The pass that Kevin Durant receives from fans and the media is hilarious. The most protected superstar in NBA history
There is no denying he is talented. It is just a matter of being a bad fit with Durant. Durant needs a role player not an alpha guy. Durant turns alpha without an alpha, but with one, he is more than happy becoming beta. Durant being a top 2 player in the NBA, should NEVER not be the alpha on his team. Heat didn't win till James figured that out, and Thunder won't win till Durant figures it out.
Far from wrong. This thread was started when Westbrook came back and started chucking shots left and right... KD even made a comment about standing in the corner. Westbrick hurts the thunder when he plays this way. Then, he had a triple double and stopped chucking... they won and they looked good. He helps the Thunder when he plays that way. It's simple, really.
This. If Westbrook wants to be a pass first triple double machine then the Thunder will probably win it all. If he wants to be an alpha dog shoot first chucker then they got big problems and KD should leave.
He's putting up the same stats with WB. What's the point? They're losing these games because of DEFENSE, not offense. Every single game they have lost since WB has returned is due to giving up a bajillion points. It's ridiculous that everything goes to WB.
Agree with you. WB was a Froot Loop today, but OKC's huge flaw right now is D. They can no longer turn it on and shut down teams whenever they want. A 5-point game with over 4 mins left should have been "ball game" for OKC. But the sorry Lakers kept scoring (none by Jodie Meeks).
lol nobody wants to hear the truth. All these losses by the Thunder they have given up a lot of points. Too bad people only focus on the offensive end.
Defense also takes chemistry, as much if not moreso than offense. OKC needs to fix that soon if they want to advance to the Finals. The Spurs would dissect them with ease at this rate if they meet in a 7-game series. But the playoffs are still a month and a half away. Still plenty of time for the contenders to fix their kinks. WB has been superb offensively since he returned. He only averages 25-30 minutes a game since he's been back so the defensive issues go beyond him. Teams are simply scoring at will against them lately.
Nuggets from my notebook from Sunday's loss to the Lakers This is as bad as it’s been for the Thunder in quite a while. Since the team transformed into a title contender, the defense hasn’t been this bad for this long. OKC has now lost five of eight since the break and is giving up 110.2 points on 47.4 percent shooting over that span. Pinpointing the cause of the Thunder’s problem was tricky before this game. Not after. I wrote about it for Monday’s paper. This team is no longer playing for each other. Too many guys have different agendas. Too many are doing their own thing. Too many are playing for the wrong reasons. Kevin Durant is gunning for his first most valuable player award. Reggie Jackson is playing for a lucrative extension this summer. Russell Westbrook is working himself back into shape. It’s selfish basketball, the kind we’ve rarely seen take shape in OKC. It doesn’t define all 48 minutes. But it’s seen in stretches. Far too many of them. The Thunder simply isn’t playing with the right focus. Winning simply hasn’t been the sole mission. Other objectives, various things for various players, are being targeted while winning stands as the greater goal. But that’s become a problem. Kevin Durant’s triple-double was the unfortunate example of that in this one. He had 10 points, five rebounds and five assists after one quarter. And after checking back in with 7:58 left in the second, he spent the entire quarter padding his stats, searching for the assists he would need to notch the triple-double. It was obvious what he was doing, and it was a bad decision once the Lakers started mounting a comeback. Durant took just one shot in the final eight minutes of the second quarter. It came with 43 seconds left. My guess is he felt comfortable enough with an 18-point lead to start manipulating the game and playing for numbers. It backfired. Because while he was padding his stats, the Lakers were storming back, cutting an 18-point deficit to two. Durant didn’t score in the period. Didn’t get to the stripe, either. The Lakers were taking command of the game, seizing all the momentum, and the best scorer on the planet got up just one shot while it was happening. That was a problem. In Durant’s defense, he made some really good passes during that stretch. Deliberate, no doubt. But good nonetheless. He got teammates Derek Fisher, Caron Butler and Serge Ibaka quality looks. They missed. But that’s where Durant should have stopped passing it to them. Ordinarily, it’s ideal to continue to trust your teammates. But the Lakers were rallying and yet Durant continued to be consumed with getting his assists up. Fisher hit the nail on the head after the game, unexpectedly confirming that this team isn’t playing with proper focus when I asked him what’s wrong with the defense. “It’s tough to say and separate offense or defense right now in terms of our team,” Fisher started. “It’s obvious that defensively we’re struggling in terms of how many points teams are scoring, field-goal percentage, etc. But I think it’s just a larger perspective in terms of where we are as a team and our mentality, our mindset, our ability to bring the right type of focus to the game. So, for me, I think it’s everything, and it’s easy to point to the defense and points, just like it’s easy to look at a stat sheet and say ‘Oh, the guy that scored 20 points played better than the guy that scored four points,’ which is not always true. And so I just think as a team we have to decide what’s most important to us. And if it’s the team success, then you’ll start to see, offensively and defensively, things tighten up the way they need to tighten up.” After that reply, I asked Fisher a follow-up, asking whether a bigger issue is in play. “I mean, just in terms of respecting the game, respecting each other, bringing the right sense of urgency to our jobs, that’s what we get paid to do,” Fisher said. “We’re not losing games because teams are better than us. We’re losing games because of things that we’re doing poorly. You always give credit to your opponent, and I’ll do the same thing today. But it’s no question we’re just not bringing the right focus, the right mentality, to the game that one would expect from us. Not outside of the locker room. What we should expect from ourselves.” Another reporter then asked Fish if he was wondering whether his teammates’ priorities are in the right place. “No, I’m not wondering if they are,” Fisher said. “I don’t question guys’ commitment to the team. I’m saying, right now, we’re not putting it collectively out on the court. I never worry about that in this locker room in terms of priorities and whether or not the team comes first. But it’s very challenging to, over the course of an 82 game season, collectively put that out on the court. And right now we’re not doing that. And we have to do a much better job in that area. And that’s when you’ll start to see the way we’re playing the game, offensively, defensively, our field-goal percentage defensively, the effort, the things that need to happen, I think those things will improve as we improve our mindset.” With those last three nuggets, Fisher adequately summed up what’s wrong with this team right now. The Thunder certainly doesn’t want to hear it, but maybe this team needs to. It’s bigger than just bad defense or the absence of Thabo Sefolosha and Kendrick Perkins. This team just isn’t focused on the right thing at the moment. I wonder if the MVP race is getting to Durant’s head. Forget what he says. Study his play. One night after LeBron James scored 61 points, Durant answered with 42 through three quarters. Today, Durant was hellbent on getting a resume-boosting triple-double. His missing free throws — perhaps the most mental thing in the game — at a relatively alarming rate. All these things are potential signs that it’s weighing on him. And how could it not? Despite what Durant or anyone on his team says, this award matters to him. A lot. It would be his first one and would be another step toward solidifying his place in the game’s history. It seems natural for this race to seep inside his head. Jodie Meeks scored a career-high 42 points. And no one did anything to put out that fire. That’s becoming too common a theme for the Thunder. Durant and Russell Westbrook continue to talk about defense, but I’m not seeing either of them actually step up and play it. As the leaders of this team and two of the best players on the planet, one of those guys has to accept the challenge. Frankly, I’m shocked that they haven’t in games like this. Westbrook on his poor shooting game: “It happens. It’s normal, man. That happens all the time. No worries, man. You got 82 games. Be ready to play the next game. Missing some shots happen, man. But I don’t think the game is about shooting, man. You just got to defend, play hard and try to win.”
Even with that I've seen Brooks let WB take a wild shot towards the end clearing out KD when that shouldn't be happening at all. The coach is also apart of the problem.
It's the same thing as the Heat from a few years ago. They put up amazing stats too without knowing who was the alpha, but the total team gelling didn't happen. Stats don't tell the whole story. It just seems to me that if Durant could take over as alpha, everything else will fall into place. I've never seen an NBA champion with 2 alphas. Even if you have a super talented team, 1 guy has to take the leadership role.
Mayberry and the Oklahoman writers are usually soft on the Thunder, but a game like this will bring out the candor. I'm the biggest KD homer on the forum but I completely with the bolded. KD needs to screw his head on straight, forget about accolades, ignore what LeBron does, play to win each game and not worry about his stats.
Oddly enough, if he tried to become a lockdown defender, it beyond everything else would cement an MVP. But defense has not been in the cards.
blah, no franchise-level wing player no matter how talented acts as a lockdown defender for 48 minutes a night, not Jordan, not LeBron, not Kobe, not anybody. They pick their spots to conserve energy. I don't blame them for it either - they're judging, correctly, that they help the team more by saving it for the offensive end where they carry the load, and let the Patrick Beverleys of the universe apply full court pressure like mad dogs instead. In situations where they DON'T have to do it, and can focus on defense, the results are different (see Wade and LeBron trapping in the Olympics).
Kd is a beta male. Plain and simple. Until James got his own team, he was a beta male and now he has accepted the role of being the alpha dog. Westbrook is a winner. I don't care what y'all say, he is very very important for the thunder. If y'all remember the finals vs heat, he was the one carrying them while Durant didn't show up.
