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before the excuse for the former all nba 3rd team defender (JUST LAST YEAR) was that he played good defense on the teams best offensive wing. That he "led the charge" on the defensive end. Now.. what's happened? Is he injured? out of shape? What's wrong? James Harden defended Kobe Bryant yesterday FAR better than he did. Also To go along with his completely non existent offensive game Thabo is completely expendable unless he really helps us in the playoffs. Anybody got any news on Thabo?

Thabo played Kobe prety dam good. Just because Harden played better defense says nothing about Thabo but, how much Harden has matured on both ends of the floor.

Thabo never had an offensive game.

You're right about his lack of an offensive game. With that said, he seems to calling for the ball alot more, especially on the wings. When Russ has got him the ball there, he seems to be knocking them down with a higher percentage than usual, 42% at home, 50% overall in the month of February. His road % is another story.

I think its time for him to swap roles with Harden now that Green has been moved. Such move could be a positive for both Thabo and hard Harden each in their own way. What better than giving your new 3rd option a confidence boost and your defensive specialist some motivation.


Either that or you look to move him this summer. No doubt someone bites and we might get a decent deal out of it.

The one positive about Thabo this year is he is scoring a bit more efficiently, I think partially because he's taking less bad shots. His TS% is actually a fairly respectable .553, a career high.

That said, he's fallen off defensively and Harden is simply a far superior player, especially since Harden is playing great defense.

The whole team seems to have fallen on defence but it doesn't help that thabo has the perception of playing only on one side of the court. Coupled with harden improvement on defence enough to see harden starting over thabo. Would I trade him? Nope. He still have value as a 9th or 10th rotation player. Depends very much who else is our wing player other than harden/durant next season.

Offensively he still have value if he can slash to the basket once in awhile. And if he just improve his 3 point short or even long 2.. I won't mind him backing up durant.

I think it would be a bad idea to trade Thabo. Harden's progress has been encouraging and he could just as easily start over Thabo, but you should still want that depth and defensive presence. Thabo is a good fit because he's not going to take shots away from Durant, Westbrook or Harden. A player like Nate Robinson on the other hand seems pretty redundant.

thabo should be the thunder's backup sf and backup sg with cook stealing some mins there too.he's a keeper!btw thabo did a hell of a job on kobe sunday,it looks like he's getting over that knee injury and will be in full swing come playoff time.

As much as I want Harden to start, lets look at the second unit:
C: Nazr Mohammed / Aldritch
PF: Collison
SF: Sefalosha
SG: Cook
PG: Maynor

Holey crap, that would be the worst offensive team ever. So something has to give. Either that or one of Durant, Westbrook, or Harden would have to be on the floor at all times.

Stolen Team Fan wrote:As much as I want Harden to start, lets look at the second unit:
C: Nazr Mohammed / Aldritch
PF: Collison
SF: Sefalosha
SG: Cook
PG: Maynor

Holey crap, that would be the worst offensive team ever. So something has to give. Either that or one of Durant, Westbrook, or Harden would have to be on the floor at all times.

I don't think Nazr is that bad on offence considering he's going up on the 2nd unit.
We can always have 1 of Durant/Harden/Westbrook in for thabo or maynor either way. Doesn't durant play close to 40mins?
Durant/Thabo/cook/Maynor
Durant/Cook/Maynor
Thabo/Harden/Maynor
Thabo/Westbrook/Maynor
Thabo/Cook/Westbrook

that's alot of possibilities and we haven't even consider Nate into the rotation. Shouldn't be a big reason why Harden sit imo.

Devilanche wrote:Shouldn't be a big reason why Harden sit imo.

Oh, I fully agree. I was just looking at what would happen if Harden did start. As for Mohammed, Nobody on earth expected him to get that 20/20 game this season, including him. If he turns out to be good offensively for ta Thunder, it will be great news. I hope he does, but feel he won't is all.

And I'm surprised that Nate wasn't bought out. I fully expected him to be. Plus I really don't want to see him take minutes away from Harden and Maynor. However, if Sefalosha disappears from the team, then having Nate as a spark with Maynor feeding him has potential.

I'm not even expecting a double/double from nazr considering that the coaching staff consider him a backup. I see him getting around 10 mins a game whereby i'll be happy if he take 2-3 shots and get 3-4 rebounds. Offensively i only expect double digit scoring from durant, westbrook and harden. Probably around 20 points from the PF+C spot. I don't see any of our bigs getting enough shots to be hitting 20 points on his own too.

Over at the boston board some of them were quite positive on green as he's a 15/5 guy but he got around 13 shots over at OKC on average i believe, not sure if he's getting that many shots over there.


I don't think they were considering buying out nate, we had a free roster slot as it is. Not sure we can find anyone better off d-league too. Just let him fit into training and if he impress can always give him some minutes. At most he'll get traded next season or we'll let him expire. Unless a team can guarantee him some more years i don't see a buyout.

I don't think Thabo should disappear from the team, he'll be good on a bench role or failing that for up to 15 mins a game. Not everyone has to be a scorer, there's only so many shots to share.