2017-2018 OKC Thunder Regular Season Thread Part Deux: Follow the Melo Brick Road

Post #361 » by **bondom34** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:48 am

Post #362 » by **slick_watts** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:19 am

bondom34 wrote:
slick_watts wrote:
bondom34 wrote:Wait Royce Young is a hater now? I missed this.

royce was an andre roberson hater until he got injured and it was no longer possible. i cornered royce on dailythunder comments a few years ago on waiters v. roberson and he shamefully exited the debate with i'm a reporter and i know what i'm saying argument from authority.

i'm shocked he hasn't made an all in on corey brewer tweet yet.

I knew he liked Dion but didn't think he said anything anti-Robes. Didn't know that.

supporting a waiters over roberson starting lineup switch is anti-robes.

Post #363 » by **bondom34** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:21 am

slick_watts wrote:
bondom34 wrote:
slick_watts wrote:
royce was an andre roberson hater until he got injured and it was no longer possible. i cornered royce on dailythunder comments a few years ago on waiters v. roberson and he shamefully exited the debate with i'm a reporter and i know what i'm saying argument from authority.

i'm shocked he hasn't made an all in on corey brewer tweet yet.

I knew he liked Dion but didn't think he said anything anti-Robes. Didn't know that.

supporting a waiters over roberson starting lineup switch is anti-robes.

I don't think he did so long term. And it wasn't anti Robes but pro Dion. But I don't think he supported it outside a short period then switched back, he wasn't pushing it.

Post #364 » by **slick_watts** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 2:03 am

bondom34 wrote:
slick_watts wrote:
bondom34 wrote:I knew he liked Dion but didn't think he said anything anti-Robes. Didn't know that.

supporting a waiters over roberson starting lineup switch is anti-robes.

I don't think he did so long term. And it wasn't anti Robes but pro Dion. But I don't think he supported it outside a short period then switched back, he wasn't pushing it.

he was pushing it on twitter and in the DT comments section from january, 2015 through the rest of that season. he supported a starting lineup change during and after andre roberson's injury that season.

during waiters' preseason prior to the start of 2015-16, royce was again touting waiters over roberson because of how well he was playing, the nonsense about him moving to the right for his free throws, etc. nevermind that waiters was just making the same garbage shots at unsustainable percentages (in the preseason), royce took part in several debates on dt comments that preseason about this.

later, he teased making a starting lineup switch against the spurs in the playoffs later on that season.

royce was consistently and at times aggressively pro-dion, especially when it came to his status on the team relative to andre roberson. on several occasions when met with numbers, facts, whatever about waiters' play or even caveats to his 'turned corners', he would say something like the team enjoys playing with waiters more than roberson or whatever reporter schlock he could come up with.

royce has been a lot more reserved with opinions like this since kd left. i think that's good.

Post #365 » by **bondom34** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 2:04 am

slick_watts wrote:
bondom34 wrote:
slick_watts wrote:
supporting a waiters over roberson starting lineup switch is anti-robes.

I don't think he did so long term. And it wasn't anti Robes but pro Dion. But I don't think he supported it outside a short period then switched back, he wasn't pushing it.

he was pushing it on twitter and in the DT comments section from january, 2015 through the rest of that season. he supported a starting lineup change during and after andre roberson's injury that season.

during waiters' preseason prior to the start of 2015-16, royce was again touting waiters over roberson because of how well he was playing, the nonsense about him moving to the right for his free throws, etc. nevermind that waiters was just making the same garbage shots at unsustainable percentages (in the preseason), royce took part in several debates on dt comments that preseason about this.

later, he teased making a starting lineup switch against the spurs in the playoffs later on that season.

royce was consistently and at times aggressively pro-dion, especially when it came to his status on the team relative to andre roberson. on several occasions when met with numbers, facts, whatever about waiters' play or even caveats to his 'turned corners', he would say something like the team enjoys playing with waiters more than roberson or whatever reporter schlock he could come up with.

royce has been a lot more reserved with opinions like this since kd left. i think that's good.

Wow, wasn't on DT much around then I don't think, think I came by later more that year. Yeah that's not a great stance.

Pillendreher · Post #366 » by **Pillendreher** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:12 am

bondom34 wrote:
slick_watts wrote:
bondom34 wrote:
I don't think he did so long term. And it wasn't anti Robes but pro Dion. But I don't think he supported it outside a short period then switched back, he wasn't pushing it.

he was pushing it on twitter and in the DT comments section from january, 2015 through the rest of that season. he supported a starting lineup change during and after andre roberson's injury that season.

during waiters' preseason prior to the start of 2015-16, royce was again touting waiters over roberson because of how well he was playing, the nonsense about him moving to the right for his free throws, etc. nevermind that waiters was just making the same garbage shots at unsustainable percentages (in the preseason), royce took part in several debates on dt comments that preseason about this.

later, he teased making a starting lineup switch against the spurs in the playoffs later on that season.

royce was consistently and at times aggressively pro-dion, especially when it came to his status on the team relative to andre roberson. on several occasions when met with numbers, facts, whatever about waiters' play or even caveats to his 'turned corners', he would say something like the team enjoys playing with waiters more than roberson or whatever reporter schlock he could come up with.

royce has been a lot more reserved with opinions like this since kd left. i think that's good.

Wow, wasn't on DT much around then I don't think, think I came by later more that year. Yeah that's not a great stance.

I bet there are screenshots of this somewhere. I know I saved the whole conversation once, but that was like more than two years ago.

Post #367 » by **dakomish23** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:25 am

bondom34 wrote:

Read on Twitter

Well deserved. The TOR performance was out of this world.

Post #368 » by **slick_watts** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:22 pm

Pillendreher wrote:I bet there are screenshots of this somewhere. I know I saved the whole conversation once, but that was like more than two years ago.

another dt writer, bryan gutierrez, was even more vociferous than royce but never came into the comments to mingle with the dt intelligentsia. he got plenty of support on twitter, of course, for dion > roberson at the time.

he did an AMA on dt once and was bombarded with questions on his dion take. he even said that he'd prefer to start cameron payne or anthony morrow over roberson. this was in february 2016. he would only write two more articles after the AMA and disappeared.

this was a groupthink take among royce and his home boys until i would say the 2016 WCF when roberson was so good against the warriors. but i think kd leaving had the biggest effect.

even after 2017 playoffs when he missed the free throws royce was bugging, though.

Pillendreher · Post #369 » by **Pillendreher** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 2:28 pm

Interesting development over the last couple of weeks (Kevin O'Connor mentioned this in his Thunder article yesterday): Since his rest game vs Portland (7 games, 2 weeks ago), over 60 % of Melo's shots have been in the catch and shoot and just slightly above 20 % have been pull-ups. Over that span, his eFG% has been 55.2 % and his TS% has been 56.4 % while his USG% has been below 20 % at 19.4 %.

This is since his rest game vs Portland. Something must have happened for him to change his shot selection this drastically. He's leading the league in total C&S attempts over the last two weeks (

) and isn't even on the first page in total pull up attempts (

). 53 catch and shoot attempts (62.3 eFG% on those) vs 21 pull up attempts (40.5 eFG% on those).

This would be an ideal shot distribution if he keeps it up.

Post #370 » by **slick_watts** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 2:43 pm

brewer is stealing usage from him, relative to abrines / roberson / huestis. his usage goes up and ts% goes down when brewer isn't in the game during this span.

when brewer returns to earth, melo will be back. or we'll be settling for < 30% brewer threes instead of melo pull-ups. not sure which is worse tbh.

Pillendreher · Post #371 » by **Pillendreher** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:10 pm

slick_watts wrote:brewer is stealing usage from him, relative to abrines / roberson / huestis. his usage goes up and ts% goes down when brewer isn't in the game during this span.

when brewer returns to earth, melo will be back. or we'll be settling for < 30% brewer threes instead of melo pull-ups. not sure which is worse tbh.

nbawowy has the splits as follows:

With Brewer on the court:

0-9 ft: 10/71 FGA (14 Freq %)
10+ ft 2pt: 20/71 FGA (28 Freq %)
3pt: 41/71 FGA (58 Freq %)

With Brewer on the bench (yes, I know there's one FGA missing; it's not on nbawowy):

0-9 ft: 3/16 FGA (19 Freq %)
10+ ft 2pt: 5/16 FGA (32 Freq %)
3pt: 7/16 FGA (44 Freq %)

It's not just Brewer stealing USG though: Adams also has the same USG% as Anthony when both Anthony and Brewer are on the floor. And there's also this: The shot distribution has changed, no matter the USG - Melo was averaging 6.7 catch and shoot FGA before this recent stint and has averaged 7.6 catch and shoot FGA during it. That should have gone down with lower usage and same shot distribution, but instead it went up even though the total number of shots decreased.

So I think it's not just other people taking shots away from him, but him also actively taking different shots. We'll have to see what happens when Brewer's shot leaves him, but I'm all for this change if it means better shots for Anthony and more shots for Adams.

Post #372 » by **bondom34** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:27 pm

I think it also helps he's taking shots from Huestis and Ferguson and to a lesser extent Abrines.

Post #373 » by **slick_watts** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:42 pm

melo is melo. i'll be surprised if this is meaningful in any way beyond sharing the court more often with brewer who is at 15-17 usage with those lineups and a touch disparity i'll bet is dwarfing the usage disparity. we already saw this once earlier in the year, went through these mirages with waiters for two seasons, etc. brewer ts'ing 70+ with these lineups and westbrook being unusually active seeking him out is the primary difference here imo.

my guess is that once the playoffs come, melo's usage will increase.

Balkman32 · Post #374 » by **Balkman32** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:02 pm

Who would have thought Corey Brewer was the answer for this team.

hardenASG13 · Post #375 » by **hardenASG13** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 11:26 pm

Balkman32 wrote:Who would have thought Corey Brewer was the answer for this team.

I know a guy....

Osirus89 · Post #376 » by **Osirus89** » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:19 am

Who the hell can this team match up with in a playoff series that they realistically have a chance to beat?
They could potentially beat NO in a series, but that is not a given. Other than that there is UTAH, POR, SAS, MIN that would be extremely difficult series and GS, HOU which are no chance in hell match ups.

If this team doesn't wind up with the 4th seed, its a wrap. There is no way these fools will be able to win any series against any team without HCA. I could see them losing with HCA anyway.

Post #377 » by **bondom34** » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:28 am

Osirus89 wrote:Who the hell can this team match up with in a playoff series that they realistically have a chance to beat?
They could potentially beat NO in a series, but that is not a given. Other than that there is UTAH, POR, SAS, MIN that would be extremely difficult series and GS, HOU which are no chance in hell match ups.

If this team doesn't wind up with the 4th seed, its a wrap. There is no way these fools will be able to win any series against any team without HCA. I could see them losing with HCA anyway.

I don't really have confidence against anyone. I think maybe MIN without Butler. Maybe.

But I think tonight was the last shot at 4, now it's likely 7 or 8. Gotta pray PG just wants money and has had some fun. Was worth a shot.

Pillendreher · Post #378 » by **Pillendreher** » Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:29 am

It frustrates the hell out of me that this squad can't seem to play well for a couple of games without losing its head. They played like they thought it didn't matter how they played all night long save for a couple of guys. Almost got away with it. Can't have that this late into the season.

Post #379 » by **dakomish23** » Wed Mar 21, 2018 4:42 pm

Read on Twitter

?s=21

Post #380 » by **dakomish23** » Wed Mar 21, 2018 4:44 pm

Osirus89 wrote:Who the hell can this team match up with in a playoff series that they realistically have a chance to beat?
They could potentially beat NO in a series, but that is not a given. Other than that there is UTAH, POR, SAS, MIN that would be extremely difficult series and GS, HOU which are no chance in hell match ups.

If this team doesn't wind up with the 4th seed, its a wrap. There is no way these fools will be able to win any series against any team without HCA. I could see them losing with HCA anyway.

Anyone. They can beat anyone. They can lose to anyone.