2017-2018 OKC Thunder Regular Season Thread part one: The Fellowship for A Ring

Pillendreher · Post #81 » by **Pillendreher** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 12:18 pm

Knrstz wrote:

Read on Twitter
?
I really can’t stand this guy. He’s the reason Russ will be playing along side Grant and Huestis next year.

That Russ-Felton-Singler-Huestis-Grant lineup will be fire tho.

Old Man Game · Post #82 » by **Old Man Game** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 12:42 pm

Knrstz wrote:

Read on Twitter
?
I really can’t stand this guy. He’s the reason Russ will be playing along side Grant and Huestis next year.

Hopefully he gets fired about the same time Oklahoma State cuts bait with Mike Boynton. Maybe if he likes the state enough he'll take the OSU job. He's a great coach at the COLLEGE level.

Post #83 » by **Dadouv47** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 12:42 pm

Not going to defend Donovan here because I'm pissed about many things, but he still found relatively good rotations (our second unit is great with either Carmelo, PG13 or both) and AT LEAST he kept Felton on the floor yesterday during the 4th with our starting unit.

Lots of work to do. It's not all garbage. But I wish we had a coach who has experience with superstars and knows how to deal with them (Spoelstra for example, even if he's not an ideal coach).

Post #84 » by **ThunderBolt** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:02 pm

I would take Mark Jackson over Donovan.

Old Man Game · Post #85 » by **Old Man Game** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:24 pm

I find myself reminded of this article from this Summer.

http://www.basketballanalyticsbook.com/2017/07/17/how-progressive-is-your-nba-teams-offense/

Post #86 » by **slick_watts** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:47 pm

from a factors standpoint, just think about where we are going to stand out offensively? eFG%? we need george and melo to adopt secondary roles for that. orb%? not with melo starting at 4. TOV%? maybe. melo is low turnovers, and george has been recently. FT/FGA? melo and george have been shooting mostly jump shots and not getting to the line. this is the catch-22 with melo. for him to have value as a 4 he has to be efficient. because we lose something on defense with him in there, especially relative to the starters last year when sabonis and gibson were fantastic defensively.

i don't find it possible that the offense will continue to score 95pp100 with the starters. if it does, we're basically forced to acknowledge that oladipo+sabonis/gibson > george+anthony. this appears untenable to me, and if it continues there should be fire under the coaches before there is fire under any of the players.

Post #87 » by **bondom34** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:27 pm

PG is at a 48 percent 3PA rate. Not ideal.

Kizz Fastfists · Post #88 » by **Kizz Fastfists** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:39 pm

I find myself questioning if Melo will have the impact that I initially thought he would. I thought his impact would be lower then most to begin with. I felt OKC was 5th in the West before the trade and moved up to the clear 4 and possibly 3 after the trade. They might still be 5th. I expected them to need some time to come together and neither of their losses are bad losses. Utah is well coached and arguably the best defensive team in the NBA while I had Minny ahead of them before the Melo trade and with the pieces Minny added in Butler and Taj having played for Thibs before they already knew the schemes so I didn't expect them to have issues gelling like I did OKC.

I don't expect anything to change on offense with the iso heavy style of the players and my view of Donovan as a coach. Roberson being hurt is just showing how dependent the team really is on him. Until Roberson gets right this is going to be hard to watch because the defense will continue to struggle and the offense isn't going to be able to carry a bad defense, but everyone who understands the NBA knew that already.

Post #89 » by **ThunderBolt** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:50 pm

If his knee is bothering him that much, why are we even playing him?

Pillendreher · Post #90 » by **Pillendreher** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:13 pm

Knrstz wrote:If his knee is bothering him that much, why are we even playing him?

I don't buy that. Donovan's just coming up with excuses. He played in the Preseason and he's playing now.

Balkman32 · Post #91 » by **Balkman32** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:33 pm

Pillendreher wrote:
Knrstz wrote:

Read on Twitter
?
I really can’t stand this guy. He’s the reason Russ will be playing along side Grant and Huestis next year.

That Russ-Felton-Singler-Huestis-Grant lineup will be fire tho.

Wait Singler dressed???

Billy is a great coach. He is trying to figure out what he has. Let him do his thing.

Balkman32 · Post #92 » by **Balkman32** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:33 pm

Thoughts on Grant so far?

Pillendreher · Post #93 » by **Pillendreher** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:36 pm

Russ-George-Anthony (67 minutes so far; 64 out of those 67 with Adams): 105.8 ORtG / 107.3 DRtG / -2.5 NetRtG
Anthony: 25.0 USG%; 55.4 TS%; 10.8 AST%
George: 27.7 USG%; 48.6 TS%; 10.0 AST%
Westbrook: 24.8 USG%; 49.1 TS%; 48.8 AST%

slick_watts spoke to this on discord. It's still very early to call, but to me this seems like Melo is performing at his usual level (even at a better than usual level for him since his TS% last season was 53.5), but Russ and George have not gotten going offensively so far. Or to put it more aggressively: He's getting his and the team is struggling.

BTW (also per slick_watts): With Russ off the court, Melo's posting a TS% of 60 with a USG% of 50 in 29 minutes.

Post #94 » by **bondom34** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:39 pm

Balkman32 wrote:
Pillendreher wrote:
Knrstz wrote:

Read on Twitter
?
I really can’t stand this guy. He’s the reason Russ will be playing along side Grant and Huestis next year.

That Russ-Felton-Singler-Huestis-Grant lineup will be fire tho.

Wait Singler dressed???

Billy is a great coach. He is trying to figure out what he has. Let him do his thing.

What has he done well to be great. Remove the 4 games of Dion catching fire and examine the other full seasons.

Balkman32 wrote:Thoughts on Grant so far?

Lost on defense bad on offense.

Kizz Fastfists · Post #95 » by **Kizz Fastfists** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 3:39 pm

Old Man Game wrote:He's going to pick up that option for next season isn't he?

He was always going to do that no matter who he was with.

Post #96 » by **Dadouv47** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:00 pm

Melo is not the problem, either the solution. He's just a nice addition compared to what Kanter brought to this team. We just need to fix how to run our offense. And we badly need a healthy Patterson and Roberson playing like he used to

Post #97 » by **Andre Roberstan** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:24 pm

Knrstz wrote:I would take Mark Jackson over Donovan.

There's a reason his name rarely comes up, and then only in the context of bad organizations. Mark Jackson is a bad, bad coach and a divisive leader.

Post #98 » by **slick_watts** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:29 pm

Andre Roberstan wrote:
Knrstz wrote:I would take Mark Jackson over Donovan.

There's a reason his name rarely comes up, and then only in the context of bad organizations. Mark Jackson is a bad, bad coach and a divisive leader.

he might fit in with oklahoma though, proselytizing in the streets.

Post #99 » by **ThunderBolt** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:29 pm

Andre Roberstan wrote:
Knrstz wrote:I would take Mark Jackson over Donovan.

There's a reason his name rarely comes up, and then only in the context of bad organizations. Mark Jackson is a bad, bad coach and a divisive leader.

I didn’t say that because I thought he was a seriously good coach. I’m just fedup with Billy.

Post #100 » by **Andre Roberstan** » Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:37 pm

Knrstz wrote:
Andre Roberstan wrote:
Knrstz wrote:I would take Mark Jackson over Donovan.

There's a reason his name rarely comes up, and then only in the context of bad organizations. Mark Jackson is a bad, bad coach and a divisive leader.

I didn’t say that because I thought he was a seriously good coach. I’m just fedup with Billy.

People are way overstating Donovan's role in losses at this point.

They just shortened the preseason and half our rotation turned over. There are definitely issues, but much of what I've been seeing is miscues and missed shots. A lot of the iso stuff that we ran is because guys were slow getting into the play, and I saw at least a couple of times yesterday where they got confused over what play was being called and guys tried to go to the same spots. One in particular they ran down about 14 seconds of shot clock getting it sorted and it turned into a Melo iso jumper for a bailout.

PG's missing looks that he should make, particularly off pindowns and high PnR outside. Robes is playing worse than he ever has offensively. Melo's missing makeable shots and not looking for guys when they fill spots. This is new team, new playbook, new system stuff. I'm seeing at least a couple of plays they're running that I've never seen before (particularly the one with Adams out of the high post and the corner shooter ducking in off a pick...I like that one a lot). There will be an adjustment period.