2019-20 OKC Thunder Regular Season Thread

[slick_watts]

that split is even more pronounced when you look at the adams starters (the noel starters suck regardless). adams starters +16pp100 in first half, -20pp100 in second half.

[ThunderBolt]

that split is even more pronounced when you look at the adams starters (the noel starters suck regardless). adams starters +16pp100 in first half, -20pp100 in second half.

That's hard for me to believe that the difference is that great. Not because Noel is good but Adams hasn't looked that good either.

[spearsy23]

Royce has gotten worse and worse. He doesn't even hide or anymore.

[ThunderBolt]

Royce has gotten worse and worse. He doesn't even hide or anymore.

The Michael Cage of twitter.

[slick_watts]

royce was the conductor of the dion waiters > andre roberson train and even used his status as a thunder reporter to slander 'dre in the dailythunder comments with an unsourced claim that one of the reasons waiters is superior is because his teammates prefer to play with him.

royce is cool for other reasons but his basketball takes have always been bizarre.

[ThunderBolt]

Some comments from the logo in a Sam Amick interivew. Nothing earth shattering but some nice praise for Shai.

So you mentioned being in Vegas when it went down. How did you find out, and what was your reaction at the time?

Well, the night before I’d had a few calls from Lawrence and also from Steve – about three or four. The demands from Oklahoma City were pretty strong, and I just felt that it was in our best interest to go ahead and (do the deal). Everybody talks about all the draft picks we gave away. Well we did give a lot of draft picks away. But two of them were not ours – period, ok? Not ours. So at the end of the day, we gave up three of our draft picks and a terrific young player in Shai, who I think we all feel horrible about. And Gallo (Gallinari), who is a very good player himself. Those are the difficult things, letting players go who you really like.

I think Shai is going to be an All-Star player in this league for a long time, and he’ll keep getting better. But we have two finished products right in the prime of their careers (in Leonard and George) – or just getting in the prime of their careers.2

[mr570]

I hate Nader so much.

[mr570]

The season is starting to wear on me a bit. I need SGA to average like 28 -30 points for a 5 game span.

He literally will never do that if Nader is playing at any point. Even if he is off the court while Nader is on.

[Pillendreher]

Since this was talked about last week or so

Read on Twitter

[ThunderBolt]

Interesting comment from Horne during his chat on the athletic today. This was Horne's response to the question "do you think Donovan is able to bring more of a level of accountability now with Russ gone?"

I think it's easier for coaches to do that with younger players more so than established stars. Donovan was successful in terms of winning, but I don't think he could ever get there completely with Durant, Westbrook, Melo. I think some of that is those guys were established, but also it's just not Donovan's personality to be an authoritarian.

Here's an example: The Thunder-Bucks game. There was a stoppage where Giannis was yelling to get Budenholzer's attention about defensive coverages. He did not stop until Bud finally paid attention. It wasn't like Giannis couldn't figure out who to defend on his own, but he needed to talk to Bud. It was full attention to detail and gameplan from a star trying to accomplish and clarify what his coach wants. That's not to say the Thunder players don't know what to do, but I haven't seen many moments in four plus years where players were that engaged with what Donovan wanted.

[ThatBoyNick]

How do you guys feel about CP3 10 games into the season? How does his impact compare to WB's? Does anybody feel like he has been a clear upgrade or downgrade?

Curious as a Rocket fan who's a big CP3 fan.

[Kizz Fastfists]

How do you guys feel about CP3 10 games into the season? How does his impact compare to WB's? Does anybody feel like he has been a clear upgrade or downgrade?

Curious as a Rocket fan who's a big CP3 fan.

He is a significantly better player than Russ. The obvious is the significantly better shooting. Then you have the much better defense, the better court vision and ability to direct an offense and move without the ball. Russ is faster and more athletic and makes more plays where you are dropping your jaw wondering how it happened, but those wow moments only hide the issues that Russ has to people who are blind to the game.

[Pillendreher]

How do you guys feel about CP3 10 games into the season? How does his impact compare to WB's? Does anybody feel like he has been a clear upgrade or downgrade?

Curious as a Rocket fan who's a big CP3 fan.

He is a significantly better player than Russ. The obvious is the significantly better shooting. Then you have the much better defense, the better court vision and ability to direct an offense and move without the ball. Russ is faster and more athletic and makes more plays where you are dropping your jaw wondering how it happened, but those wow moments only hide the issues that Russ has to people who are blind to the game.

Hold on there, partner. The guy is averaging 15/6 and posting career lows across the board save for his shooting. If that is significantly better, then Russ needs to retire yesterday because he's not even good enough for the G-League anymore.

[Old Man Game]

How do you guys feel about CP3 10 games into the season? How does his impact compare to WB's? Does anybody feel like he has been a clear upgrade or downgrade?

Curious as a Rocket fan who's a big CP3 fan.

I'd feel pretty great about him if he only had like another year on his deal. But this season and 2 more at 40 mill while we're trying to build something, eh, doesn't seem ideal. They'll either have to keep him around or part with draft compensation to get someone to take him because he's not playing like a $40 mill a year guy at this stage of his career.

[slick_watts]

it's a push. cp3 has taken a backseat to sga and others in his time on the court which is surprising but welcome. it's refreshing to see a player not care much about his counting stats for once. i suspect that even though his counting stats are down, many if not all the apm based impact rate metrics will still have chris paul ahead of russell westbrook when they come out. RAPTOR already does. PIPM does too. the thunder robbed houston blind getting those picks and saving the extra season on the payroll for westbrook.

[Pillendreher]

it's refreshing to see a player not care much about his counting stats for once.

Reported.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Hold on there, partner. The guy is averaging 15/6 and posting career lows across the board save for his shooting. If that is significantly better, then Russ needs to retire yesterday because he's not even good enough for the G-League anymore.

Russ has a negative OBPM for the first time in his career. Russ is shooting 22% from 3 on over 5 attempts a game! Russ' usage is still over 30 compared to 22 for CP so I sure hope that Russ is still putting up better counting stats with that usage gap. The Russ decline is very real and Houston winning despite it shows how good their coaching and roster is. CP3 is not the player he once was, but is still better than Russ at this point and on a shorter contract. CP3 is a much better asset and player to have than Russ going forward.

The reports are that teams are afraid of CP3's final contract year. They should be afraid of every year Russ has on his contract. Russ' on/off is -9.6!!! CP3's is +3.9! Russ for CP3 and a massive pick package will potentially be the best trade of Presti's career as long those picks don't end up in the protected range. They will likely all be lottery picks as Russ will keep Houston's cap situation in very bad shape and Harden just turned 30 and while he will age better then Russ he'll still start to drop off and there is no youth in Houston to develop and pick up the slack.

[Osirus89]

Spoiler:

Hold on there, partner. The guy is averaging 15/6 and posting career lows across the board save for his shooting. If that is significantly better, then Russ needs to retire yesterday because he's not even good enough for the G-League anymore.

Russ has a negative OBPM for the first time in his career. Russ is shooting 22% from 3 on over 5 attempts a game! Russ' usage is still over 30 compared to 22 for CP so I sure hope that Russ is still putting up better counting stats with that usage gap. The Russ decline is very real and Houston winning despite it shows how good their coaching and roster is. CP3 is not the player he once was, but is still better than Russ at this point and on a shorter contract. CP3 is a much better asset and player to have than Russ going forward.

The reports are that teams are afraid of CP3's final contract year. They should be afraid of every year Russ has on his contract. Russ' on/off is -9.6!!! CP3's is +3.9! Russ for CP3 and a massive pick package will potentially be the best trade of Presti's career as long those picks don't end up in the protected range. They will likely all be lottery picks as Russ will keep Houston's cap situation in very bad shape and Harden just turned 30 and while he will age better then Russ he'll still start to drop off and there is no youth in Houston to develop and pick up the slack.

I don't buy that Chris Paul is better at this point in their careers. Chris Paul has a positive impact on the floor for a bad team. Russ has had a negative impact for a good team. Chris Paul can't elevate OKC to being decent and Russ hasn't hurt Houston to the point of them being bad. He was playing better than James Harden until Harden's shot started coming around. I was checking and Chris Paul has had 4 games where he has taken less than 10 fga. He took 7 in the game against Indy. Teams aren't going to want him unless he performs better than he is currently which is average NBA starter level. Houston didn't get rid of him just because he and Harden didn't get along at the end. Chris Paul can't beat guys off the dribble anymore, plays at a slow pace which means he is no threat in transition, and is a hamstring tear waiting to happen if he tries to do too much during the RS.

Russ has higher highs and lower lows on average, but Chris Paul just has a ceiling that he can't elevate above no matter how hard he tries. He just doesn't have it in him anymore to be a takeover guy. Half the time it looks like Shai is playing against whole teams by himself. That might be because Donovan is an idiot, but he should be doing a lot more on a team as bereft of talent as this one.

[ThunderBolt]

So far this season Bazley has been on Down to Dunk podcast in the middle of the season. Billy Donovan and Steven Adams have both down live radio interviews with the local sports talk radio affiliate. I believe Adams interview occured was yesterday. Those are just the three that I'm aware of. There may be more. It seems like Presti has released some of the media shackles. I'm sure its a result of trying to generate interest in the team.

[ThunderBolt]

Read on Twitter

I expect a surgery announcement soon.