Thunder is scary good

[Jaqua92]

Yep. People kept saying Boston was historically good last year (and they are correct), but OKC is matching those metrics in SRS/net rating in a tougher conference, being a much younger team. I think we can see a similar two way juggernaut in OKC for their first title this year. I think a year of experience losing in the playoffs is going to be a huge boost. I just don't see any individual player outside of Jokic outplaying SGA in a close out type scenario, and they have so much depth.

I think they would beat Boston in 6. I said that before the season started.

Cart before the horse.

This is egregious. Hope you can acknowledge it when the season is over.

[Jaqua92]

It's the same two people pushing the OKC GOAT team narrative.

Until they actually get to the finals, they're just an unproven team having a great start to the regular season.

And until they win the finals, they're an inexperienced contender at best.

Their first 19 games, 42% of their opponents were missing quality starters. They've lost to multiple playoff teams so far.

And now we're seeing that they'll beat a historically great roster in 6 games, based on a quarter of the regular season?

Good lord. Just wait till they beat Boston in a meaningless regular season game, you guys will essentially declare the season over.

This is just like those two Philly fans.

I swear you're just putting bad energy out into the universe for your team with this nonsense lol

[Jaqua92]

Jokic and Giannis are the best scorers since KD, not Shai

Shai is more skilled. The man has 100 moves. KD is considered a goat scorer because of skill. Shaq is better at getting buckets, but KD has 100 ways to score, so he's always been considered the best scorer since Jordan.

Based on this logic, Shai is more skilled than Giannis and Jokic (along with stats and efficiency), so he is the better scorer.

Jesus Christ

Why hasn't this baiter been banned

[Jaqua92]

What’s even scarier they’re not even at full strength.

What’s even scarier than that is that they’re literally the youngest team in the league.

What’s even scarier than that is they have one of the best front offices AND coaches in the league.

What’s even scarier than that you ask? THEY HAVE ENOUGH ASSETS TO ACQUIRE A TOP 5 PLAYER IF THEY SO CHOOSE

You got to give credit where credit is due, their entire franchise from top to bottom is masterclass.

All the assets to get a star, yet it's hard to think of stars that wouldn't disrupt their team and growth of young players. Only guy I keep coming back to is Bam Adebayo. He doesn't need a ton of touches, can dominate games in several ways, is still young enough to get a 5-6 year title window out of. When Chet returns and you slide Jalen to 3 ideally. I'm thinking the best course of action may be to keep drafting over and over taking big risks for a star like Giannis in the middle of 1st round.

Bam?

Suddenly your posts are making sense

[stillgotgame]

Jokic and Giannis are the best scorers since KD, not Shai

Shai is more skilled. The man has 100 moves. KD is considered a goat scorer because of skill. Shaq is better at getting buckets, but KD has 100 ways to score, so he's always been considered the best scorer since Jordan.

Based on this logic, Shai is more skilled than Giannis and Jokic (along with stats and efficiency), so he is the better scorer.

Jesus Christ

Why hasn't this baiter been banned

He's entertaining no matter how clueless he is.

The Thunder have won exactly 1 playoff series - beating a Zionless Pelicans team.
Their 2nd best player is due a max contract, yet is always hurt. He clearly doesn't have an NBA body.
They've amassed a bunch of crappy draft picks and roll players on long term contracts.
This team is going nowhere.

[EmpireFalls]

It’s like every single take in here is competing to be the worst take in the thread lol

[Sweet Serenity]

Can’t wait to come back to this when the Thunder get bounced before the Finals & Boston wins it again.

[Magic_Johnny12]

Can’t wait to come back to this when the Thunder get bounced before the Finals & Boston wins it again.

This may actually come to fruition, however it really means nothing. OKC time is coming one way or another, if not now very very soon.

[Jaqua92]

The best part is the OKC fans insisting they beat Boston because no one watches OKC, as if they watch Boston.

OKC hasn't played a team with shooting like Boston and won't.

I don't care how good of shooting they have. The 5 out offense will always get open 3s. OKCs defense won't stop it.

[Sweet Serenity]

Can’t wait to come back to this when the Thunder get bounced before the Finals & Boston wins it again.

This may actually come to fruition, however it really means nothing. OKC time is coming one way or another, if not now very very soon.

Then we’re just moving the goalposts & just admitting that they can’t get criticised no matter what.

You can’t make a title saying their “scary good” & their the best team in the NBA & then make excuses if they don’t deliver what some posters on here have said.

[og15]

I agree it's not a big threshold, especially when comparing two elite 30+ ppg scorers to begin with. But I do think when we look back on their entire prime in a few years, you'll agree that SGA was the harder problem to solve for defenses.

I immediately disagree, because if it was so simple to deal with him, everyone would be stopping Giannis, and that is very much not what has been happening.

ps... it's not just getting a jumper. SGA crushes Giannis in drives the last 3 years I'm pretty sure.

NBA.com thinks so. Not sure how accurate that is given that it is the staple of Giannis' game, but I guess if you mix some of them into post-ups, then it makes some sense. I don't know that it's meaningful to their scoring, though, because Giannis gets to the rim like an animal.

I don't want to use stats in this argument.

That's nice.

I want to use the eye test.

SGA is more skilled than Giannis and Jokic at scoring is my premise.

You said your eye test is saying they are more skilled.

Explain please.

Jokic I'm not even going to start with. You'd have to be a lunatic to argue skill between those two, it's clearly Joker. With Giannis, my contention was that he was the better scorer, not that he had a broader array of skills. That's a strawman.

So you think Giannis and Jokic are more skilled than SGA at the mid to 3 pt line?

I'm confused as to why you keep lumping Jokic and Giannis together in this discussion of scoring versatility and skill.

Jokic can beat you in these ways:
-face up
-back to basket
-roll man
-pick and pop
-isolation

He can score in the paint, from mid-range and from 3PT. He can get you mid post or low post. He can finish off the catch or attack off pick and rolls. He can beat you on ball and off ball. One of his strongest offensive skills is that he moves a lot, he's in constant movement if he doesn't have the ball, screening, relocating, etc.

[Sweet Serenity]

If you’re of the opinion that OKC is the best team right now & you think they’ll win the championship this year then there can’t be any excuses if they fall short of that.

[nbafan38]

Can’t wait to come back to this when the Thunder get bounced before the Finals & Boston wins it again.

This may actually come to fruition, however it really means nothing. OKC time is coming one way or another, if not now very very soon.

Then we’re just moving the goalposts & just admitting that they can’t get criticised no matter what.

You can’t make a title saying their “scary good” & their the best team in the NBA & then make excuses if they don’t deliver what some posters on here have said.

Why can't both be true? I think they are scary good but i'd take Boston over them in a 7 game series.

[LockoutSeason]

Read on Twitter

[Lala870]

Cant really comment on this since I havent had league pass or watched TNT in ages.

Who does SGA play like? I remember a number of years ago SGA seemed like he was possibly a bust.

Super weird.

I guess we are entering the long sought after parity era after Kobe got done soaking up the entire NBA for 20 years. Mamba mentality for all...

[Jaqua92]

Read on Twitter

This is just beyond absurd.

The season is a quarter of the way in.

Even their media is crowning them the GOAT team based on a tiny sample size.

Are you kidding me?

[HotRocks34]

[img]

Read on Twitter

/photo/1[/img]

The only team with a better relative defensive efficiency than the Thunder is the Bill Russell led Celtics. This measures the defensive rating gap between the two best defensive teams.

They are the first team in history to have more steals (292) than turnovers (282).

Defensive rating - 1st
Stocks - 1st
Forced Turnovers - 1st
Shots contested - 1st

The Thunder is the best team in the NBA. I don't understand why the Celtics and Cavs are ranked higher. The East is incredibly weak. If the Thunder played in the East, they would essentially be playing 80% of their games against teams that are 8 seeds and lower (the 4th best team in the East would be ranked 8th or lower in the West). The Thunder have not lost to a lottery team yet. If they played in the East, they would easily be 23-1 (the one lost coming from the Cavs or Celtics).

Luka vs Shai

We need to talk about last night's game against Luka. Shai outplayed both him and Kai. Ironically, we had a small Luka vs Shai discussion where a bunch of Mavs fans said Shai wet the bed in the playoffs and got outplayed by Luka (complete lie).

Look I'm a fan of Shai, but if Luka beats my team, I will take the L and respect his game. I am not going to distort my reality to rationalize why I lost.

Shai has always dominated Luka because, no offense, for a 26 year old, he moves like a grandpa (Mavs fans like to call it "calculated;" I'm just calling it slow). Last night's game is a statement game. It is a statement to the Mavs fans SGA is a better player: Doncic has the better offensive stats, but SGA is the leader of a historic defensive team along with being the best scorer since KD. Last I checked, defense is just as important as offense.

Luka: 16/5/11 -14
SGA: 39/5/8 +22

This is not just 1 game. This has been consistent. SGA is simply the better player in head to head matchups against Luka (people who defend Luka are only going by stats that don't measure defense).

Discuss.

Disclaimer* I have no life, so I will respond to every comment. This might be misconstrued as trolling.

Luka is better than Shai.

There's no discussion or debate.

Last year during the regular season I think someone on here was making the case all year for how Shai was supposedly better than Luka and possibly the best player in the league based upon RAPTOR or some other version of Plus/Minus only for Shai to have a negative On Off in the playoffs.

Shai, like the Thunder, seems to peak in the regular season. The team reminds me of the 73-win Warriors who maxed out on wins but choked a 3-1 lead in The Finals. This is why I call the Thunder a "try hard" squad. They go full out all the time, in the regular season, but don't seem to have a higher gear in the postseason when other teams turn up their level.

Shai has won 1 playoff series in 6 seasons. Sorry, that's not going to cut it. Embiid-esque. And, like Embiid, he blew a #1 seed with a second-round flame out while being outplayed by an injured guy when it counted.

Things can change but that's the reality today.

You're a lawyer so make better arguments. Public defenders working pro bono are coming stronger than this.

[slick_watts]

Their first 19 games, 42% of their opponents were missing quality starters. They've lost to multiple playoff teams so far.

the thunder have been missing either chet holmgren or isaiah hartenstein in all of their games this season. and played 20% of the games without either one.

the thunder are setting nba record pace on some things. they are the only team ever to have more steals than turnovers more than five games into a season. they have a top five turnover differential and opponent differential post-merger. their defense is currently the best ever since the merger relative to league average. and they have a srs over 10.0.

every team that wins a championship, at some point, they were just a fledging team generating some excitement until they won it all. it's ok for thunder fans (and basketball fans in general) to be excited for the team.

[slick_watts]

Shai has won 1 playoff series in 6 seasons. Sorry, that's not going to cut it. Embiid-esque. And, like Embiid, he blew a #1 seed with a second-round flame out while being outplayed by an injured guy when it counted.

i know you're a troll from interacting with you before, but shai easily outplayed luka in that series and point differential was even when they both shared the court. make better arguments.

[HotRocks34]

Shai has won 1 playoff series in 6 seasons. Sorry, that's not going to cut it. Embiid-esque. And, like Embiid, he blew a #1 seed with a second-round flame out while being outplayed by an injured guy when it counted.

i know you're a troll from interacting with you before, but shai easily outplayed luka in that series and point differential was even when they both shared the court. make better arguments.

You wish I was a troll.

Luka outplayed Shai with the series tied 2-2 and headed back to OKC. I documented that yesterday.

viewtopic.php?t=2412877&start=180#p115976425

To repeat -- a guy with multiple injuries outplayed a person whose fans thought he should have been MVP and who was on the #1 seed.

Shai will never have a year like Luka had last year, regular season and playoffs. He's simply not that level of player.

Fanboying is fun but reality is reality.