Osirus89 wrote:BobThunder wrote: snip.
Well said.
Whether we win or lose this series, I'll just be glad it is over. I would rather have played Golden State than Houston. It would have been 4 quick blowouts. Now I have to sit through pundits talking about OKC supporting cast vs Houston supporting cast.
News flash: What is the most prized commodity in basketball currently: 3pt shooting
What does OKC suck at: 3pt shooting.
You can compare Oladipo and Gordon /Adams and Capela/ Roberson and Ariza/ Gibson vs Anderson any way you want to.
We can't shoot the ball therefore we are the worse team. Its really that simple. Russ shooting 18 times in a 4th quarter is implicitly saying "My team won't get in done, looks like I will have to. "
PS. We also have one of the worst backup PGs of all time and they have Lou williams
It's really starting to bug me that non-OKC fans and the national media still haven't figured out that our players are a terrible fit. Yes, in vacuum and in the right situation, players like Oladipo, Kanter, Adams, Roberson, and Gibson are more than serviceable NBA players (although I still waffle on Kanter); but together all on the same team, they are a HORRIBLE fit. That's our "most serviceable" group of NBA players other than Russ and it's basically four bigs (I think of Robes as more of a true frontcourt SF) and one wildly inconsistent guard. In that group you have the following:
Oladipo: What even is he at this point? He's our only non-Russ player who is capable of creating his own shot but he plays passive way too often and, even when he is aggressive, he's still a terrible finisher at the basket.
Adams: A supposed-to-be defensive anchor who doesn't rebound or defend particularly well anymore and needs almost all of his offense generated/created by Westbrook.
Kanter: Excellent scoring big and good rebounder but he is so disastrously terrible on defense that in today's NBA, and especially in the playoffs, he can't really even play unless it's against the right team.
Roberson: Excellent/elite perimeter defender who covers a lot of flaws on an otherwise terrible defensive team. However, he's a trainwreck on offense. He can't dribble, he can't shoot, and he doesn't commit himself enough to cutting or attacking the offensive glass.
Gibson: Really, this guy is exactly what we thought he was: a near-perfect role playing glue-guy. His one downfall since he joined the Thunder? The moron in a suit and tie with a tub of grease in his hair masquerading as an NBA head coach.
And then there's the rest: Abrines (excellent shooter, terrible defender); McDermott (used to be a good 3P shooter until he joined the Thunder; terrible defender); Sabonis (semi-promising rookie who just sucks right now); Grant (garbage); Singler (even more garbage than Grant); Christon (even more garbage than Grant and Singler).
This thought that we have good NBA players isn't wrong. We have about six solid to good NBA players. But the narrative that Westbrook's supporting cast isn't bad and "Westbrook doesn't make his teammates better" is all kinds of wrong if you dig below the surface. In today's space-and-pace, shoot a crapton of threes NBA, our roster is horribly constructed; we have way too many bad shooters and/or one-way guys who are decent/great on one end but equally not-decent/terrible on the other end. And our idiot head coach is still playing 12 guys in game 84 of the season because he has no clue what he's doing.
And really, especially in today's NBA, our biggest flaw/downfall is our severe lack of floor-spacers.
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