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

hardenASG13 · Post #2301 » by **hardenASG13** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:04 am

Ferguson might not be the next jimmy butler........but he's beginning to look alot like the next Danny green!

Dn4sty · Post #2302 » by **Dn4sty** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:08 am

hardenASG13 wrote:Ferguson might not be the next jimmy butler........but he's beginning to look alot like the next Danny green!

You aren’t allowed to have this take, as you’ve repeatedly said how bad he is while talking about how great Schroder is.

spearsy23 · Post #2303 » by **spearsy23** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:36 am

hardenASG13 wrote:Ferguson might not be the next jimmy butler........but he's beginning to look alot like the next Danny green!

I'll start accepting my credit now.

Also I'll wait for him to go back to shooting 20% because we can't have nice things.

Post #2304 » by **slick_watts** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 3:02 am

hardenASG13 wrote:Ferguson might not be the next jimmy butler........but he's beginning to look alot like the next Danny green!

Old Man Game · Post #2305 » by **Old Man Game** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 3:48 am

slick_watts wrote:i get it. but he'll be one of the worst players to have their number retired who didn't die during their playing career (e.g. malik sealy, bobby phils). they could have waited and done westbrook or durant first.

You aren't the first person I've seen mention this (just look at some of the replies on twitter to that post announcing it). You have to wonder, did the thunder not even consider that it might not actually be a good thing to do this to him. He's now the answer in a college dorm room/message board style debate, "Who is the worst player to have his jersey retired?" "Easy, Nick Collison." They've sort of given him a bad sort of notoriety in that sense.

hardenASG13 · Post #2306 » by **hardenASG13** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:46 am

Dn4sty wrote:
hardenASG13 wrote:Ferguson might not be the next jimmy butler........but he's beginning to look alot like the next Danny green!

You aren’t allowed to have this take, as you’ve repeatedly said how bad he is while talking about how great Schroder is.

What? Are opinions on players and player performance set in stone? Mine aren't.... I call it as I see it, the guy is developing a bunch of confidence and shooting with no hesitation. He can run the wing like green and knock down threes. Grow up.

Hate Schroeder all you want but he has saved the thunder numerous times this year, and is way better than Felton. If he wasn't coming off the bench, what would their bench even be? He's really the only legit perimeter player they have on it.

wco81 · Post #2307 » by **wco81** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:53 am

The thing about Collison is that he used to say Seattle fans were wronged by how they lost their franchise.

Post #2308 » by **ThunderBolt** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:12 pm

wco81 wrote:The thing about Collison is that he used to say Seattle fans were wronged by how they lost their franchise.

He made some comments when the team was still in Seattle. Big deal. I would rather live in Seattle than Oklahoma City too. That was his home at the time. There really isn’t any reason to hold it against him. It’s not like he was a malcontent in okc.

Pillendreher · Post #2309 » by **Pillendreher** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:11 pm

Week 13 of this NBA season is coming to an end today. Since the start of the 3rd week (10/29), we have the best (cleaningtheglass)/2nd best (stats.nba.com/pbpstats.com) NetRtG in the league. That's 11 weeks with lots of different opponents, up and downs from players, injuries, etc. The offense over that stretch would rank 14th (stats.nba.com)/15th (cleaningtheglass/pbpstats.com) and the defense would rank 1st (all 3 sites). The NetRtG would result in a 61 win (cleaningtheglass)/59 win (stats.nba.com/pbpstats.com) pace.

Russ needs to stop sucking. They need to trade for shooters. Schröder needs to play better.

Thunder Up!

Post #2310 » by **slick_watts** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:03 pm

recency bias. first couple weeks count just as much as the rest.

SecondTake · Post #2311 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:16 pm

But doesnt the Defense look worse? Our Drtg is taking a beating the past week or two and it seems guys keep having career nights against us. Wiggins, Bellinelli, LMA, Bertans , Nurkic all feasting on us.

Feels like our offense is improving, but we're trading in our defense to do it.

SecondTake · Post #2312 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:18 pm

slick_watts wrote:recency bias. first couple weeks count just as much as the rest.

Yeah, but trends can be meaningful too. A teams performance can improve (or decline) through a season. Coaches are making adjustments, guys are practicing their shots, chemistry is improving. You might be right, but I'm hopeful the offense will continue to improve.

Pillendreher · Post #2313 » by **Pillendreher** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:25 pm

slick_watts wrote:recency bias. first couple weeks count just as much as the rest.

"recency bias" when I'm talking about a 37 game sample. :roll:

Of course you can't discount the first five games. As the season goes on, they will matter less and less. But we both know that there are such things as developments and changes that are here to stay within a season. And now we're talking about almost half the season that the team has played at this level. There are issues and they could cost them in the Playoffs, but we're allowed to talk about this. For 2.5 months now they've been one of the best teams in the league. That matters.

Pillendreher · Post #2314 » by **Pillendreher** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:34 pm

SecondTake wrote:But doesnt the Defense look worse? Our Drtg is taking a beating the past week or two and it seems guys keep having career nights against us. Wiggins, Bellinelli, LMA, Bertans , Nurkic all feasting on us.

Feels like our offense is improving, but we're trading in our defense to do it.

~109 DRtG is league average. We're still ~6 pp100p better than that.

SecondTake · Post #2315 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:00 pm

Pillendreher wrote:
SecondTake wrote:But doesnt the Defense look worse? Our Drtg is taking a beating the past week or two and it seems guys keep having career nights against us. Wiggins, Bellinelli, LMA, Bertans , Nurkic all feasting on us.

Feels like our offense is improving, but we're trading in our defense to do it.

~109 DRtG is league average. We're still ~6 pp100p better than that.

Last 5 games Drtg is 114.4 which is bottom 6 during that stretch. That concerns me. Seems to be sliding down.

Going 10 games back we're top 5 Drtg, which is OK, but with our putrid offense we really need to be #1 or #2 to contend.

Post #2316 » by **slick_watts** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:18 pm

SecondTake wrote:Last 5 games Drtg is 114.4 which is bottom 6 during that stretch. That concerns me. Seems to be sliding down.

Going 10 games back we're top 5 Drtg, which is OK, but with our putrid offense we really need to be #1 or #2 to contend.

the defense has fallen off from -7.3 pp100 relative to league average to -5.9. it was unlikely the defense would continue to be top 10 all time, but it's still elite.

the offense is more concerning.

Pillendreher wrote:"recency bias" when I'm talking about a 37 game sample. Of course you can't discount the first five games. As the season goes on, they will matter less and less. But we both know that there are such things as developments and changes that are here to stay within a season. And now we're talking about almost half the season that the team has played at this level. There are issues and they could cost them in the Playoffs, but we're allowed to talk about this. For 2.5 months now they've been one of the best teams in the league. That matters.

there have been positive and negative developments over the course of the season. i think it's weird to look at the season in slices that aren't defined by tangible events. how has the thunder played since westbrook came back from his ankle? that would be meaningful imo. 'since the third week of the season' just seems like a way to say 'ignoring the 0-4 start'.

Kizz Fastfists · Post #2317 » by **Kizz Fastfists** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:26 pm

slick_watts wrote:there have been positive and negative developments over the course of the season. i think it's weird to look at the season in slices that aren't defined by tangible events. how has the thunder played since westbrook came back from his ankle? that would be meaningful imo. 'since the third week of the season' just seems like a way to say 'ignoring the 0-4 start'.

I work with some people who start half their conversations about the team with "we would be in first place if not for the 0-4 start without Russ". It is impossible to talk reasonably with them. They also refuse to accept the possibility that Russ is in decline. I love the "Russ is averaging a triple double so he can't be in decline" statements I hear over and over. As if being in decline means a great player becomes trash. He is clearly not as good as he was and that is decline. Russ is still fast in the open court, but not as fast as he used to be. Russ can still get up, but not consistently as high as he used to. Russ can still finish at the rim, but not through contact like he used to. His FT rate is down because he is avoiding more contact in the paint where he used to seek it out.

SecondTake · Post #2318 » by **SecondTake** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:30 pm

Kizz Fastfists wrote:
slick_watts wrote:there have been positive and negative developments over the course of the season. i think it's weird to look at the season in slices that aren't defined by tangible events. how has the thunder played since westbrook came back from his ankle? that would be meaningful imo. 'since the third week of the season' just seems like a way to say 'ignoring the 0-4 start'.

I work with some people who start half their conversations about the team with "we would be in first place if not for the 0-4 start without Russ". It is impossible to talk reasonably with them. They also refuse to accept the possibility that Russ is in decline. I love the "Russ is averaging a triple double so he can't be in decline" statements I hear over and over. As if being in decline means a great player becomes trash. He is clearly not as good as he was and that is decline. Russ is still fast in the open court, but not as fast as he used to be. Russ can still get up, but not consistently as high as he used to. Russ can still finish at the rim, but not through contact like he used to. His FT rate is down because he is avoiding more contact in the paint where he used to seek it out.

Well that 0-4 start is kind of an anomaly. Russ is the engine of that team, a better indication of how we're doing is our team success with Russ on the court. We could count the 2 losses against SAS and BOS since they're both good teams and we had Russ on the court, but those first 2 losses aren't really indicative of anything so that's why they get discounted.

RalphSampsonJr · Post #2319 » by **RalphSampsonJr** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 8:54 pm

SecondTake wrote:But doesnt the Defense look worse? Our Drtg is taking a beating the past week or two and it seems guys keep having career nights against us. Wiggins, Bellinelli, LMA, Bertans , Nurkic all feasting on us.

Feels like our offense is improving, but we're trading in our defense to do it.

Individual players having career nights can be a good thing.. its when 6 players score 15+ on good eff that makes it hard to win.

All those players you just mentioned had games where the thunder won or only just lost.. its usually a case of one random guy needs to produce because the rest are getting shut down

Raijin · Post #2320 » by **Raijin** » Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:22 pm

The starters have a DRtg of 92.2 over the last 5 games.

Schroder in for Ferg and it's at 126.5... :uhoh:

Basically any lineup with Schroder in it is hemorrhaging points right now.

Also, defensive rebounding sucks with Adams off the floor. With him on DREB% is at 76.2, which as a team would rank us #1 in the league. With him off we're at 68.1%, which would have us dead last.

The 2Pat/Grant front court last year gave-up offensive rebounds for fun, and we're running out Schroder-Diallo-Nader next to these guys, so we better hope they keep shooting lights out because defensively it's gonna be rough.

Noel pretty much is the defence in that 2nd unit - so he needs to get better in a hurry.