2018-2019 OKC Thunder Regular Season Pt 1: A Renewed Hope

[Pillendreher]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

He has to make up for 3 years of being horrible before he can expect praise out of me. This is the kind of performance we should have been seeing all along. Not to this extent defensively, but still. This is the first time in a long long time that it actually feels like our talent level is translating to on court performance.

[Pillendreher]

How the hell did Russ and Ferg manage to have babies on the same day

[spearsy23]

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How the hell did Russ and Ferg manage to have babies on the same day

And on Russell Westbrook day!

[spearsy23]

I'm still a Ferg supporter, but he's literally shooting at a Roberson level and is worse at everything else offensively. Even if we accepted the premise that the offense has been good and cohesive, attributing that to having an NBA caliber shooting guard doesn't make sense.

[ThunderBolt]

I'm still a Ferg supporter, but he's literally shooting at a Roberson level and is worse at everything else offensively. Even if we accepted the premise that the offense has been good and cohesive, attributing that to having an NBA caliber shooting guard doesn't make sense.

Totally agree. I’m just still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this kid was supposed to be a shooter. He had a wide open three a couple of games a go that almost broke the freaking backboard.

[slick_watts]

some of the individual offensive #'s in that lineup are fishy and clearly small sample variance of the favorable sort but the defense might be legit.

[slick_watts]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

and we won all those game and not only that, many of them convincingly. the starting lineup he has been using has succeeded and the team is defending without andre roberson which it could not do at all the last two years.

credit where credit is due.

advantage in star power? lol. ok.

[ThunderBolt]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

and we won all those game and not only that, many of them convincingly. the starting lineup he has been using has succeeded and the team is defending without andre roberson which it could not do at all the last two years.

credit where credit is due.

advantage in star power? lol. ok.

You mentioned the loss of Adrian Griffin being very significant in the offseason. It just doesn’t make sense that losing an assistant coach would hurt the team but if the team succeeds with the new guy, he gets no credit. It all goes to the head coach. You aren’t being consistent. If bob better gets no credit then Adrian Griffin was overrated.

Really this idea that one person deserves all of the blame/credit is dumb. Win or lose Presti, Dononvan, Russ, the other players and even Bob Beyer have some part in the results.

[spearsy23]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

and we won all those game and not only that, many of them convincingly. the starting lineup he has been using has succeeded and the team is defending without andre roberson which it could not do at all the last two years.

credit where credit is due.

advantage in star power? lol. ok.

Doesn't that depend on the adjustments? As with some other adjustments in the past, some of the things we're doing are things that we obviously should've been doing in the past, ie having Adams defend at the rim more often and switch less.

[bondom34]

I mean advantage in star power is true, it isn't saying much when you beat the Suns 3 times, NY without Porzingis, the Cavs without Love or Hill, etc. He's been bad for 3 years, they've finally been kinda focused for the first time in his tenure and he hasn't done anything negligently stupid. I don't know if he gets a cookie for it.

[Old Man Game]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

and we won all those game and not only that, many of them convincingly. the starting lineup he has been using has succeeded and the team is defending without andre roberson which it could not do at all the last two years.

credit where credit is due.

advantage in star power? lol. ok.

Do you care to make an actual argument here? Are you telling me George and Adams aren't a better duo then any any of these (outside Houston) which we've beaten in this run?

[Old Man Game]

Donovan sucks. Period. The schedule's been soft and this is a superstar league. Fact is we've had the advantage in star power in nearly all these games even without Russ in the line up. Only the Houston game was that not true and Houston was in the middle of an existential crisis in the form of Melo. So don't give me anything about Billdoh's accomplishments. He's a replacement level coach at best.

and we won all those game and not only that, many of them convincingly. the starting lineup he has been using has succeeded and the team is defending without andre roberson which it could not do at all the last two years.

credit where credit is due.

advantage in star power? lol. ok.

You mentioned the loss of Adrian Griffin being very significant in the offseason. It just doesn’t make sense that losing an assistant coach would hurt the team but if the team succeeds with the new guy, he gets no credit. It all goes to the head coach. You aren’t being consistent. If bob better gets no credit then Adrian Griffin was overrated.

Really this idea that one person deserves all of the blame/credit is dumb. Win or lose Presti, Dononvan, Russ, the other players and even Bob Beyer have some part in the results.

In sum, Mr. 'You can't have it both ways' is trying to have it both ways. Bob Beyer is an incompetent nincompoop but the team is winning and the defense is good so Dono, despite 3 full years of evidence pointing to him being an average to below average coach needs credit where due.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Has anyone noticed that teams that make the change to give everyone a green light from 3 struggle from their from the get go? You just have to trust that the 3s are going to fall at least a 3rd of the time, which we are not that far away from.

Name all the players for OKC that you trust to make 1/3 of their 3pt attempts. I can only name 3. Despite only have 3 players capable of shooting at your minimum level of 33% they have SIX players taking 3+ three point shots a game and that doesn't include Russ or Felton who are at 2.8 and 2.9.

[slick_watts]

so are we just going to ignore that the westbrooks named their twin girls "skye jordyn"? is this fulfilling terms in his shoe deal or something?

[slick_watts]

Really this idea that one person deserves all of the blame/credit is dumb.

right. this is all i'm demonstrating here.

and yes, bob beyer is a dunce.

[slick_watts]

In sum, Mr. 'You can't have it both ways' is trying to have it both ways. Bob Beyer is an incompetent nincompoop but the team is winning and the defense is good so Dono, despite 3 full years of evidence pointing to him being an average to below average coach needs credit where due.

we went from replacement level to average in the course of one conversation. i'll take it.

[slick_watts]

I mean advantage in star power is true, it isn't saying much when you beat the Suns 3 times, NY without Porzingis, the Cavs without Love or Hill, etc. He's been bad for 3 years, they've finally been kinda focused for the first time in his tenure and he hasn't done anything negligently stupid. I don't know if he gets a cookie for it.

haha what. did you miss the 2016 playoffs?

the idea is that you make every excuse in the book to avoid giving donovan credit for anything, because your entire take on the thunder is centered on donovan being bad.

[bondom34]

I gave credit earlier. And yea, considering you said explicitly he's a bad coach going to say you can't have it both ways.

[slick_watts]

I gave credit earlier. And yea, considering you said explicitly he's a bad coach going to say you can't have it both ways.

coaches can improve. brooks was case in point. he went from clueless to fairly decent. i don't think donovan is especially helpful but if the defense holds up despite the roadblocks, wouldn't it warrant a re-evaluation of him? i think so. and he should get some dap in the meantime.

of course this could all be an illusion of small sample variance and teams will shoot 40%+ from three in the corners the next month and our defense will fall to below league average like it usually does without andre roberson. the premise is: what if it doesn't? i can't even remember a four week period like we have now where we defended this well without him, even taking competition into account. can you?

[Pillendreher]

because your entire take on the thunder is centered on donovan being bad.

He is bad. Nothing changed in that regard. The bigger question to me is why he got a pass for not adjusting the scheme - like we talked about on here for weeks on end - when Roberson went down last season. Now we're defending differently without Roberson out there and lo and behold, a team that plays two great defenders in George and Adams and defensive roleplayers around them save for the point guard is suddenly not bottom 10 level bad on defense anymore. So this is either Ferguson and Grant giving them the biggest boost imaginable defensively, or actually a change in coaching. Maybe we should have schemed for Adams to be closer to the basket on defense last season instead of sticking with the same bull even though it wasn't working anymore without Roberson. But back then we were an "over team" and trapped the **** Utah Jazz on the PnR. Yet that was also Westbrook's fault the way I remember it.

Donovan has to make up for years of bad coaching before I start praising him. And I'm not going to get fooled into doing that when he has a roster to work with that is full of defense first guys. If there's one thing this team should be good at either way, it's defense.