please see any post in the GARM with the terms "when healthy" in quotes from about 2005-2012. The result were pretty much nil, saved only by Presti's dumbassery.
