3/20 | G72: Toronto Raptors at Oklahoma City Thunder - 8:30PM CST

[Osirus89]

How much you boys paying Tony Brothers?

I mean PG fouled out of the game ...

Said I was out last year, and tbh only reason I stayed was you guys are awesome. But honestly they're just boring, bad and poorly coached. I really couldn't care less about them anymore and Presti's done a poor job building around the good players. I'm totally out, still love some of these guys but they deserve better. First time I ever totally don't care, even when I said before still I kinda did and now...meh.

I'm detached for this season. I'll watch the games but I don't really put much into the outcome. If Andre comes back for next year, I'll be excited again. If Presti assembles a team that makes sense for once, I will also be excited. However, ol' Buddy Donovan will still be the coach so....

[bondom34]

How much you boys paying Tony Brothers?

I mean PG fouled out of the game ...

Said I was out last year, and tbh only reason I stayed was you guys are awesome. But honestly they're just boring, bad and poorly coached. I really couldn't care less about them anymore and Presti's done a poor job building around the good players. I'm totally out, still love some of these guys but they deserve better. First time I ever totally don't care, even when I said before still I kinda did and now...meh.

I'm detached for this season. I'll watch the games but I don't really put much into the outcome. If Andre comes back for next year, I'll be excited again. If Presti assembles a team that makes sense, I will also be excited. However, ol' Buddy Donovan will still be the coach so....

Yep, I de-flaired last year. I'll follow Russ, and Philly's local, and Indy fir Vic/Domas. Basically just so Houston loses.

Main reason I stuck was you guys tbh. I'll still be around for that but the games are meh.

[Osirus89]

Read on Twitter

Pretty ****ing classless. Idiots like these need to be banned.

WTF. I hope that isn't what she said but it kinda sounded like it. If that is what she said, its time for the lifetime ban hammer to come down.

It's funny because when the Utah situation happened I actually thought to myself how surprising it was that nothing has come up about Oklahoma. Looks like that might be out of the window.

[Osirus89]

How much you boys paying Tony Brothers?

I mean PG fouled out of the game ...

Said I was out last year, and tbh only reason I stayed was you guys are awesome. But honestly they're just boring, bad and poorly coached. I really couldn't care less about them anymore and Presti's done a poor job building around the good players. I'm totally out, still love some of these guys but they deserve better. First time I ever totally don't care, even when I said before still I kinda did and now...meh.

I'm detached for this season. I'll watch the games but I don't really put much into the outcome. If Andre comes back for next year, I'll be excited again. If Presti assembles a team that makes sense, I will also be excited. However, ol' Buddy Donovan will still be the coach so....

Yep, I de-flaired last year. I'll follow Russ, and Philly's local, and Indy fir Vic/Domas. Basically just so Houston loses.

Main reason I stuck was you guys tbh. I'll still be around for that but the games are meh.

I already got my backup team lined up (Milwaukee) so when this team gets eliminated, I'll still have somebody to root for. If Vic was around Indy would be my dark horse.

[QPR]

Said I was out last year, and tbh only reason I stayed was you guys are awesome. But honestly they're just boring, bad and poorly coached. I really couldn't care less about them anymore and Presti's done a poor job building around the good players. I'm totally out, still love some of these guys but they deserve better. First time I ever totally don't care, even when I said before still I kinda did and now...meh.

I feel like you post a variation of this after every loss tbf.

[bondom34]

Said I was out last year, and tbh only reason I stayed was you guys are awesome. But honestly they're just boring, bad and poorly coached. I really couldn't care less about them anymore and Presti's done a poor job building around the good players. I'm totally out, still love some of these guys but they deserve better. First time I ever totally don't care, even when I said before still I kinda did and now...meh.

I feel like you post a variation of this after every loss tbf.

I haven't posted here most of the season. I was almost out last year, but now I actually stopped caring.

[RunOKC]

It's tough being a Thunder fan

Every year its something

[CROklahoma]

It feels good not watching Thunder games every morning, my energy starting the day is complete.
Nothing is changing in organization considering coaching staff and GM decisions, why bother.
Playoffs !

[sleestak33]

13-43 on 3 pointers and Grant goes 3-14 while Adams only gets 7 shots. Combine that with absolutely terrible defense and you get another loss. If they want to start winning again they need to never take more than 25 3 pointers in a game and consistently get Adams involved offensively while being more patient offensively and taking better shots. It's funny that just about anybody on this message board can easily see what this team needs to do to change this funk they're in but they just won't seem to do it. I just am not understanding how these guys continue to keep jacking up 3 pointers when they're clearly one of the worst 3 point shooting teams in the NBA.

[ThunderBolt]

Dvr’s are a great thing. You don’t spend time watching disgusting performances and if they actually win, you can watch it with ease. The problem is the fans who buy tickets need to take the same approach and quit buying tickets for such a garbage team.

[Pillendreher]

And I'm so sick of this team giving up 60-70 points in the 1st half and being down by double-digits-ish at halftime every friggin' game. It doesn't matter who we play, you almost guarantee we'll give up 60-70 1st half points and be down by 10+ at the half. That's been the case in most of our games since the All-Star break.

Time of lead since the 2nd win vs Portland:

2/14 @ NOP: 5:41 min
2/22 vs UTA: 21:16 min
2/23 vs SAC: 1:57 min
2/26 @ DEN: 6:52 min
2/28 vs PHI: 0:49 min
3/2 @ SAS: 0:29 min
3/3 vs MEM: 2:37 min
3/5 @ MIN: 1:55 min
3/7 @ POR: 28:32 min
3/8 @ LAC: 1:40 min
3/11 @ UTA: 44:42 min
3/13 vs BKN: 17:56 min
3/14 @ IND: 42:43 min
3/16 vs GSW: 0:00 min
3/18 vs MIA: 9:24 min
3/20 vs TOR: 1:43 min

Over the last 16 games, we've managed to lead for more than half the game 3 times. We've managed to lead for longer than 10 minutes 5 times. We've managed to lead for less than 5 minutes 8 times. Save for a couple of games, we've never been in these games.

I know this sounds like a meaningless platitude, but these guys have not looked like they wanted to actually win these games for the last 5 weeks. Rarely have I seen them play with a purpose, with a certain energy throughout the whole game. Where's the fight? Why are they always fighting a deficit basically right from the start of the game? Since Valentine's Day, we've been lost 1st quarters by 16.1 pp100p, allowing 119.9 pp100p in them. How is that possible? Every single **** game. Where is the urgency by the players? Where the hell is the coaching staff, putting an end to this slide? They're nowhere to be seen.

I think this collapse is far bigger than just schedule and PG shoulder issues. Its not just roster construction either. There is a massive disconnect somewhere, and I think the main culprit if Billy, but that’s not everything.

Things must start with him. And then Presti needs to be put on probation. And then you start looking at the players on the roster and figure out which ones you want to keep.

Dvr’s are a great thing. You don’t spend time watching disgusting performances and if they actually win, you can watch it with ease. The problem is the fans who buy tickets need to take the same approach and quit buying tickets for such a garbage team.

Exactly. For whatever reason the ESPN League Pass stream stopped working, so I was forced to watch the game in Spanish. After they gave up yet another wide open 3 within the first 15 minutes, I simply skipped to the end of the game, saw they made it to OT, **** that up and I was done with the game in 30 to 40 minutes. If they don't give a ****, then I won't either. Can't defend properly. Can't make FTs. Can't make 3s. This team needs somebody that actually improve it. I'm done with all this nonsense.

[Pillendreher]

Read on Twitter

Do I need to say more? It's your **** job to prepare them you incompetent prick. Unbelievable.

You know what I thought when I read this:

The defensive gameplay put in by Raptors’ head coach Nick Nurse, was tremendous. It appeared that the Raptors wanted to force George to become the Thunder’s primary playmaker, rather than Westbrook.

I thought "Well, at least they had a defensive gameplan. I can't even remember the last time we had one". I'd say the last time we looked like we were following a plan defensively was vs Milwaukee. And that was in January, almost two months ago. But other than that, our defenisve gameplan has been "Let's just hope they miss" for almost 3 months now.

[Pillendreher]

This team will never get the most out of Adams until it starts to realize that reducing his role to being a big body that pushes opposing players around and grabs offensive rebounds is not the way to go. A good coach would have figured out by now that Adams can and needs to be so much more than just a guy on cleanup duty for his teammates. But this also brings me back to what I said about Grant at the start of the season: As long as Adams doesn't start taking and making 3s, the team will always suffer for Grant taking it to the rim because we a) need Adams there and b) have to push Adams furhter out to create more space for Grant.

PS: If you take away his putback attempts, Adams gets less than 5 shots at the rim per game. And it gets even worse if you compare him to other Centers with a similar skillset (per 100 poss):

Adams: 3.29 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 9.57 FGA at the rim | 6.28 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Gobert: 3.51 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 11.62 FGA at the rim | 8.11 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Drummond: 5.62 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 13.81 FGA at the rim | 8.19 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Capela: 3.18 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 13.91 FGA at the rim | 10.73 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim

Gameplanning matters. But as always, we manage to take the talent on our roster and have it underperform unless it's good enough to be great individually.

EDIT:



This is unacceptable. Compared to all the other 29 Centers that are starters per rotoworld's depth charts, Adams is 18th in non-putback attempts at the rim per 100 possessions. This is what happens when you reduce a player to being a battering ram that cleans up **** for his teammates.

[SecondTake]

Our team relies more on PG13 than on Westbrook. He's our only scorer. He's injured and playing trash (on both ends, mainly on offense though) since the All star break. If he wasn't playing at a MVP level for several months we would be talking about how a mistake it was to give him the max. Anyway, just saying that we need an healthy Paul George for this team to have a chance to be relatively good (not that he's our only issue but that's a big concern).

PG is our only scorer? Have you seen what Wb has been doing?

[SecondTake]

If he wasn't playing at a MVP level for several months we would be talking about how a mistake it was to give him the max. Anyway, just saying that we need an healthy Paul George for this team to have a chance to be relatively good (not that he's our only issue but that's a big concern).

He could have played at any level he has the last few years and no one would have thought he wasn't a max player. However, the reality is that if PG hadn't played at the highest level of his career for a 3 month stretch it is very possible that OKC wouldn't make the playoffs this year. Unless you believe that PG can play that way next year or OKC adds talent in the off-season or OKC brings in a real coach it is hard to see them as a playoff team next year.

Sacramento will be better than this year. LAL will likely add at least one max player to go with LeBron. Dallas might land a max player in FA in addition to Porzingis. LAC could add a max player. NOLA, Memphis, Minny and Phoenix should be bad, unless Phoenix surprises in FA. OKC has no cap space, taxpayer MLE, very limited trade assets, TPE and a pair of 2nd round picks and seems very unlikely to improve and very likely to decline a bit more due to the aging of Russ and will be unlikely to keep Noel or Morris.

No way, there's a lot that's likely to improve in the off season;

WB will be shooting 75-80% from the FT line and 36%+ from the 3. He's been in that territory before and he's going to work on it in the off season. Look what a week and a half did to him during the all star break. That will change our spacing completely.

Ferg will be shooting 40% from 3 and scoring over 10 a game. He'll put on 10 lb's of muscle in the off season which will give him Roberson like defensive prowess.

Diallo will be adding 6-8 points a game on high efficiency dunks.

Grant will be a 16 point a game scorer on 40% from 3 and over 50% from 2.

Roberson will be back and it's looking like he's been shooting a ton of 3s in his time off. I expect him to hit 35%+ next year,

I expect Adams and PG to stay roughly where they are now.

We're definitely getting a new coach so with a new system and a ton of player improvements I think we're looking at a top 3 seed next year with a WCF finals trip.

[SecondTake]

This team will never get the most out of Adams until it starts to realize that reducing his role to being a big body that pushes opposing players around and grabs offensive rebounds is not the way to go. A good coach would have figured out by now that Adams can and needs to be so much more than just a guy on cleanup duty for his teammates. But this also brings me back to what I said about Grant at the start of the season: As long as Adams doesn't start taking and making 3s, the team will always suffer for Grant taking it to the rim because we a) need Adams there and b) have to push Adams furhter out to create more space for Grant.

PS: If you take away his putback attempts, Adams gets less than 5 shots at the rim per game. And it gets even worse if you compare him to other Centers with a similar skillset (per 100 poss):

Adams: 3.29 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 9.57 FGA at the rim | 6.28 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Gobert: 3.51 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 11.62 FGA at the rim | 8.11 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Drummond: 5.62 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 13.81 FGA at the rim | 8.19 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim
Capela: 3.18 2nd chance FGA at the rim | 13.91 FGA at the rim | 10.73 non-2nd-chance FGA at the rim

Gameplanning matters. But as always, we manage to take the talent on our roster and have it underperform unless it's good enough to be great individually.

EDIT:



This is unacceptable. Compared to all the other 29 Centers that are starters per rotoworld's depth charts, Adams is 18th in non-putback attempts at the rim per 100 possessions. This is what happens when you reduce a player to being a battering ram that cleans up **** for his teammates.

Adams has butter fingers though. He can't pass out to save his life and every double on the block seems to result in a steal. Not sure he's actually capable of being better than 18th outside putbacks.

Also, Grant might be better than Adams. He's more versatile and he's showing legitimate improvement. Adams has a bigger impact atm, but I'm not sure he's better.

[Pillendreher]

Adams has butter fingers though. He can't pass out to save his life and every double on the block seems to result in a steal. Not sure he's actually capable of being better than 18th outside putbacks.

I'm gonna call you Pinocchio from here on out given the amount of nonsense (one might even call it lies) you just offered here.

Also, Grant might be better than Adams. He's more versatile and he's showing legitimate improvement. Adams has a bigger impact atm, but I'm not sure he's better.

Yes. Let's limit the role of the better player so Presti's fetish project can be featured even more.

[SecondTake]

Adams has butter fingers though. He can't pass out to save his life and every double on the block seems to result in a steal. Not sure he's actually capable of being better than 18th outside putbacks.

I'm gonna call you Pinocchio from here on out given the amount of nonsense (one might even call it lies) you just offered here.

Also, Grant might be better than Adams. He's more versatile and he's showing legitimate improvement. Adams has a bigger impact atm, but I'm not sure he's better.

Yes. Let's limit the role of the better player so Presti's fetish project can be featured even more.

You don't think Grant is a legitimately good player with a ton of upside?

[Pillendreher]

You don't think Grant is a legitimately good player with a ton of upside?

I think marginalizing the better player because you think that the inferior player has the kind of potential he hasn't shown yet is not going to help anyody. Adams is the better player and we're investing 3x as many money in Adams. We can't keep spending 25 million a year on Adams and then treat him like he's some sort of taxpayer MLE pickup. He's not Javale McGee, but we act like he is. And it's idiotic.

[SecondTake]

You don't think Grant is a legitimately good player with a ton of upside?

I think marginalizing the better player because you think that the inferior player has the kind of potential he hasn't shown yet is not going to help anyody. Adams is the better player and we're investing 3x as many money in Adams. We can't keep spending 25 million a year on Adams and then treat him like he's some sort of taxpayer MLE pickup. He's not Javale McGee, but we act like he is. And it's idiotic.

Fair enough about under utilizing Adams, but Grant has certainly shown potential. He's now a very solid 3 point shooter, a good finisher around the rim and a very good defender that can switch 1 through 4. He is much better than he was last year and obviously a much better value. Adams has not shown as much improvement as Grant.