They surprised the league last season. Now other teams will take them more seriously and scout them properly. They are very good but I doubt that they will top their accomplishment last season. Frankly, they are nowhere close to the level of the Rockets this coming season.
Sorry for the double post; I looked up their dept chart on ESPN.com http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/teams/depth?team=okc IMO, they are loaded at every position Guard: Westbrook, Harden, Safalosha, Maynor, Cook Forward: Durant, Green, Collison, Peterson Center: Kristic, Ibaka, Aldrich, Mullens Their GM has done a great job of putting together a young team with a lack of real weakness and also some veteran guys (Peterson, and Collison) They're gonna be good, and will win their Division.
They have won beause they are deep and talented in almost every position, with length and skill as well. If you take Kobe off that team, they would NOT win.
They will compete with us and Dallas for the #2 seed. Dallas is probably the favorite now because they are a team built for the regular season (and built to lose in the first round) but all of us have a chance.
They can be really great, but we've heard this story before. The last hot young up and coming team was the Blazers, but now the world moves on to the Thunder.
This team plays defense with a blooming superstar player (roy= all-star). They will be better than the Blazers. I dont blame the GM for not making any moves. You have to let them grow and mature. They had there taste of what the playoffs is all about and a possible victory in sight. Its up to each player to harness and cultivate that experience for the upcoming season. Any player who does not show improvement or at least significant development will be trade bait. (Yes im looking at you Jeff Green)
Theyre this years sexy pick. Reminds me of the hornets after they won 56 games. I doing they'll repeat what they accomplished last year. Not enough depth and experience and they won't take anyone by surprise. KD is top 3 but he's not enough.
The Lakers aren't deep. No one outside their top eight guys played more than ten minutes per game or played in more than 65 games last year. Vujacic was their ninth best player and he averaged 3ppg in 9 minutes. They have sucked at the point guard position the last two years. They played the first six games against Boston in the Finals going four-on-five on the offensive end because Artest was beyond worthless. On top of that, they managed to win two series (OKC and Boston) when Kobe didn't play particularly well. They won the clinching game against Boston with Kobe having a historically poor performance.
no way they challenge the lakers for the number 1 seed, but they could possibly get homecourt in the first round. KD and RW are going to be ready to try and takeover the league after getting their first taste of the playoffs and then playing in the world championships and looking like the two best players on the team. i expect james harden to be much more consistent this year. i think hes got a lot of potential and if he can begin to reach it they will be really dangerous.
Durantula shot 35% fg and 28% from 3 in the playoffs, but artest was probably just playing defense out of his mind.
Artest saw how physically frail Durant was and got physical with him, bumping and touching and grabbing him at every opportunity. It's not so easy to shoot jump shots when you've been punched around a few times. Durant needs to bulk up and/or get used to contact if he is to take the next step into the upper echelon of players.
They definitely will get better over the years. But they pushed Lakers to 6 because Kobe was playing with one leg, shooting under 40%. He drained the knee after game 5, switched to defend Westbrook, and Thunders were blown out in game 5. It went to the final shot in game 6, but they'd be blown out again if there'd be game 7. Thunders are in the rising, but they are not good enough to challenge Laekers. Maybe after another year and one more quality big.
Historical poor performance. Nice touch. Kobe still got 28.6/40%. Compared to 22/35% for LeBron in his only final appearance. So no, Kobe's nowhere historical compared to LeBron in that sense.
