Blue Blitz: News and Editorials on the Oklahoma City Thunder

New New Site!

2009-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

If for some weird reason you come across this page, I just wanted to let you know that we have moved yet again, this time to SBNation. Our new blog is at:

http://www.welcometoloudcity.com/

Have a most excellent day!

We Have Moved!

2008-11-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

Our NEW SITE is at BlueBlitz.net. Everybody Update your blogrolls and bookmarks.

If you're looking at this post at some point in the future, then here is the welcome post for our new site.

It's been a long ride here at Blue Blitz. We've experienced the unveiling of the logo, the the unveiling of the jerseys, and our first 10 losses here. It saddens me to leave our old Blogspot home, but we must move forward. We will have a link to this old site as "Blue Blitz Classic" if you ever want to pop by for a visit. But we have input all of the old posts into our new site, so, aside from the comments and design, this place is all but obsolete.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow....

-Zebulun Benbrook and Benjamin Luschen
Proprietors of Blue Blitz, formerly The Oklahoma City NBA Sports Blog....to the Max!!!!

P.S. Visit Our New Site Now! Register for Bloguin and have access to other site! Listen to the New Podcast! Keep Track of the New Award Count! Have a Ball!

Game 10 Recap: Philadelphia 110, Oklahoma City 85

2008-11-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Coaching or taking a dump? With this team, what's the difference!

I know what you're thinking, "What, no Pregame? How will I get my nightly fix of God of Thunder?" Do not worry, it will be back. Even God of Thunder is only human (...wait...). However, it's easy to assume that had God of Thunder made a pick for the game in the City of Brotherly Love, it would have been a correct one. Anyone could have seen this beatdown coming. It seems no Thunder lead is safe. So, time for some more depressing analysis on your hometown NBA team!

It isn't like the 76ers have been very amazing thus far. With the Thunder win, they're still only at .500. The Thunder though, inversely, have been amazingly bad. Their performance today only suits to reinforce that point. They were outscored 64-43 in the second half alone, including 33-18 in the third quarter. Considering they were only down 6 at the break, this is the type of collapse only made possible by what may be the worst team since the expansion Bobcats.

The story is in the stats. Of the 9 players that got over 10 minutes of playing time in the game, only two of them (Green and Durant no surprise) shot better than 40%. Included in those 9 players were Robert Swift and Nick Collison, who combined to shoot 0-8 from the floor. These are two big men no less! Only two of our starters even went to the free throw line and only Kevin Durant took any more than 2 attempts (a very impressive 4).

In contrast, Philly shot much better than us, going a combined 46.9% from the floor (compared to our 39.5%) and a red-hot 42.9% from three-point range (compared to our 28.6%).

The bottomline is that they were better than us at every position last night, and it hurt us. It became painfully obvious that we can get no production from our anybody at the starting PG and C positions. Frankly, we were exposed...oh wait, everybody already knows about that.

I'm proud to say that Jeff Green was able to take home the title of Thunder Wonder. His 21 points on 66.7% shooting lead the team, plus 3 rebounds and 4 assists. I'm really beginning to think that this guy could be quite a player in the future.

Thunder Down Under honors go to...Johan Petro? Yes, the same Johan Petro who was absolutely useless as a starter and was recently given the ultimate slap in the face when he was replaced by Mr. Ink himself, Robert Swift. Tonight though, he was able to score 9 points and grab a team high 12 rebounds off the bench, which by far trumps what Swift did. He did have a terrible shooting percentage day, but one can't be too picky when trying to find the second best performer on this team...

Sorry Nick, but somebody's got to be Thunder Blunder

...On the other hand, when it comes to finding the worst performer of the night, the Thunder have quite a selection. Tonights Most Valuable Puker and Thunder Blunder is none other than Nick Collison, though. He did manage to grab a nice 6 boards, but other than that, nada. 0-7 from the floor, and scored 2 more points than I did. I'm sorry, but this has to be the final straw in the fight to keep him as a starter. As soon as Chris Wilcox comes back, park this sucka on the bench.

And tonight's Thunder Plunderer goes to Samuel Dalembert. It was a close call over forward Thaddeus Young, but Dalembert was able to both burn the Thunder with his scoring (13 points, 6-10 shooting) and rebounding (16 boards) not to mention his 3 blocks.

Next game: Monday night vs. the Houston Rockets (It's OSSM night at the Ford Center!)

Game 9 Recap: New York 116, Oklahoma City 106

2008-11-15T01:06:00.000-08:00

Noooo!!!! Please don't eat me!

Yahoo! Box Score

Royce and I had very conflicting opinions about tonight. While I was telling the team to control the ball, make half court sets, work around for a shot, and play defense, he was preaching, "Just run with 'em!" Well, it looks right he was the correct one.

At the very start of the game, they tried running the fast break, but Earl Watson kept missing shots, so they went to the slow style, and it didn't work. It was almost painful to watch as the Thunder couldn't get anything going and were forced into bad shots and turnovers. It's a common misconception that smallball teams play bad defense....they're usually actually quite good at it if you get them into half court sets. I don't know how many times I saw the guards of the Knicks leak out after a missed shot. One of the Knicks superb rebounders would grab it, and throw it up court for an easy lay in, while most of our guys would still be standing on their own end of the floor.

But, we were yet again witness to a second half comeback. I think I've nailed our games against the upper 20 teams of the NBA down to a 3 type of game science:
Type 1: Just get destroyed. (Example: the Magic game)
Type 2: Show some promise in the 1st and have a good lead, let it whittle down to a tie in the 2nd, and then just let the other team push their lead up to 20 by the time the game is done. (Example: the Celtics game)
Type 3: Come out really crappy, realize what you were doing wrong strategy wise, correct it, and come to within just enough of a margin to win, but then crap out in the last 5 minutes. (Example: todays game at the Knicks)

No one likes the sad D'Antoni look. :-(

I really don't know what the deal is with our coach. P.J. Carlesimo has been in the league longer than most players, and he's learned from the best, Gregg Popovich. He's had this same team for a year before this. Why can't he figure out what to do until the 1st half is up? I mean, did losing Luke Ridnour really make that much of a difference in his game?

Tonights NBA flashback was Malik Rose. I mean, I had no idea that dude was still playing basketball! Much less in a run n' gun system under D'Antoni! I know there's no analysis here, but it's just kind of a wow moment.

I'm also finding myself really hating the FSN Oklahoma coverage. I'm really tired of Brian Davises voice, and Grant Longs insight is usually minimal at best. I was really psyched to watch the game tonight because I thought I could watch it on MSG with Walt Frazier, but DirectTV blocked me out (even though I have league pass) and forced me to watch Grant Long. If you think about their NBA careers, their broadcasting careers are about equivalent. And, I assure you, it's not because I'm sick of hearing the same guys. I really love the Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area guys, Bob Fitzgerald and Jim Barnett. When I watch the Warriors, I love hearing Bobs voice, and Jims great old-school analysis, even if half the time he is reminding the team to trade the 2 for 1. Davis and Long just kind of have no personality for me. Maybe my opinion will change as the season progresses, but these guys are homers to the highest degree. "Did you just see Robert Swift pull down that rebound? Wow!" "We're within 15, looks like we have a good chance of winning!" Ugh, no way. Please get some new announcers!

As far as awards go, Kevin Durant had a typical Kevin Durant-y night. He scored a lot of points, which makes you think he did good, but then you look at his lack of other stats and his poor shooting and realize he had a crappy game. Who really exceled tonight was Russell Westbrook. He actually shot 50%....that's right, 50% from the floor tonight. He grabbed 10 rebounds, 5 of them offensive and tossed 6 assists, almost securing the all coveted triple double. Add on his 19 points, 6-12 shooting, and 1 steal, and you easily get the Thunder Wonder for tonight.

As far as the Thunder Down Under award goes, there are 3 who deserve consideration. Some might be tempted to go ith the black fingernailed Robert Swift and his 13 rebounds, but 4 points just won't cut it tonight. Some might be tempted to go with Jeff Green, who had 16 Points, 8 Rebounds, and 4 Assists, but his 7-17 shooting puts him out of contention. The real performer here is Nick Collison. 14 points, 7-8 Shooting, 6 Rebounds, and 1 Assist locks the award up for him. While his rebounds were kind of low, he still had an excellent and efficent scoring night.

Sadly, I have to give the Thunder Blunder award to Joe Smith. 4 Points, 2-3 Shooting, and 2 rebounds isn't totally bad in 16 minutes, but it was clear thst this was not his type of game. His 33 year old body simply can't handle such a fast game, and this was apparent for the large numbe ofr time he was standing around mid or quarter court watching a scoring play happen. He's much more comfortable in half court sets. Still, it wasn't that bad of a performance, as he din't really hurt the team all that much when he played, but nobody else on the roster really warrants it. I suppose one could just as well give the award to Johan Petro, but he was much more efficent with 6 Points, 3-6 Shooting, and 5 Rebounds in only 10 minutes. I really like Petro coming off of the bench, and I think that's where he should stay.

On the other side of the ball, David Lee gets the Thunder Plunderer award off of the bench. Since they were playing D'Antonis fast ball, everybody else has abysmal shooting percentages. With 18 Points, 7-8 Shooting, 6 Rebounds, and 1 Assist, David Lee definately earns the right to be the second Thunder Plunderer off of the bench.

Next Game: Saturday at the 76ers
If we go 1-9, I think I'll find that I have no mouth and I must scream. Our mater predicter had the right point differential, but he was 21 points behind on both scores. Still, that's somewhat good!

Okay, now that's what I like to see! :-D

Game 9 Pregame: Thunder at Knicks

2008-11-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

Mike D'Antoni: Creepiest Coach in All of Sports

And the slaughter continues....

The Thunder are going up against a team that has for the past 5 years been an NBA doormat. In the United States biggest television market and with a storied franchise history behind them, it would take a complete nutjob to screw them up. Those nutjobs are Jim Dolan and Isiah Thomas. Dolan is the owner, a traditional Daddys rich boy son ho knows absolutely nothing about running a basketball franchise. The latter, Thomas, is a former Point Guard who won the Pistons a Championship back in the 80s. The recipe for a good coach, right? Well, not when he goes to great lengths to trade for selfish point guards and lazy centers and can't coach them out of a closet. Luckily, he left the team at the end of last year, with the entire city of New York hating him and his players.

Enter Mike D'Antoni. He is the 04-05 Coach of the Year, and is largely attributed for the popularization of small ball. (Don Nelson invented it, but it never caught on until D'Antoni.) D'Antoni basically braught the Suns to national championship contenders every year. But, he always fell short, so Suns management saw a need to change things up. Thus, they traded Shawn Marion for Shaquille O'Neal, probably one of the worst moves ever. The suns were a first round out, and D'Antoni was quite unjustly fired by the power hungry GM, Steve Kerr. D'Antoni then got offers from the Bulls and Knicks. He took, to everyones surprise, the Knicks.

So, we come to today. The Knicks are a team full of lazy, selfish players that New York hates, and wants to get rid of, and everyone predicts them in the area of 20-25 wins. But....the D'Antoni magic struck. He benched Eddy Curry, who came to training camp having gained a lot of weight, and benched Stephon Marbury, a Point Guard known for hogging the ball and taking bad shots. Lo and behold, the Knicks are 5-3, and the City of New York is loving it.

Backstory: The Thunder are going to have to pull out all of the stops in order to win tonight. D'Antoni is going to wanto to run up and down the floor, and kill us with his teams athleticism. In order for the Thunder to win tonight, they're going to have to control the pace of the game. Slow the game down, set the pick n' roll, don't throw up lazy shots.

Defensively, they'll have to keep it tight on the perimeter. Jamal Crawford and Quentin Richardson aren't afraid to throw it up if need be. At the same time, they have to keep aware of the inside scoring of Randolph and Lee. We shouldn't have too much of a problem with this aspect of it though, as we have a trememndous height advantage on them.

Basically, if you force them into bad shots on the perimeter, you should be good against this Knick team.

Match-Ups:
Earl Watson vs. Chris Duhon
Edge: Push
Chris Duhon is a good point guard in his own right, but he's spent his entire career behind Kirk Hinrich on Chicago until this season. At the same time, Earl Watson has played well lately, but can have off nights. It's really anybodys guess who comes out on top.

Kevin Durant? vs. Jamal Crawford
Edge: Durant
Both have equally bad shooting percentages, but Durant is far better defensively, and he can rebound and drive better.

Jeff Green vs. Quentin Richardson
Edge: Quentin Richardson
Quentin Richardson was once considered to be a borderline All-Star, but since then, he's basically been a bust. He's about at the same level as Jeff Green is now, except he's probably a better outside shooter. So the advantage goes to him.

Nick Collison vs. Zach Randolph
Edge: Zach Randolph
Zach Randolph had a bad year last year, but he appears to be picking things up. Finally out of his pot smoking jailblazer days, this guys is a scoring and rebounding force every night. Nick Collison is largely on and off.

Johan Petro vs. David Lee
Edge: David Lee
David Lee is an excellent rebounder, and Johan Petro is excellent at being completely average. David Lee was the diamond in the rough for the past couple of years for the Knicks, and I think he easily outmatches Trash-o.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Thunder
Because of D'Antonis statements to some of the Knick players, their bench is very thin. The Thunders bench, on the other hand, is ready to replace any player in the starting lineup with someone slightly less crappy in a hearatbeat, and might as well go 12 men deep. D'Antoni would have to see all of the eligible players carried out on a stretcher before he played Curry or Marbury.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Knicks
I'm not a fan of D'Antoni, but I've got to give him credit for the Knicks rebirth.

Player to Watch: Joe Smith. This veteran should have no problem trashing the big man midgets of New York.

I'm not qualified to do this, so I'll defer to my main man, Ben, for this last section.
God of Thunder's Pick: Knicks 95 Thunder 85

Game 8 Recap: Orlando 109, Oklahoma City 92

2008-11-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

NOBODY INSULTS THE TIE!

Yahoo! Box Score

What can I say? It was quite an unforgettable performance by the Thunder, who were the biggest under-dog in the NBA last night and were able to back it up with a sound thrashing. I mean, all you have to know to grasp the beating was 1) Kevin Durant didn't play, 2) Dwight Howard had his first career triple double, and 3) Both Steven Hill and Mouhamed Sene were in the game.

The whole game is kind of a blur to be honest with you. It was all the same, from start to finish really, thorough domination of the Thunder all the way through. Kevin Durant playing would have made no difference at all. Talent-wise, the Magic dominate us and Dwight Howard was playing like a man possessed. Who really has a triple-double on blocks anymore? Ha, well, Dwight Howard apparently. Without Kevin Durant, this really isn't even an NBA team.

Really, the game itself isn't really worth talking about, even. We all know how the Thunder vomit all over themselves night in and night out; and this game is just more than that times 10. However, one positive of KD not playing is that it takes a shadow off the rest of the team's players. Let's see what we've learned about his anonymous team mates...

If any sort of positive can be drawn from this, it's that we now know that Jeff Green is legit. He was the leading Thunder scorer in the game and despite being the team's new number one option was able to continue his efficient shooting. I used to think that KD was the only real "cornerstone" the Thunder had to work with, everyone else being expendable. Now, I think that Jeff Green can be thought of in the same regard.

What did we learn about Desmond Mason as a starter? Well, we learned he was certainly suitable for the role when called upon. His performance was somewhat redeeming for last games Thunder Blunder caliber play. Still, he should stick to the bench, the only starter who needs replacement is Petro.

What did we learn about Russel Westbrook receiving extended minutes. Well, we learned he can do a variety of things on the floor, with 5 rebounds and four assists. He certainly hasn't gotten any better shooting from the field, but this is somewhat misleading as his offensive style is one where he tries to draw the foul. And in that regard, he was finally able to make his free throws, shooting 8-9.

What did we learn about Damien Wilkins, who finally got extended minutes for the first time since the Pre-Season? Well, uh, I guess we found out it wasn't the pre-season anymore. 2 points off 1-6 shooting and 4 boards. All that in a hefty 18 minutes of play.

Robert Swift's new 'do didn't help his offensive game any

And lastly, what did we learn about the useless 7 footers on our roster? Well, we were able to confirm that they suck. Hill, Sene, and Swift combined for about 24 minutes last night, for a combined 6 points, 12 rebounds, 0 assists, and 2 blocks. Even if you throw Johan Petro's 8 points and 2 rebounds in there, that's still combined for far less that one man (Dwight Howard) had for the magic tonight.

So, for tonight's Thunder Wonder, I'm going with the guy I praised earlier, Jeff Green. 25 points of 7-18 shooting, 10 rebounds, 3-6 from downtown, 8-10 free throws. He is clearly the second best offensive option on this team.

Thunder Down Under is...not Joe Smith for once! No, instead tonight we're going with Desmond Mason, getting some sweet redemption. He had 12 points off 5-11 shooting and 2 rebounds. Obviously couldn't fill the void that KD left, but not a bad performance by any stretch.

Thunder Blunder? God, just pick a player at random and you could almost certainly make a case for it. Sadly I'm going to go with Damien Wilkins. He certainly hasn't played up to potential this year, that is, when he plays at all. Like I said earlier, only 2 points and 1-6 field goals.

I'll give you three guesses at tonight's Thunder Plunderer. J.J. Reddick? Nope. Adonal Foyle? Sorry Zorgon, not him either. Dwight Howard? YEAH! Comeon, one of the best games in what is sure to be a fabulous career for the center. 30 points, 19 rebounds, and 10 blocked shots! He was a man among boys last night.

Next Game: Nov. 14 at the Knicks

Game 8 Pregame: Magic at Thunder

2008-11-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

The Thunder continue their marathon with tonight's game against the Orlando Magic. It should definitely be a tough test for Oklahoma City, as the Orlando Magic are one of the better teams from the East and probably the best in their division. They'll bring a tad of starpower tonight, with Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson, and last years most improved player Hedo Turkoglu. OKC, on the other hand, will have little to no star power tonight, as Kevin Durant will be a game time decision. Without KD, who's got the best name recognition? Joe Smith? Oh well, names don't win championships. It takes teamwork, defense, and talent. Oh wait, we don't have any of that either...

Backstory: What do the Thunder and Coke cans have in common. The both are crushed under pressure. OKC couldn't keep a lead to save their lives. Fortunately, they shouldn't have to worry about that tonight, because Orlando is far superior, especially without KD. Last I checked, all Orlando starters are averaging over 10 points per game, while the Thunder have yet to find someone to consistently drop over 10, aside from Jeff Green and the Great Longhorned One.

With or without KD, it makes no difference. Aside from last nights insanely good performance, Kevin Durant as been throwing bricks like they were made of tacks. It'll defintiely take some MAGIC, for the Thunder to win tonight (ok, that was bad, I know).

Match-Ups:
Earl Watson vs. Jameer Nelson
Edge: Nelson
I loved this guy back at St. Joe's, and was secretly cheering for him in the Elite 8 while they were playing OSU (I say secretly because my brothers a Cowboy fan). The Hawks dropped that game, but there's no way Jameer loses this one. His assist number are down somewhat, but hey, who doesn't beat Watson?

Kevin Durant? vs. Mickeal Pietrus
Edge: Durant
Well, if he plays, he has the edge. If he doesn't, and Russ Westbrook or Desmond Mason gets the start, Pietrus should handle them defensively and get the edge.

Jeff Green vs. Hedo Turkoglu
Edge: the Turk
He's got such a versatile game. Height, shooting, driving, rebounding. Jeff Green will give him a game, but Turkoglu gets the definite advantage.

Nick Collison vs. Rashard Lewis
Edge: Lewis
Rashard plays all over the court, so he shouldn't be in the power forward slot for too long. Dito everything I said praising Hedo for Rashard, except moreso.

Johan Petro vs. Dwight Howard
Edge: Howard
Let's see...the best center in the NBA or the lowest scoring Thunder starter? I'm noticing a trend of mismatches at this position. Note to Sam Presti: GET A CENTER WHO'S AS TALENTED AS HE IS TALL FOR ONCE!

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Magic
I'll say Orlando. The Thunder have the best bench player of the bunch, but nobody else is doing well. The Magic don't rely on their bench very much, but at least it isn't full of flops like OKC.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Magic
Despite a crowd that's sure to be pumped for the game, Stan Van Gundy is a better coach and the Thunder have no momentum going into the game.

Player to Watch: No KD, eh? Here's a stretch, how about Robert Swift for tonight's player to watch. When facing a player like Dwight Howard, I'm sure P.J. will look to get a center more physical than Petro on the floor.

God of Thunder's Pick: Magic 102 Thunder 87

Robert Swift eats babies

Game 7 Recap: Indiana 107 Oklahoma City 99

2008-11-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

The only thing KD needed to do to improve his shooting percentage was adjust his style. Jeff Foster seems to like it.
Yahoo! Box Score

Better late than never, they always say. Yes, I know, I'm not Zorgon, which means I have big shoes to fill (both literally and figuratively). But, hopefully I can live up to his greatness just this once...

So, now you get to hear about yet another epic OKC Thunder collapse! At one point in the first quarter, the Thunder found themselves ahead by 15 points, a lead that had even God of Thunder considering a career change. But did anyone, honestly, expect it to last? I think it would be a valid point that not that many Thunder players even expected it to last. And last...it did not...

After closing that epic first quarter with a decent 34-24 lead, OKC was able to follow up with a 24-17 thumping in the second quarter. Maybe head coach P.J. had just a little too much confidence in this team's lead, as evidenced by the 12 minutes he gave Robert Swift. To his credit, Swift had a fantastic game considering the amount of time he spent on the floor. Why are we so quick to play this guy when Damien Wilkins sees no time at all? Sometimes P.J.'s subs seem a tad erratic, ala last night with Robert Swift, ala the Celtics game with Kyle Weaver. Not that these guys should never see the light of day, just that we don't need to be playing them when the game's close. Trust me, the Thunder will See it's fair share of blow-outs this year.

The talk of Robert Swift reminds me of a Brian Davis moment last night. During the game, Robert Swift had one almost block, ONE, which prompted Brian Davis to say "The Pacers are going to have a hard time getting shots like that when a guy like Robert Swift is on the floor." What? Where the hell did that come from? If Robert Swift was that great at establishing an impregnable defense inside the paint, don't you think he'd be starting over Johan Poopo?

Of course, the Thunder would continue on to not win another quarter, and finish with a decent beat down, not too bad, but it wasn't really close. It wasn't exactly a rockin' crowd, only some 10,000 showed up at Conseco Fieldhouse. I mean comeon, who wouldn't want to see the amazing Thunder-Dults in action?!?! Oh, and as a side note, Johan Petro made his first free throws of the season, in fact, he was 2-2, making him 100% on the year.

So, time for some awards.

Thunder Wonderof the night goes to Kevin Durant, much to the dismay of Zorgon. There's really no denying it though. The guy had 37 points off of 13-27 shooting, 2-3 from three-point land, 9-9 from the charity stripe, and 8 rebounds, by far making his best game of the season.

What should make Zorgon happy though, is Joe Smith coming through as Thunder Down Under. He played the second least minutes, but still had 12 points of 6-8 shooting and 5 rebounds. He has definitely been the Thunder's best option off the bench thus far this season.

Desmond Mason was tonight's clear cut Thunder Blunder. Get this, 2 points with no field goals, 2-4 free throws, 1 technical foul, and a foul out. Somehow I missed the technical, or else I would elaborate upon it. Still, anytime you don't make a shot, you know you're going to have a good shot (no pun intended) at making Thunder Blunder

To conclude the night's awards, I'm giving the Thunder Plunderer title to T.J. Ford. The guard shot 10-19 with 24 points, 10 assists, and was only 3 rebounds short (7) of completing a triple-double. His talents are wasted on a sub-par team, but I still think he's under-rated at point guard.

Next Game: Thunder at Magic

Game 7 Pregame: Thunder at Pacers

2008-11-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

Somehow, God of Thunder failed to correctly predict the outcome of a game for the first time last night. Please, do not lose faith. Even Michael Jordan has missed a shot, even Tiger Woods has missed a putt, even Mariano Rivera has blown a save. However, it won't be any layup, as the Thunder face another pathetic team tonight, the Indiana Pacers. The teams are a combined 3-7, which may not make for must-watch T.V., but does give the Thunder a chance at an elusive victory.

Backstory: The Thunder had a four-point lead over the Josh Smith-less Hawks heading into the fourth quarter, but managed to be outscored 31-23 in that decisive period. Who else but the Thunder, right? That's life in the NBA, though. We'll see plenty of "third-quarter collapses" (or in this case fourth quarter) before it's all said and done. That's not an excuse though. When you're up on a team like the Hawks in the third quarter, you need to close the deal. This is very stereotypical "young team", though. Things will get better as the season goes on (or at least they better) but OKC fans just have to be patient until that time comes.

Match-Ups:
T.J. Ford vs. Earl Watson
Edge: Ford Tough
I'm sure T.J. regrets the day Jermaine O'Neal was shipped to Toronto, banishing him to the Pacers, who could be rebuilding for awhile. Regardless, he wipes the floor with Earl Watson, as most decent NBA point guards should do.

Marquis Daniels vs. Kevin Durant
Edge: KD
This is definitely no disrespect to Daniels, who is having a fantastic year with 15 points per game (second on the Pacers) 6.8 boards per game (second on the Pacers) and 3.4 assists (again, second on the Pacers). Therefore, one can clearly see who the most balanced Pacers player is. Still, KD is the one strength on this team, and though he struggles at times, you've got to believe he'll pull through in a winnable game like this.

Danny Granger vs. Jeff Green
Edge: Granger
Don't get me started. Danny Granger is the most under-rated player in the NBA (though I admit his stats may be inflated by his terrible team).

Troy Murphy vs. Nick Collison
Edge: T-Murph
Time to shed some light on Nick Collison's down year. Averaging 6 points and 6.4 rebounds, decent if you come off the bench. To this day, I'm still a strong proponent of the Start Chris Wilcox Movement

Jeff Foster vs. Johan Petro
Edge: FosterThe best center match-up in the NBA since Petro-Perkins. I don't know if you can even have a winner in this one, their stats or so similar. I ought to just count it as a loss for both.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Thunder
One of the two categories the Thunder have had a consistent edge in all season. I challenge you to name two Pacer bench players off the top of your head. If it took you more than 8 seconds, you only verify my point.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Pacers
Jim O'Brien has had some NBA post-season success, though I do admit I did have to look up who the hell the Pacers coach was now that Carlisle is gone. And it's in Indiana, so no reason to go with the Thunder here.

Player to Watch: Jeff Green has had a quiet season, not in numbers, but in recognition. He may be the most -strike that- is the most efficient Thunder starter. So, I'm going to finally give the man some props and make him tonight's Player to Watch.

God of Thunder's Pick: This is for redemption! Pacers 93 Thunder 83

Game 6 Recap: Atlanta 89, Oklahoma City 85

2008-11-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

Nick Collison tried some Kung Fu tonight, but he ended up just as stinky as me, with only 2 points and 5 rebounds in 19 minutes.
Yahoo! Box Score

Before I get into the game, I committed a cardinal sin at the Ford Center Today: Being stinky.

Basically, I woke up today around 4 or so, and didn't do much before I went to the game. I didn't even think about how I hadn't showered. Big mistake. I go to the game and two people to the right of me left for better seats I didn't supect anything, until the end of the 1st, when somebody notified me that everybody around me was noticing my stink, and that I shouldn't jump around like that if I stunk so bad. Now, I'm all about letting the fans enjoy their experience, so I promptly left. No hard feelings to everybody around me. Probably the most embarassing moment of my life. But, the guy with the Brick mask was back (and sitting right in front of me) so he made up for me. I'll be back next time though. Yes, I'll be showered. Sorry if that was too much information for some of you folks. But, on to the game.

Man, what a game I missed. The first quarter was really really ugly. The Thunder kept shooting ill-advised midrangers with the Hawks right up in their grill. Luckily, the Hakws were only faring slightly better. Once the Thunder pounded it inside (like I was advising the whole time), things got better. After a slammin 2nd quarter that I didn't see, it was back and forth the whole game.

The end of the 4th saw our hopes crushed. The Hawks jumped out to a quick lead, and we almost free throwed our way back into it....until Earl Watson missed an essential layup that would have had us down by only 2 with a few seconds back. Ben had a good predicting day again, being only 4 points off of the actual score. You go, man!

Lastly, tonight was the debut of Robert Swift, courtesy of the Chris Wilcox injury. I'm glad we have Swift and Sene, becuse they can easily step in capably should one of our bigs get hurt. The same can't be said if our guards are hurt, as the only real backups they have are Kyle Weaver and Damien Wilkins. If our Point Guard is hurt, I smell trouble. But I digress. I hope Weezy is okay, as he was doing pretty well with 2 points and 2 boards before he went down. Swift looked okay, with 2 points and 3 boards. Well, his performace looked okay, but I had a hard time believing that he was the same guy who fouled out at the Hornets-Sonics game 2 years ago. He looked so....different back then.

Sadly, Joe Smith had his best performance of the season while I wasn't there. He almost had a double double with 14 points and 9 rebounds. He only shot 3-10, but he more than made up for it, shooting 8-10 from the free throw line. He really pulled through in the final seconds of this game, getting fouled at crucial times and grabbing critical rebounds. Thus, he gets tonights Thunder Wonder.

The Thunder Down Under award goes to Earl Watson. He would have gotten the Wonder award had he not missed that last layup. Still, he shot 5-11, went 1-2 from 3 point territory, had 11 points, 6 assists, and 3 rebounds, and only had 2 turnovers. These past two games Earl has really pulled through. He has started to create ball movement (rather than just dribbling it at the top of the key) and has had some hustle plays that have really put him over the shadow of Russell Westbrook.

The Thunder Blunder award goes easily to Jeff Green. 37 Minutes, 3-12 Field Goals, 1-4 3 Pointers, 9 Points, 8 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Turnovers, and 1 Steal. He did better than Kevin Durants whopping 6 turnovers, but 25% shooting is just inexusable. A lot of his ill-advised shots just may have killed it for the Thunder early on tonight.

On the Flip (Murray) side, it's hard pinpointing one performance. Everyone was equally bad in their production. Thus, the Thunder Plunderer award goes to Joe Johnson by default. 25 Points, 9-25 Shooting, 3-6 3 Point Shooting, 4-6 Freethrow Shooting, 2 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 4 Turnovers, 4 Steals, and 1 Block round out a full stat sheet for Mr. JJ.

Overall, a par for the course night fo the Thunder.

Next Game: Monday at the Pacers. Prepare for some Murphy Madness.

Game 6 Pregame: Hawks at Thunder

2008-11-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the first toss-up of the season. Yeah, the Atlanta Hawks were a playoff team last year, but they were still the 8th seeded team in the Eastern bracket with a sub-.500 record. That being said, they still almost knocked off a team in the first round that would turn out to be the eventual champs and still finished leaps and bounds better than the the then-Sonics, who were one of the worst teams in the league. All things considered, though the Hawks are stocked with fantasy hoops front-runners like Joe Johnson and Josh Smith, we should be in for a slug-fest tonight in Bricktown.

Backstory: The Thunder found themselves in a seemingly insurmountable hole last-time against Utah only to close valiantly to make the game seem respectable. If they want to beat the 4-0 Hawks tonight, they're going to have to avoid a sluggish start against a Hawks team who, at times, can be offensively explosive. Also, when, if ever, will shooting on this team improve? They're shooting 41.1% from the field (not something to be proud of), 38.3% from downtown (not too bad, but keep in mind only 5 Thunder players have even attempted a 3, and KD is 1/6 this season), and 72.3% from the free throw line (definitely should be improved upon, and somehow in some paradoxical conundrum, our starting Center, Petro, has yet to even attempt a FT. That's not a good sign)

Match-Ups:
Earl Watson vs. Mike Bibby
Edge: Bibby
Mike Bibby isn't what he was a few years ago, but Earl's game hasn't been anywhere near even productive, underachieving in nearly every statistical category and the worst shooting stats for a player with any decent amount of minutes.

Kevin Durant vs. Joe Johnson
Edge: Johnson
Sorry Thunder fans, but Joe is simply having a better season thus far. 25 PPG and shooting 42.1% from beyond the arch, that's pretty impressive.

Jeff Green vs. Maurice Evans
Edge: Green
Normally, this would be a Smith/Green match-up, in which I'd easily go with Smith. Evans is a decent player in his own right, but he certainly doesn't bring anything to the table that Jeff Green doesn't already. On top of that, Jeff Green has been the second most reliable scorer on the Thunder thus far.

Nick Collison vs. Marvin Williams
Edge: Collison
Marvin Williams has always been a model for inconsistent play in the NBA. Not that Collison is a rock, but you never know what Marvin you're going to see, even though the past couple of games he has looked good.

Johan Petro vs. Al Horford
Edge: Horford
Horford was much better at grabbing boards and scoring last season, but still he's only a couple of each away from averaging a double-double.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Thunder
The excellent play of Desmond Mason and Joe Smith needs to carry-over to tonight if the Thunder want a chance at beating a play-off team.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Thunder
Though it's always hard to get very pumped when the Hawks come to town, the Ford Center is almost always rockin'. It's a stark contrast to the crowd the Hawks are accustomed to, as their city is wrapped up in Georgia 'Dawg football and the resurgent Atlanta Falcons.

Player to Watch: How 'bout Zorgon's boy Joe Smith? His offensive game has picked up recently and, surprisingly enough, is leading the team in FG%. He should provide a spark off the bench against a Hawks team that isn't very deep down low.

God of Thunder's Pick: Hawks lose the glue of their team, Smith, so Thunder pull off some OKC magic: Thunder 90 Hawks 88

Game 5 Recap: Utah 104, Oklahoma City 97

2008-11-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

This is Russell Westbrooks "Sexy" look. P.J. Carlesimo is simply stunned by it's greatness.
Yahoo! Box Score

While the score was much higher than our master predictor had anticipated, the result was still the same.

This game started off with a 8-0 Thunder lead. That's right, an 8-0 THUNDER lead. Then, it turned into a 10-3 Thunder lead. Then, it all went straight to heck.

Don't look so sad, Jerry! Zorgon just gave you props!

Honestly, someone could have a bunch of bums play under Jerry Sloan, and they'd do well. Jerry Sloan has such control over his players, it's unbelievable. While this doesn't make him the most popular coach ever, this leads to wins. The sheer fact that his team performed just as well against us without Deron Williams really says something. While I would never, ever play for him, here's to Jerry Sloan and his 1000 super-jazzy wins. While I hate the current iteration of your team, you we're definately fun to watch getting beat down in the 1996 and 1997 Finals.

Anyway, back to the game. The second half of the first quarter and the second quarter were downright painful to watch if you were a Thunder fan. Just absolute destruction. No more needs to be said.

But, during halftime, something happened. The team came back fighting a 30+ point deficit. Grant Long dismissed it as "They realized that they have to play this team 3 more times this year." Well, it was much more than that. They were trying to win. Lead by spectacular performances from Desmond Mason and Kevin Durant, the team stormed back to single digits in the 4th quarter before the Jazz realized that they had to win. Nevertheless, scoring more than you did in the first two quarters combined in both the 3rd and 4th quarter definately makes a statement.

Look, I know that we're 1-4, and I know that things are looking grim, but we are not, I repeat, are not, playing like a young team. We have been in every single game so far, including against the world champion Boston Celtics. We have been competetive not just in the 1st and 2nd quarter, but in the 3rd and 4th quarters. We have dug ourselves out of huge holes. I may be crazy, but I think we can win over 35 games if we can get our act together. Just a few points this way or that way, and we're 3-2. Just throwing that out there.

On the Jazz side of the ball, nobody was better than Carlos Boozer. 21 Points, 7-14 Shooting, 9 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steal, and 1 Block all amount to a very excellent night. You always hear of a guard vying for a triple double, but when a Power Forward gets this close, it's pretty spectacular and says a lot about the man in general. Thus, he gets the Thunder Plunderer Award tonight.

On the Thunder side of the ball, Desmond Mason led the huge comeback against the Jazz in the 3rd and refused to be benched. Until this game, he was arguably the least efficient and least productive player on our roster. Reguardless, his rapid turnaround of 18 Points, 7-14 Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 1 Assist, 1 Steal, and 1 Block earns him the Thunder Wonder award tonight.

After Desmond, the obvious choice for Thunder Down Under is Kevin Durant. He actually hit his shots tonight, going 9-15 shooting for 14 points. His clutch shooting helped almost as much as Masons did. On top of that, he had a solid 5 Rebounds, 3 Assists, and 1 Steal. Shoutout to Jeff Green with 22 Points, 6-13 Shooting, 3-3 3 Pointers, 5 Rebounds, 2 Assists, and 3 Steals.

Playing like a complete embarassment tonight and earning the Thunder Blunder award was Chris Wilcox. When you're a big man, 1-7 Shooting doesn't cut it under any circumstances. A -16 +/- ratio, 6 Rebounds, 1 Assist, 1 Steal, and a whopping 3 Turnovers capped off 22 minutes of hell for Wilcox.

Next Game: Sunday vs the Atlanta Hawks

Game 5 Pregame: Thunder at Jazz

2008-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

The Jazz have 4 wins in 4 games even without Deron Williams. The Thunder have 3 Losses in 4 games. These are obviously two teams headed in polar opposite directions. Playing at the Lake doesn't help either. God of Thunder does not like their chances tonight. In fact, God of Thunder hasn't been this sure about a game all year. So, get ready for some gloom and doom as yet another Thunder loss is broken down for you.

Backstory: OKC hits the road again, where they're winless this year. Not that the Ford Center has been too nice, but at least it gives them a little more mo' down the stretch, and they'd know that Super-Fan Zorgon would have their backs. It's true that the Jazz will be without Team USA member Deron Williams, but they got plenty of talent outside of that, and how many players anywhere close to Olympic level do the Thunder have? And don't say Kevin Durant. Just because I made an article that said he'd be there next time doesn't mean he's at the level he'll be at 4 years from now.

Match-Ups:
Ronnie Price vs. Earl Watson
Edge: Lil Earl
The Price is wrong in this match-up. Who is Ronnie Price, anyway? Some may be saying the same thing in Utah about Watson, but last year this guy averaged only 3.7 points and 1.3 assists. Earl Watson is obviously superior.

C.J. Miles vs. Kevin Durant
Edge: KD
Has there been a bigger rematch this season. C.J. Miles is very fortunate to be seeing the floor, due mostly to the injuries of AK-47 and D-Will. KD will light this guy up, until they finally bench him for Korver, then KD will light HIM up.

Ronnie Brewer vs. Jeff Green
Edge: Brewer
This was nearly a draw, but I gave the edge to Brewer. He frequently scores in the double digits and takes it to the rack pretty well. Stats are pretty comparable, so really this could go either way.

Carlos Boozer vs. Nick Collison
Edge: Boozer
This one's easy. C-Booz fills the Mailman's shoes nicely, and even if we combined Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox to make some freaky hybrid PF, it'd still be close.

Mehmet Okur vs. Johan Petro
Edge: Okur
Recently, Okur has been way off. Still, a way off Okur is way more productive than Petro. Okur on the inside, Okur on the outside, it won't matter, I think he'll have one of his better nights of the season thus far tonight.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Thunder
Maybe without the Jazz injuries, it'd be closer. Still, I don't think the Jazz bench is anything to gawk at. Korver is a great sixth man, but the Thunder have several solid guys coming off the bench, including Joe Smith, Desmond Mason, and Westbrook.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Jazz
We're at EnergySolutions Arena, which is going to be tough on it's own, not to mention facing Jerry Sloan, who is so superior to P.J. it isn't even funny.

Player to Watch: Kevin Durant. Should be able to eat up Miles. Korver even more so. If they put Ronie Brewer on him, which they probably will, it'll be a little more of a challenge, but still expect them to feed Durant the ball late, as they should be trailing.

God of Thunder's Pick: Jazz 98, Thunder 85

Game 4 Recap: Boston 96, Oklahoma City 83

2008-11-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Somebody forgot to tell PJ it wasn't 80s night. Still, I wish I had that jacket-tie combo.

Yahoo! Box Score

Well, the master picker strikes again. His 95-81 prediction was only off by a total of 3 points. Again, why go anywhere else?

So, The Thunder played valiantly tonight. And, what's better, they didn't look like the typical "young team" at all. Let me elaborate.

The first quarter was epic. We lead the Celtics almost all the way through, and even though they didn't look stunned, the fans sure were happy. The 2nd and 3rd quarter saw our lead slowly diminish into a 12-17 point deficit. But, unlike most young teams, who completely give up in the 4th, we stayed strong. In fact, a couple more defensive stops, and the game might've been ours.

But when it's all said and done, the Celtics just had better ball movement. They usually did one of two things: 1. Kick it out to Ray Allen/any other sharpshooter. 2. Make a gaping hole in the centre of the lane and watch the generally quicker Celtics make an easy layup.

On top of that, our big men were really mismatched. Joe Smith is known for his hustle, rebounding, and offense, but his defense is slightly below par. And he was getting burned by Kevin Garnett all night. Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox didn't far much better. Johan Petro tried his best, but he was getting scored on down low even by Kendrick Perkins. If the Thunder tried to double team, the other team would just pass it to the other big man for an easy two. Not a good picture.

The face of confidence.

The small men were equal in driving, but Ray Allen and Paul Pierce could shoot 3s, unlike our plethora of non-shooting small men. Even if our guys could shoot 3s, it wasn't helped by the fact that we were giving heavy minutes to Earl Watson. Earl Watson is sometimes notorious for bad jumpshots or ill-concieved drives to the basket. Rajon Rondo, on the other hand, is known for his excellent defense and slick passing. Is the picture becoming slightly clearer now?

Paul Pierce is satisfied because nobody takes pictures of any Celtic but him Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen.

All of that being said, tonight really was an off night for the Celtics. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce both shot terribly, and Kevin Garnett just didn't look like the dominating force he usually is. Rajon Rondo did what he uaually does and was extremely efficent with 100% field goals and 11 assists, but tonights Thunder Plunderer has to go to Leon Powe. With 11 Points, 3-6 Shooting, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and a +18 +/- ratio in 18 minutes, he really helped out his team tonight. He was a big reason that the Celtics took a commanding lead in the 3rd, and it was clear he was giving it his all while everybody else looked lackluster or disinterested.

On the Thunder side of the ball, nobody deserves the Thunder Wonder Award. I'm serious, nobody. This is partially because today was mostly a defensive effort and partially because almost everybody had a horrible day offensively. But, it has to be given to someone, so here goes. The only people who might even remotely deserve it are Earl Watson, Johan Petro, Chris Wilcox, Joe Smith, and Desmond Mason. Desmond Mason had a horrible +/- ratio, so he's out. Johan Petro was extremely efficent offensively (4-5) but he totally sucked defensively and had a measly 1 rebound, so he's out. Chris Wilcox and Joe Smith performed almost identically, but neither of them quite up to the standard of Earl Watson, who is tonights Thunder Wonder. 7 Points, 7 Rebounds, and 5 Assists sounds like a typical Mike Dunleav, Jr. scoring line, but not for a 6' 1" Point guard. He couldn't do much offensively, but his sheer amount of heart, hustle, and hardwood gets Earl Watson the Thunder Wonder Award tonight. This is the first time this season he's really outperformed Russell Westbrook, so he should be proud.

The Thunder Down Under award then, by logic, goes to either Wilcox (5 Points, 2-5 Shooting, 8 Rebounds) or Smith (9 Points, 4-9 Shooting, 5 Rebounds). Trying to decide is pretty much splitting hairs. It's all a matter of if rebounds or points matter more. The thing is, I think that Joe Smith came through in more critical times. He had some pretty fancy shots in the 4th, and one of his missed shots was a halftime lob. Still, he forced himself into bad one-on-one situations, and, again, got torched defensively by Garnett. But, in the end, Wilcox missed a freethrow, Smith got the same amount of offensive rebounds, and Wilcox was torched equally as bad defensively. So, the Thunder Down Under Award goes to Joe Smith.

Now, the Thunder Blunder. For me, it's between Russell Westbrook and Nick Collison. Now, you may be saying "But Russell Westbrook got 13 points!" Well, 6 of those were meaningless. He hit 2 meaningless, undefended 3s at the end of the game. Now, his stats, instead of being 13 Points, 4-13 Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 1 Assist, and 1 Steal, it's 7 Points, 2-11 shooting, 5 Rebounds, 1 Assist, and 1 Steal. A whole lot less impressive, huh? Still, his lack of assists are made up by his rebounds, which are almost as many as Nick Collison had (6). On top of that, Nick Collison played 5 more minutes, and was only 1-6 of the floor for 2 points. While 2 blocked shots are impressive, they're not enough to keep Nick Collison away from tonight's Thunder Blunder.

Next Game: Friday at the Utah Jazz

Lets prepare for another beatdown.

Game 4 Pregame: Celtics at Thunder

2008-11-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

They have it. We want it. But we can't have it. The next best thing to actually winning the championship is beating the championship team. Well, actually I suppose it's making it to the finals; but seeing as how we have no chance of making the playoffs, this is as close as we can get. And what better chance do we have at capturing the epic upset than here in now legendary "Loud City?" Do I think it'll happen tonight? Ha, not even close! But hey, can't wait to see the Big Ticket take the court again.

Backstory: The Thunder suck. Really, the Celtics represent everything we're not. 1) Talented. KG, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce. KD, Jeff Green, Chris Wilcox. See the difference? 2) Team Chemistry and Leadership. Ray Allen is a solid vet, KG is using this opportunity to build his legacy, and Pierce is, of course, the Cap'N. Who leads our team? Joe Smith? Plus team's way too young to build any chemistry. 3) They're winners. Like I said earlier, they got rings, we don't.

Match-Ups:
Earl Watson vs. Rajon Rondo
Edge: Rondo
I'm in the school of thought that says that all the talent around him makes Rondo appear better. Still, a solid defender, good driver, and has freakishly large hands.

Kevin Durant vs. Ray Allen
Edge: KD
Allen has fallen off his game a tad since he left Seattle, and I think that KD will generally fill up the stat sheet a lot more.

Jeff Green vs. Paul Pierce
Edge: Pierce
This one ain't close at all. In my humble opinion, which happens to be shared by Danny Ainge, when Pierce is on his game, it's really hard to find someone anybody. There's always going to be a player just as good of course, but if you told the Celtics they could swap him for LeBron, I think they'd stay where they are now.

Nick Collison vs. Kevin Garnett
Edge: KG
Wilcox matches up much better, but in all likelihood he'll be coming off the bench again. Theres no one on the team who'll ever be as good as KG, so don't feel bad about losing this match-up.

Johan Petro vs. Kendrick Perkins
Edge: Perkins
Neither of these players are great, maybe borderline ok at best. Like Rondo though, the presence of the Big 3 takes a lot of pressure off Perk so just because of that, he's better.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Draw
Theres nothing that spectacular about the Celtics bench. They have some nice players; Big Baby, Sam Cassel, Eddie House, but nothing special. Still, they're efficient. Same goes for Thunder, who get a big boost from Weezy.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Celtics
I'm not a big believer in Doc Rivers' coaching prowess, I think he's a benefactor from some great trades. Still, how many championships does P.J. have?

Player to Watch: I think Weezy off the bench is a safe pick. Really, the Thunder will need to rely on him and Durant if they have any hope of keeping it reasonable.

Predicted Result: Hmmmmmm, the God of Thunder says Celtics 95, Thunder 81

Thunder cuts ties with Lucas, sign Hill

2008-11-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

To the dismay of many Okie State fans, I'm sure, John Lucas III has been waived by the Thunder. From a state perspective, it's too bad because you'd like to see a guy who meant so much to a final four team do well with the new pride-and-joy of OKC. From a basketball point of view, I suppose it was a business move. It was nice that they gave Lucas a chance, but apparently they felt satisfied with where they were at guard at the time and felt they needed to add depth to the frontcourt...

Which brings us to new big man Steven Hill. You know him as the hippie-guy who used to play for the Arkansas Razorbacks. He's a former SEC Defensive Player of the Year and he's got a good deal of athleticism down low. I'd basically compare him to a white Joakim Noah (oddly enough that Defensive Player of the Year award of Hill's came during Noah's last year in college). Like Noah, he's very raw offensively. Still, if he plays like he did in college, we could have a solid stopper down low coming off the bench.

One can't help but notice Steven Hill's familiar appearance. He reminds everyone of a certain cartoon character we all used to know and love. But who is it...Elemer Fudd? No, that's not it. Yosemite Sam? No, not him either. Hey maybe it's...

Hmmm, still not convinced it's Shaggy, how about this one:

These comparisons to Scooby-Doo reminds us of a certain infamous character who's big, broad, and scary on the outside and a menacing master of thievery on the inside...that's right, Clay Bennett! Oh, and this Scooby-Doo villain guy, too:

Vote Today!

2008-11-04T02:26:00.001-08:00

Game 3 Recap: Oklahoma City 88, Minnesota 85

2008-11-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

Halloween may be over, but Pumpkin pictures are cool year 'round!

NBA.com Box Score

Before I start this recap, let me just iterate the genius of my partner in crime. Okluschen (Ben Luschen) of Blue Blitz predicted the score of this game....EXACTLY. Exactly right. Why even go to other sites at all now? You might as well just forget it, captain. We got the experts up here in this crib.

The game tonight was awesome for Thunder fans. The presentation? Not so much. Now that all of the shine and glimmer of the home opener is gone, one realizes just how paper thin the game entertainment is. The drumline (by far my favourite part of the overall presentation) wasn't used during team introductions, and was only used once the entire game. During timeouts, the team really didn't have much to show. There was the Midfirst bank shot contest, but aside from that the entertainment mostly consisted either of looking at crazy fans or watching the emcee give free stuff to some guy who probably paid to get on camera. The music during the game was also horrible. Most of it just contisted of playing "Charge", "De-Fense", or "Everybody clap your hands". I swear, I think I'll have to kill whoever keeps playing "Everybody clap your hands". I mean, they played it literally 6 times, and thqat was only when I counted! Get something new! I think I'll get sick of Thunderstruck by the time the season is through, too.

Presentation aside, you've gotta love this game. The first 3 quarters went by a specific formula. The Timberwolves would get off to a huge lead, make things look like same-old, same-old for the Thunder. Then, the Thunder would come storming back to tie it by the time the quarter ended. By the 4th, the Thunder had things figured out, and a defensive battle ensued.

Needless to say, we we killed by Al Jefferson. Things never seem to change in Minnesota, becuase if you changed "Al Jefferson" to "Kevin Garnett", "Mike Miller" to "Ricky Davis", and "Craig Smith" to "Mark Blount", you couldn't really tell the difference between now and back in the day. But I digress. Al Jefferson with 24 Points, 11-17 shooting, 13 Rebounds, and 1 block easily earns the Thunder Plunderer Award tonight.

On our side of the ball, Kevin Durant had another horrible night with 18 points on just 7-21 shooting. While Darnell Mayberry thinks that his shots will start going in, it's my opinion that we're going to see a lot of off nights this season. About 1 of every 3 games he'll perform, but otherwise he'll stink it up to the extreme and hurt the team. Jeff Green was a little bit more productive, but was hardly deserving of the award with 13 points on 6-14 Shooting. Ditto for Russell Westbrook with 14 points, 6-13 shooting and only 2 assists. Granted, he did play some SG today, but that was for a short period at the end of the game.

Still, nobody had a worse night tonight than our lovable Frenchman, Johan Petro. In 17 minutes he had 4 Points, 2-4 shooting, 6 rebounds, 1 steal, and a -12 +/- ratio. The closest to him was Nick sollison at -6. He missed a couple of midrange jumpers tonight, and I really think he needs to get in the post more. Somebody give this man a lead pass! Or a screen! Here's hoping to better times, and more Thunder Blunderless nights, Johan,

Thus, the Thunder Wonder award has to go to Nick Collison. He didn't have a totally awesome performace, but he had a solid, liquid, and gas outing with 10 points, 4-8 shooting, 10 rebounds (7 offensive), 2 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks. On top of that, he had a really awesome shot late in the 4th to put the Thunder up by 1, from which they never looked back. There's a reason they sell a "jersey shirt" for this guy.

The Thunder Down Under award is a tough one to decide. Whomever I give it to really doesn't deserve it. Since I'm infamous for hating inefficency, I'm going to give it to, you guessed it, Joe Smith. 6 Points, 3-4 Shooting, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal all in 16 minutes. Early on he was getting burned a bit by Craig Smith, but it's nothing compared to the whopping that Jefferson was doing on Wilcox. He made a lot of hustle rebounds and recovering from steals in the mid 4th that really kept the Thunder in the game. Yeah, yeah, I know you guys are gonna call me a homer for this one.

Lastly, before I go, I'd really like to state that I miss Damien Wilkins. He's been getting next to none minutes, and appears to be stuck in Coach Carlesimos doghouse. Here's hoping he gets some minutes. His Pre-Season performance really makes him deserve a chance.

Next Game: Wednesday vs. The Boston Celtics

Game 3 Pregame: Timberwolves at Thunder

2008-11-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

At last, a winnable game. Really, if you're the Thunder, I don't want to say "must-win," but it would definitely be a disappointment if you didn't. I mean, the T-Wolves at home? If you can't win this game, what can you win? In the NBA, nothing is for certain, but you have to like your chances tonight.

Backstory: Unsurprisingly enough, the Thunder remain winless all-time in significant games. The sloppy play from the preseason seemed to carry over to the regular season. But Thunder fans, please don't be disappointed. We all know this team sucks. It's not about wins and loses though. It's about NBA basketball in OKC. So sit back tonight at the Ford Center, grab a beer, soda, hot dog, pizza, whatever, and thank Mick Cornett for bringing us a team.

Match-Ups:
Earl Watson vs. Randy Foye
Edge: Watson
This is a close match-up, neither player putting up the kind of numbers that absolutely blow you away. Earl Watson is at home, so I gave him the edge. There are times, really, where he looks pretty good. Neither of these point guards would be starting on a play-off team though, so definitely a lack-luster match-up.

Kevin Durant vs. Rashad McCants
Edge: KDKD is the better scorer (though McCants is second on the 'Wolves in scoring thus far this season) and should be a handful against Rashad defensively, so I think this is a pretty decisive edge.

Jeff Green vs. Mike Miller
Edge: Miller
Well, if it were the Mike Miller of three or four years ago, this wouldn't even be close. Still, Mike's still got game and Jeff Green is arguably one of the weakest Thunder starters.

Nick Collison vs. Al Jefferson
Edge: Big Al
OK, so apparently Wilcox is coming off the bench this season. I guess I can live with that. Even if he was starting, I seriously doubt that he'd be able to beat Big Al out for the power forward match-up. This guy is for real. If he were in L.A., he'd be Andrew Bynum.

Johan Petro vs. Kevin Love
Edge: Love
He's only played a few games, but has been pretty efficient in them. Averaging 10 points and 6 boards, plus a danger from downtown. Plus, does Petro really win at anything in life?

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Thunder
Now that Wilcox isn't starting, the bench is much more solidified. Desmond Mason and Russ Westbrook give you good energy players off the bench at nearly every position.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Thunder
Props to my boyz in the Ford Center. Just keep doin what your doin.

Player to Watch: I say watch Earl Watson. He plays inconsistently, but I have a hunch he'll do well tonight. At least he'd better do well, or we'll have a hard time capturing victory.

Predicted Result: Thunder 88 Timberwolves 85

Game 2 Recap: Houston 89, Oklahoma City 77

2008-11-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

KD was like a Globetrotter Tonight
NBA.com Box Score

This is kind of a quickie recap, as I only saw 50% of the game and am really tired.

This is another game in which the final score was not very telling.

The Thunder left it all on the floor tonight in a hostile environment against a team that both Ben and I predicted to win the NBA title this year. They almost had a lead going into halftime before the Rockets scored a quick basket to go up by 1. It was steady until somewhere in the 3rd, where the score quickly dropped off.

The reason? Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant, and even more Kevin Durant. He went 11-20 for 26 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 4 steals. That is more than enough to secure tonights Thunder Wonder. He will definately be on and off all season. Luckily, tonight he was on.

Aside from him, the team thrived on defense, and offensively productivity was very low. That's why I have to give tonights Thunder Down Under to Joe Smith. 20 minutes, 4-6 shooting, 2 rebounds, and 8 points, most of which were gotten during clutch moments where the Thunder needed to stay alive. He's definately going to be a big help when push comes to shove in clutch situations. Green and Petro were okay but not efficent. Earl Watson distributed really well tonight with 8 assists, but his scoring efficency was also dismally low.

The Rockets were also incredibly poor offensively tonight. Nobody really shined, and their top scorer at 22, McGrady, is the only player on the team to have a negative plus minus ratio. Yaos shooting (6-15) was abysmal for a big man, and his 16 point 11 rebound game don't make up for it when you're 7'6". Thus, the Thunder Plunderer award has to go to Carl Landry tonight. He had 27 minutes, 14 points, 6-11 shooting, 14 points, 11 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2 steals. Not a excellent line, but games like these never look pretty.

Watching this game made me realise that the Thunder are, in fact, not an average young team. Their ability to play defense really helps them keep things from getting out of hand for too long. If they can perfect this ability, they should learn to be able to keep the game in hand all game long, rather than blow huge leads like some teams would do (the 2005-2006 Warriors, for instance).

Anyway, our next matchup is tonight at 6 PM. I hope you're having an excellent weekend and had an excellent Halloween!

Game 2 Pre-Game: Thunder at Rockets

2008-11-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

After being easily handeled by the Bucks, OKC hopes to rebound against the Rockets tonight, a task much easier said than done. Still, the NBA is where amazing happens, so don't rule it out. Likewise though...don't get your hopes up. This team is far superior to our own, and arguably one of the best in the league.

Backstory: Despite a full Ford Center, the Thunder were not able to punctuate opening night with a victory. Maybe the Thunder will turn out to be one of those road warrior teams that finds comfort in foreign arenas. OK, wishful thinking perhaps, but you never know. It would be wonderful if the first ever Thunder regular season victory was tonight in Houston. Being realitic though, we may have to wait untill Minnesota comes to town...or Boston!

Match-Ups:
Rafer Alston vs. Earl Watson
Edge: Alston
In my opinion, the street ball legend has the decisive offensive edge over Watson. Also, because his supporting cast is so much more talented, Alston doesn't need to concern himself as much with actually running the team and can spend more time making sure he contributes when needed.

Tracy McGrady vs. Kevin Durant
Edge: TMac
Let's not get ahead of ourselves now. Durant may be the team's best player, but he's no Tracy McGrady. TMac is usually, except when the Lakers are in town, the best shooting guard on the court. Tonight is no exception.

Ron Artest vs. Jeff Green
Edge: Artest
Another ridiclous match-up. Ron Artest is a proven defender, scorer, all-star, and fan puncher. Nothing about Jeff Green is proven. Some people (Jim Traber) say that there's all star potential in Green. Still, others question whether he should even be starting. Tonight should tell us a lot about who's right.

Luis Scola vs. Chris Wilcox
Edge: Weezy
Hey, I don't even know if Wilcox is going to start tonight...but he should be. At times he's the best player on the team, and if he plays to potential, which I'm optimistic (as always) that he will, he should easily outperfrom the overshadowed Scola.

Yao Ming vs. Nick Collison
Edge: YaoDon't make me laugh. Nothing against Collison, but he's not even tall for a power forward. At center, and against Yao Ming no less? Pfft, there will be times where he may as well not even be there defensively.

Battle of the Benches
Edge: Rockets Bench
It's not even close. Rockets bench could give Thunder starters a good game. Shane Battier, Steve Francis, and Bobby Jackson off the pine? What do we got? DMase? Petro? Joe Smith masquerading as Rip Hamilton? Not really even comparable.

Coaching and Intangibles
Edge: Rockets
Both Adelman and Carlesimo are former Portland and Golden State coaches. Adelman, though, has made it to the Finals, where Carlesimo has never made it out of the first round. Then again, neither has McGrady. This isn't the playoffs though, so Rockets should coast.

Player to Watch: If you include the preseason, he's been a steady performer all season. So, no reason not to go with ole' relaible once more. Don't know why he didn't start the last game, not really a good reason. If P.J. sits him again, the fans won't be happy, not to mention Wilcox, who already has motivational problems.

Predicted Result: Rockets 110 Thunder 91

Game 1 Recap: Milwaukee 98, Oklahoma City 87

2008-10-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

David Stern: Cutest Commissioner in All of Sports.

NBA.com Boxscore

I got to the game early today. And, me being the media magnet that I am, got onto KFOR again!

Big ups to Marika Lorraine for recognizing me and interviewing me. It starts at about 4:27, and I'm shown twice. Nothing AMAZING, but still pretty awesome nonetheless. I was also interviewed by NBATV. Hopefully I'll be able to show that one too, but its a bit less substantial.

There were a slew of pre-game activities. For main attractions they had a band that did mostly 80s cover songs, a BMX show, and some country-western band which sounded horrible. On the side booths, they had bungie basketball (as Lance West shows in the video above), freethrow shooting, mini basketball hoops, and food. They had the flags of the NBA teams up, and while it looked exciting, it was pretty boring waiting around for the most part.

I finally got in to find out that Bonigi Brothers got taken over by Pizza Hut! They used to serve big slices of pizza (1/6th of a huge one) for $4, but now Pizza hut has tiny Personal Pans for $6. Ultra-Lame. I had some burgers from the Route 66 Grill, but, needless to say, I won't be eating in the arena very often anymore. At least Ben still has the world-famous Slap Shots.

Anyway, I ventured to my seat to see a pre-game performance by none other than....the C&C Music Factory. That's right, the band that made "Everybody Dance Now". And, lo and behold, that's what they played! For 10 straight minutes. I'm not kidding, a 10 minute rendition of "Everybody Dance Now". Well, it was fun!

Then, David Stern and Mick Cornett gave some words. The big moment there had to be when David Stern said, "Oklahoma City, welcome to the National Basketball Association".

Boy, did that ring true tonight. The team looked horrible out of the gate. It was tied twice at 2 and 4, but, before I knew it, the Arena was virtually silent. I looked up, and the scoreboard said 20 to 8. Welcome to the NBA!

The team kind of hovered around 10-15 behind before they fell behind by a full 20 before the 4th quarter began. They tried to give Milwaukee a run for their money, beating the deficit down to 9, but a well-placed timeout and bad substitutions by P.J. Carlesimo put the Thunder away for good.

The +/- ratios in this game tell the story. The starters for the Thunder are all in the negatives, while the bench are all in the positives. Needless to say, every single starter played horribly tonight. I saw a lot of misplaced shots, a lot of misplaced drives, and a lot of times where the extra pass could have made all the difference.

The key to revitalizing the starting lineup here might be benching Earl Watson. While he and Westbrook had the same amount of assists, Westbrooks driving actually helps the Thunder. Watson will sit at the top of the key, hardly creating any ball movement. Westbrook will drive the ball down to the post, and create opportunities for guys like Chris Wilcox, Desmond Mason, and Joe Smith. His method isn't perfect, but every indication I'm getting now is full steam ahead for Westbrook.

I wouldn't blame Johan Petro's performance tonight on himself. He needs someone to distribute to him, as he's completely inept at creating for himself. His defense was a bit off, but Watson certainly didn't help him.

Kevin Durant and Jeff Green were a large part of the problem tonight. As far as I'm concerned, I'd bench those guys from what I saw of them tonight. For the amount of opportunities they got, their production was amazingly weak. If you look at shot percentage, they weren't much better than Johan Petro (they went 5-14 and 2-7, and Petro went 1-5). These guys have got to learn to either make their shots or pass it....which brings me to my next suggestion.

Pass to the open man! There were so, so many times when guys would just go for the horrible shot rather than pass to the guy who had a wide, wide open midrange shot. Granted, these don't walways go in, but they go in a lot more than circus layups do.

Birdcalling.

Lastly, a suggestion to our coach. When a lineup is working, don't mess with it! There was about 5-6 minutes left in the game, we just made a huge run to get within 9, and he makes 2-3 different substitutions! Just because Durant and Green are your franchise players doesn't mean that you have to put them in when their backups are doing perfectly fine!

Without further ado, tonights....

Thunder Wonder
Weezy, 15 points, 6-9 Shooting, 7 Rebounds, 1 Assist

Simply awesome. No big streaks, but he produced all game. Not an all-star performance, but definately a refreshing diamond in the rough tonight.

Thunder Blunder
Johan Petro, 2 Points, 1-5 Shooting, 3 Rebounds, 1 Steal, 1 Block

Really not his fault, but Johan Petro might as well have been a waste of space out there on the floor tonight. Didn't really hurt the team, but didn't help a whole lot either.

Thunder Down Under
Joe Smith, 8 Points, 3-4 Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 2 Steals, 1 Block

He was shaky at first, but he did a wonderful job pulling out key plays down the stretch. He was an instrumental part of the run in the 4th quarter, he served as an endless array of pick n' rolls, and he played excellent defense.

Thunder Plunderer
Charlie Villanueva, 20 Points, 12 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steal, 2 Blocks

The Bucks were almost as inefficent as the Thunder tonight, and Charlie V was no exception, but he did do the best out of his team. His rebounding really helped them out of a lot of jams tonight. I almost gave this to Bogut, but he really did fizzle out after the first.

Lowballing: The Hornets banner thanking them for their support from 2005-2007 is offically gone. That's just sad and lame. It should remain in memory.

Kelvin Sampson's name was misspelled in the program as Kelvin Sampsn. IT was the only grammatical error I noticed. Tsk tsk.

Highballing: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute has to have the coolest name in the NBA.

Next Game: Saturday at the Houston Rockets.

Breaking News: Bart Conner was there.

Thunder Day has Arrived: Game 1: Thunder vs. Bucks

2008-10-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Game Time, Bucks

Projected Starting Lineups:
Johan Petro C Andrew Bogut
Chris Wilcox PF Charlie Villanueva
Jeff Green SF Richard Jefferson
Kevin Durant SG Michael Redd
Earl Watson PG Luke Ridnour

Just as there was a "Teal Day" on the day of season opener of the Hornets, there is now a "Thunder Day today on the day of the Season Opener of the Thunder.

Teal Day featured Hugo in a Santa Claus suit, leading Ben and I to name him "Teal Claus".

But for this season opener, I doubt that there will be any winning gifts.

We prepare for a matchup with a extremely good Bucks starting lineup that has absolutely no bench. While most people are predicting that this team will finish near the bottom of the East, I and my good friend, Zach DiSchiano, think that this team is playoff worthy.

The key difference in this game will be Michael Redd. If he can get hot from 3 point range, then it's all over. Our extreme 3-point ineptitude will kill us vs. a team that shoots it well.

Richard Jefferson will struggle in this game. He's a guy who loves to slash to the hoop. He'll most likely be guarded by Kevin Durant, and on top of that he'll have to get over our our plethora of big men. He mostly thrives against smaller teams. Expect to see a lot of free throw attempts.

The main battle in this game will undoubtedly be in the low post. The Thunder have a lot of offensive minded big guys, like Wilcox and Collison who will face other offensively minded big guys, like Bogut and Villanueva. There will undoubtedly be a lot of low-post scoring on both ends, with the Thunder probably haveing a slight advantage.

The key to this game for the Thunder is tiring the Bucks out. The backups, sans Ramon Sessions, really stink. The Thunders big advantage is that for every big man that goes down, we've got 2 more ready to pick up where he left off almost as well. The Bucks only have the super-old Francisco Elson and the super-average Malik Allen. If we can keep our big men fresh for most of the game, I can forsee a Thunder Victory.

The key for the Bucks is to remember to be a cohesive unit. Ridnour, Jefferson, and mch of their bench are new acquisitions. They might have a little bit of trouble meshing together as a cohesive unit and gameplan. The first game of the season is the easiest time for a new team to fall apart, so they've got to stick together.

All gameplans aside, there will be some "celebs" returning to the Ford Center.

Luke Ridnour:
Our long lost Point Guard who clearly didn't want to go to Oklahoma City. Personally, I don't mind as we got Joe Smith and Desmond Mason out of the deal, but some fans might be sour. I doubt we hear more than a couple of boos, but it's something to watch for.

Kelvin Sampson:
The former University of Oklahoma basketball coach who moved to Indiana University and called his recruits one too many times. After doing it once and recieving a slap on the wrist, he did it again, and was fired. He was shortly re-hired as a coach with the Bucks. This totally ruins his formerly all red tie wardrobe (Washington State, Oklahoma, Indiana). He made this move despite an open invitation to coach at Montana State, his first head job.

Being an assistant coach for an NBA team seems to be the place to get away from scandal. Our own P.J. Carlesimo did the same, and now everybody's all but forgotten Spree, who experienced a sad retirement and owes thousands in back taxes. So, could we see an up and coming NBA team hiring Kelvin as their head coach in 2013? I wouldn't be surprised.

Reguardless, it's been a long road to the season opener. We've seen othe blogs come and go, crappy logos coming, and Blue Blitz being ranked the #2 Thunder blog on the net. Bend it like Bennett may think that they're the best, but we really appreciate all of the fan support we've recieved.

We hope you enjoy the season, as we are really looking forward to it. Oklahoma City finally has a pro team. Wow. No half New Orleans teams, no minor league. Just pro league Oklahoma City. It's a lot to take in.

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy all of the pre-game Thunder festivities. Go OKC!

Predicted Final: Milwaukee 112, Oklahoma City 93

Side Note: The ticket to this game is completely impractical. Too big for a pocket, easy to steal. I'm having to safety pin a baggy to the inside of my jacket. Ugh.

NBA Blogger Previews: Southeast Division

2008-10-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

The season draws nearer and nearer, as evidenced by there only being one division left to go in the NBA Blogger Previews:

Atlanta Hawks
Matt McHale: Basketbawful
Hoopinion: Peachtree Hoops

Charlotte Bobcats
BrettL: Queen City Hoops
Ziggy: BobcatsPlanet

Miami Heat
Darren Heitner: SportsAgentBlog.com
Gregory Broome: The Peninsula is Mightier

Orlando Magic
Ben: Third Quarter Collapse

Washington Wizards
Rashad: Hoops Addict
HoopsAvenue: HoopsAvenue
Mike Prada: Bullets Forever
Truth: Truth About It Dot Net

The above is required reading, as it's like not-too-soggy-yet-still-milked frosted mini-wheats for your eyes.

Lastly, just like to note that this is the 100th post of Blue Blitz. This surpasses our old blog, Adonal Obsessed, which only had 92 posts. We ne ver thought we'd get this far, and we never imagined that we'd have written 100 posts before the season even started. None of this would have been possible without you, the reader. Thanks so much for coming over every once in a while and seeing what's good. For me, personally, I only get satisfaction in my writing if someone reads it. And, since people do, I'm pretty satisfied.

Since it's the 100th post, I'd like to announce that there's something big in the works for Blue Blitz. If that was too cryptic for you: We're going big time. I can't reveal too much yet, but I can guarantee one thing: We're getting off of Blogger, with lots more features to boot.

But I've already said too much.

Have a most excellent weekend!

Lakers Preparation

2008-10-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

Dear readers of our blog,

First of all, I'd like to remind you to vote for our blog on LA Ball Talk. We're currently in 3rd place, and we'd really like to make a move for first. Even if it's not for us, go vote! We always like to see Thunder blog excitement.

Also, I'd like to inform you that we will NOT be posting a recap for the Thunder vs. Lakers game tonight. I and Okluschen are taking the ACT tomorrow, and we can't afford to stay up doing recaps at 1 AM. Tomorrow is jam-packed too, and so it goes.

In lieu of that, I'd like to run an interview with the Lakers Nation that never got around to being posted. Their "Pre-Season Prespective" column was unpopular, and so I assume they trashed it. If not and they still need to use it, please contact me ASAP.

Otherwise, here it is. Most of the Thunder stuff has been covered before, but there's some nice Lakers and all-around NBA perspective.

All questions were asked by Jonathan Somers-Harris of Lakers Nation.

1. Out on a limb, although backing it up with solid reasoning would be cool too, what do you think the ball park for the Magic's 08-09 regular season record will be, and how do you feel they will place in the Northwest/West?

We'd say it'd be between 10 and 25 wins. Almost every team in the West has improved since last season, and aside from a couple more rookies, Desmond Mason, and Joe Smith, we're not that much better.

As far as the Northwest division, it is split up into 2 sectors. The Trail Blazers, Jazz, and Nuggets are kind of in a league of their own, with the Nuggets being slightly lower. The Thunder and Timberwolves will be in an all-out slugfest for last place in the division, and probably last in the West too, to answer your other question. The only other teams that we'd see it possible for us to beat in the West would be Sacramento and Memphis. But, you should take all of this with a grain of salt, because we said the same about the 05-06 Hornets, and they almost made the playoffs.

2. Again, out on the said limb, what do you think the ball park for the Laker's 08-09 regular season record will be, and how do you feel they will place in the Pacific/West?

The Lakers are definately in the top tier of the West. But, they'll have their hands full with a trio of Southwestern challengers. The Spurs, Hornets, and Rockets could all fessibly challenge them for the West crown. But the Lakers are definately the best in their division, with the downfall of the Suns, the Point Guardless Warriors, and the incompletely talented Clippers not posing enough of a threat.

So, I'd say a record of 55-60 Games, with 1st in the West and Pacific. The Lakers have a life span of only 2-3 more years before Kobe the loser gets too old to be effective enough to stay in the league.

3. How do you feel the Thunder match up with the Lakers over a 7-game series?

Why would you ask such a question? Who would watch that series? When would it occur?

Let's say 0-4. The Thunder are too young to match up with the Lakers effectively. Bynum and Gasol would obliterate Petro and Collison. The only guy with the constitution to match up with them is Joe Smith, but he doesn't have the talent. Kobe would obliterate anybody at Shooting Guard. The only possible places we could beat out the Lakers would be at Small Forward and Point Guard. The Durant-Odom matchup is pretty even, with Durant maybe being slightly better, but I doubt that it would make a difference. Watson is probably better than Fisher simply because he has to distribute the ball, whereas Fisher just shoots and Kobe does all of the distributing. Still, not much of a difference here. A definate 4-0 loss of the Thunder.

4. Lakers fans are split down the middle on Odom; some love his versatility, others hate his inconsistency. As an opposing fan, how do you rate Odom?

Lamar Odom is the modern-day Antoine Walker. Back in the day, he could lead his own bad team, as Walker lead the Celtics and Odom lead the Clippers. But, later in their careers, they became injury-prone, inconsistent sand part of a larger championship puzzle, such as Walker with the Heat and Odom with the Lakers. He's starter-quality, and some days he'll be All-Star quality, but he won't get much better.

5. What do you think of Kobe's decisions to put-off surgery on his injured pinky?

It's a good decision. The pinky isn't an essential part of the basketball body, and he doesn't need time to ressessitate it. Also, this is one of his last years of SUPER stardom, before he kind of fades into general All-Stardom. Good decision for him and the Lakers.

6. What is your perception on Bynum? Lakers fans have him pegged as the next *insert hall-of-fame center*, yet the rest of the league doesn't seem to hold him in such a high regard.

Andrew Bynum is a little bit overhyped. We don't really think of him as Hall-of-Fame, but rather more of a borderline All-Star. When he's put next to Gasol, this will become a bit more obvious. If we had to give him a comparison, we'd have to say....Zyundras Ilgauskas, maybe a little bit better. But, who knows? This could be his breakout season.

7. Kevin Durant already has his starting spot pretty much guaranteed, yet Jeff Green will still have to fight for playing time. Do you feel he should be "baptized by fire" and given the starting role, or should he have to earn it?

Jeff Green should basically be our key sixth man. He's definately a good player, but his talent level at this point doesn't warrant playing him or somebody else out of the position to put him in the starting lineup. In the future he might be good enough, but right now he's just kind of between a rock and a hard place, especially with the coming of Mason. As the season progresses, we might change things up, but for now, he's a bencher.

8. The Thunder have a litany of project big men from a previous era. Do you feel any of them are worth keeping around, or are they a waste of space?

You have to take this individual by individual. But, you could put them in 2 groups. The first, "Like to Keep" consists of Collison and Wilcox, while the second, "Show me something or we'll cut you" consists of Sene, Swift, and Petro. Joe Smith doesn't count, since he's new.

Nick Collison is definately a starter to borderline starter, with Wilcox being a bit worse. They both are unlikely to improve, but both are known quantities and valuable to the team. While it may be impossible to keep both, ideally you like to try to hang onto them. They could be good trade bait.

Sene, Swift, and Petro, on the other hand, have virtually no trade value but filler. Sene looks really offensively horrible. Swift might've been good, but his bum knee will likely keep him from going far. Petro looks hopelessly average. Not average in the Ilgauskas sense, but average in the NBA bench center sense. Since big men generally command a lot of dollars, unless these guys improve a significant amount, we'd let them walk after one season.

9. What are your thoughts on the "player exodus" from the NBA to Europe? Do you think a Kobe or a Lebron would ever seriously consider leaving the NBA?

We think that it will be a small trickle every year. There won't be a "mass exodus" like some people are predicting. Next year, we'll probably see someone like Lamar ODom or Antoine Walker leave, along with various other smaller stars.

A uperstar player probably won't leave the NBA in the foreseeable future. The only way I could see it happening is if a superstar was clearly at the end of his prime. For example, an old shaq going to the Euroleague at 38 or 9 years old is not entirely unfeesible. They'd either do it for money, or pure love of the game.

Down the road, if transportation allows, it's easy to see a joint NBA-Euroleague. It would be easy to say probably not in the next 20 years, and definately not in the next 10. It will be a hard transition though, as there are key rule differences, and the Sponsorship is a lot more prevalent in Europe (think Armani Jeans). It could be kind of like the AL and NL in the MLB. They both play by the rules according to which stadium they're in. They could also have specific times when NBA teams play European teams and when they play domesitcally. But that's all probably very far off.

10. What got you into blogging? How do you feel about it as a news medium?

We both originally got into blogging last year. Ben had looked at CBS Sportsline and other prevalent journalism sources previously, whereas Zeb had been reading the likes of Golden State of Mind and Sports Media Watch. Our original blog, Adonal Obsessed (named after Adonal Foyle, Zebs favourite NBA player) blogged about everything and was a dismal failure. We eventually tired of it and realised that we would need a narrower focus in order to succeed. When the Tuhnder came to town officially, we saw our shot. There were no established blogs yet , and almost 0 Oklahoma City bloggers. We've been going 3 months strong now, and we're enjoying every minute of it.

As a news medium, it stinks. If you want to get the full, unslanted story, you should go to Yahoo, CBS Sportsline, or your local paper (just not ESPN, please). But, blogs are there so you can see what your buddy at the bar thinks. You know, just seeing what they think. Each blog usually caters to different tastes of people. For example, in the Thunder blogosphere alone, you have different personalities. Bend it Like Bennett is there for the Thunder haters. Sonics Central and Supersonic soul are there for Sonics missers. Thunderguru is there for stat freaks. Thunderworld is there for people looking for a bit of professionalism. Blue Blitz is there for a bit of humor and honest opinions. But, this doesn't speak for everybody, and it's entirely possible that bloggers are qualified to be professional sports reporters. That's just how we see blogs. As bar buddies. People you go to see to get their opinion.

11. Is Russell Westbrook the answer to the Starting Point Guard problem for this year, or is he one for the future?

This is an issue where we differ in opinion. Zeb thinks that he is a good future 2 guard, but that you really need someone to distribute the ball to these guys, as Kevin Durant is too big to handle the ball most of the time on a winning team. For now, we should stick with Watson and look for more options via the draft or trade in the future. On another hand, Ben thinks that Westbrook could defintely be the point guard of the future, though not this year. It would be importnat to have a solid defensive point guard like Westbrook in the future, because young point guards (Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Mike Conley) ared dominating the west.

Last Note: Just for the record, I hate the Lakers. As a long-time Warriors fan, I'm sick and tired of them trouncing us every year.

Preseason Pre-Game 7: Thunder vs Lakers

2008-10-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

At last, the preseason finally is coming to a close. I am certainly relieved that we can finally get this over with and get to some basketball with some meaning. Undoubtedly, the Thunder are ready to put this behind them as well. It's been disastrous this pre-season, plagued with injury and above all, loses. I'm sure P.J. and the guys are ready for a regular season...also bound to be plagued by injuries and loses. But at least those loses will mean something.

Without further adieu, here's your preview for tonight's finale, live from...Ontario, California???

Backstory: Yes, it's true that the Thunder have only had one win in six attempts. I'm not here to make things appear better than they are, but to the Thunder's defense, they haven't really been destroyed in any game. I mean, that still isn't winning, but at least it is humiliation. It's probably important to the team to end on a positive note though, at least in their eyes. if one win is 10x better than being winless, then two wins must be at least 3x as good as one. Does a win for the final game of the preseason give a team any added momentum? I don't know, probably not, but there's a chance, and as long as that chance is there, the Thunder should try to reach out and grab it.

Analysis: This always seems to come up, but it has become a major storyline of the Thunder preseason. Injuries have pestered the team constantly thus far. Just as soon as Jeff Green and Robert Swift were able to come back, Chris Wilocx and Joe Smith found their ways back on the bench. This has resulted in key players like KD putting in way more minutes than they should, though to their credit they've handled it well.

As for how the team's match-up, the talent level is far higher on the Lakers. I've given up trying to predict who and how long players will be on the court this preseason, because I always seem to get it wrong. For this game though, it matters not. The Lakers will definitely have the talent edge no matter who takes the floor. If those players happen to include Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, or of course the assassin Kobe Bryant, we could be in for a drubbing, though.

Player to Watch: This is a stretch, and I'm not saying we should be expecting Thunder Wonder status for this guy, but look for John Lucas III to have a really solid game off the bench. Remember, he's fighting for his spot on the roster, so I think the motivation of trying to make the squad means he either will be spectacular or try too hard and look terrible (hoping for the former).

Predicted Result: Lakers 101 Thunder 87

Pre-Season Game 6 Recap: Suns 102 Thunder 93

2008-10-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Boxscore

Hmmmm, so Shaq, Amare, and Nash all played extensive minutes and Weezy didn't play at all. I think a certain Pre-Game guy needs to be fired! Aside from this though, it was just another day at the office for P.J.'s bunch...We came, we saw, we lost. I suppose players continue to develop, but it obviously isn't enough for winning, and with so many players injured, how could we ever hope to.

As soon as I saw that for some inexplicable reason Suns were starting Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash, and Amare Stoudemire, I knew we were screwed. Even a Shaq who could care less about the game and, judging from his quotes, hates the idea of NBA basketball in Oklahoma, he's still 10x better than anything we could have put on the court tonight, as far as big men go. Despite my forecast of impending doom, the Thunder showed heart in the first quarter, led by KD and trailing only by one.

The fight continued on through the first half in the traditional Thunder fashion. We always remained in striking distance. Occasionally we'd get a tad behind that, but we'd always come back, never take the lead though, but always right there.

Of course, it didn't last, and the Thunder lost every quarter except the last, where we tied. Overall, everybody sucked. And I do mean everybody. Petro showed flashes of excellence and Robert Swift was decent in his debut, but both are far from where they should be. Overall, the only thing I think we accomplished in this game was hurting Amare Stoudemire. YEAH!!!

Thunder Wonder: Johan Petro, 17 points, 7-10 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks

Nobody deserves this, but I gave it to Petro because he hurt the team the least.

Thunder Down Under: Russell Westbrook, 22 points, 7-13 shooting, 2 3's, 4 assists, 8 TURNOVERS

All the rest of his stats were pretty great, but how could I ever give a guy with 8 turnovers Thunder Wonder???

Thunder Blunder: Damien Wilkins, 2 points, 1-5 shooting, 1 rebound, 2 steals, 2 turnovers. Damien, what happened?! You were once a prominent feature in the wonder category and now you're a blunder. Don't let it happen again.

Thunder Plunderer: Amare Stoudemire, 17 points, 6-8 shooting, 1 board, 3 assists

He gets thus, plus a purple heart for the injury. OK, no purple heart, but he was still pretty solid.

Thunder Plunderer Down Under: Matt Barnes, 12 points, 4-8 shooting, 2-3 from beyond the arc, 5 rebounds, 7 assists

You couldn't expect this from such a talented Suns team, and I hate Barnes, but after looking at his statline, I thought, hey, why not?

No wonder we suck, we're afraid of the ball

Zorgon's Note: An example of the great KSBI coverage:

Brian Davis is cut off in mid-signoff by colourbars with the text "AMV Gateway" superimposed on them, accompanied with that ever so pleasent noise. Then an Oklahoma City University commercial came on, immediately followed by the recording of an earlier High School Football game between Westmoore and Norman, with a "Thursday Night" message in the upper right corner of the screen. Classy.

Preseason Pregame 6: Thunder at Suns

2008-10-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

The incoming NBA season is breathing down everyone's neck. The Thunder take on the Suns tonight, but the real thing on everybody's mind is the season opener against Milwaukee. Though the Thunder have played impressively at times, I think improvement is hardly the word for how the team has developed, as shown by their (1-4) preseason record. Will their fortunes turn around tonight? Does it even matter? All this and more on this installment of...Preseason Pregame!!!

Backstory: As said earlier, the Thunder have played less than 4 star basketball thus far. Granted, the number of injuries they've had have certainly held them back. Still, OKC typically plays their starters far longer than anyone else and still have only mustered one victory. Is this something to be concerned about? Sure, they haven't looked good and there's no reason to think that Kyle Weaver or Robert Swift being healthy is going to change that. Is it time to panic? Of course not! Like anybody on the court, aside from John Lucas III and other preseason acquisitions, care about what happens in the game. And aside from that, it isn't like the expectations for this team were that high in the first place.

Analysis: Once again, the Thunder will likely be starting all the main cast of characters. Look for Petro to again see a lot of minutes and likely even start. Dez Mason will probably see a good amount of floor time, as Jeff Green is still iffy. KD's play this season had been, frankly, unpredictable. At times, he's a god, at others, he gives Bricktown a new meaning.

Unlike the Thunder, don't expect to see the big names for the Suns taking the court tonight. Shaq, Amare, Nash, and Raja will all likely see no more than 5 minutes in this game, but most likely none at all. Watch out for Alando Tucker and Boris Diaw, though, both having decent pre-seasons thus far.

Player to Watch: Chris Wilcox seems like the natural choice to me. There's no real inside presence playing tonight, and Weez should be able to eat up the lanky Diaw and still raw rookie Robin Lopez. Weezy explodes, trust me.

Predicted Result: Thunder 100 Suns 91

Northwest NBA Blogger Season Previews: A MUST READ!!!

2008-10-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Denver Nuggets

Jeremy: Pickaxe and Roll

Nick Sclafani: The Nugg Doctor

Minnesota Timberwolves

Derek Hanson & Staff: TWolves Blog

Andrew Thell: Empty the Bench

wyn: Canis Hoopus

Oklahoma City

xphoenix87: BallerBlogger

Zorgon: Blue Blitz

Royce: The Thunderworld

Portland Trail Blazers

Mookie: ...a stern warning

Benjamin Golliver: Blazers Edge

Coup and SJ: Rip City Project

Utah Jazz

UtesFan89: The Utah Jazz

Basketball John: SLC Dunk

Also see links to all the previews at CelticsBlog.com

Also also, Rays-Phillies tonight, who ya got?!?!?!

LA Ball Talk Blog Rankings Voting Starts Today!

2008-10-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Vote for Blue Blitz!

Here's our short description of why we should be voted into first:

"We started out in the Summer of 2008, right after we heard that the SuperSonics move from Seattle to Oklahoma City was official. We had our doubts at first, but it's been a wild and fun ride. We enjoy every minute of our blogging and our dedication to getting the facts straight rather than homering our team all of the time really shows through our writing. While Zebs true alligiances lie with the Golden State Warriors, that only serves to help him in providing level-leaded, critical opinion of the Thunder. Zeb and Ben have been NBA fans for a combined 17 years, so they know how things go in the NBA, and are by no means newcomers. There's not much else to say, but we hope that you enjoy our charm and wit enough to vote us #1. The Thunderworld may be more professional, Thunder Rumblings may actually have access to players, ThunderGuru may know more about stats, and Bend it Like Bennett may be way funnier. But we....are way awesomer."

Here's the Thunderworlds reasoning:

"The Thunderworld has a long-standing, time-tested history in the NBA blog world, much like the Oklahoma City Thunder has a long-standing, time-tested history in the NBA - they’ve both existed just a few months and no one really respects either at all. But that doesn’t mean both aren’t great. Well, one definitely isn’t great right now and might not ever get there, but the other is showing some tremendous upside potential. The blog really has made some major strides in just a few months. I’ve began writing unbelievably deep, thought-provoking articles about… stuff and each day, I’ll provide a laundry list of links that include the words “Oklahoma,” “City,” and “Thunder.” Turns out, a many of adult films include the word “Thunder” in their titles. Good or bad thing? Who knows but at The TW, the link will be there for you to decide (no, not really).

Currently, the Thunder has five or six solid blogs supporting it which is proof that this area is excited about the NBA in OKC. I won’t say The Thunderworld is the best out of all, but I will say this: It is the best of all."

And, just for fun, here's Bend it Like Bennetts reasoning:

"Bend It Like Bennett is the absolute gold standard for Thunder blogs, which is why Ball Don’t Lie’s Blog Association ranks us the number one Thunder blog on the web. The rest of the pack is in a heated seven-way tie for last.

Our fellow Thunderbloggers at Blue Blitz say BILB is “generally better, more popular, and more well-liked than our blog, Thunderworld, and ThunderGuru combined.” The Thunderworld calls us “The best Thunder blog - nay, best NBA - nay, best blog period on the Internet”. We are pleased, if not surprised, to have earned the respect and undying adoration of our colleagues.

We provide highly original content that goes above and beyond the busy work of amassing links to every Oklahoman article ever like some kind of paper shuffling mid-level corporate burnout—a task that could be done more effectively by a Google algorithm. We offer only the very best in insightful Thunder commentary, and will continue to delight our loyal readers until our business model is no longer profitable. We appreciate your blind support."

For the record: Yes, I did say that. And still stand by it. But I still like my blog more!

Also, Important Things to Note:

Thunder Fan and OKC Thunder are the same website. I think it goes by the mantra of "Oklahoma City Thunder News".

Oklahoma City BBall seems to have sort of given up. After July he only has about 3-4 September posts, all only about a paragraph long. He posted once October 8th, but the post is about 3 lines long. It promises "Notes tomorrow", but I don't see any. So you might want to remove them.

Otherwise, really looking forward to seeing who comes out on top!

If you voted for us, as Tim and Eric would say, Great Job!
If not, than you have about as much mind as Weezy has work ethic. Just sayin'.

Open Practice/Blogroll Update

2008-10-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, I apologize for the lack of pictures. I took none from the practice, and there are none in the media. I could put in some stock photos, but nobody wants to see those again.

So, tonight I got a small insight into how the Oklahoma City Thunder practices go. It was my opportunity to be Darnell Mayberry! I got there at about 6:15, and they were running drills. I got my pizza and Mountain Dew, and watched. There were several mini-hoops and face paint set up outside the Ford Center, and it was all free. Admission was free too, but since I got there late I had to stay behind the green railing. Eventually I was let down into the first row, but not onto the floor.

Then, all of a sudden, Mike Baldwin stands right in front of me and talks to some random people in a business type fashion. I wait for a while, but he doesn't move, so I have to move a few seats over in order to see. How inconsiderate!

Anyway, there wasn't much to be gotten out of the drills. Everybody basically did the same thing, and nobody really distinguished themselves. All the while you got to hear P.J. say things like "good hustle, Weeze!" over the loudspeaker. There was a short break between the drills and the scrimmage for water. It was pretty cool to see Chris Wilcox trying to steal some kids french fries and see Nick Collison giving all of the kids free Gatorade. Then, scrimmage started. I cheered for white, because they had Wilkins, Weezy, Petro, and Mason, but they lost both games.

There really wasn't anything substantial to take from it. The assistant coaches were miced up while P.J. Carlesimo max relaxed at mid court. The players obviously weren't trying their hardest, and several (like Joe Smith) didn't even play in the scrimmage. Durant showed up everybody, and Weezy had a nice dunk once. There were a lot of missed layups, and Russell Westbrook seemed to kind of hog the ball. Desmond Masons jumper looked like it needed work. But again, this is just practice. All will be revealed when the season actually opens.

The highlight (or lowlight) of the practice was a Derrick Byars injury. He drove to the lane hard, collided with a big man, and fell to the floor. He looked like he was in extreme pain. Everybody just kind of left him there except the trainers and Joe Smith. Eventually, a few more players came over. But, instead of seeing if he was okay, they started shooting hoops! Right in front of an injured player! They could have hit him in the head! I thought that was totally lowballin'. Then, to top it all off, I look up at the big screen, and it's showing me looking at the injury, as if they were expecting me to do some sort of dance or something. When that guy was injured, no less! Pretty surreal moment there.

After the scrimmage, Desmond Mason, Damien Wilkins, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant all paired with kids from local schools (who took up about 50-60% of the crowd, by the way) for a shooting contest.The kids were all somewhat good at basketball. Desmond Mason clanked an incredible number of shots, and his team ended up with 3 points. Damien Wilkins did fairly well, and they scored 17. Westbrooks team captured 21 (mostly due to his 3 pointers, worth 8) and Durants team scored 50, because Durant hit it from all over, and the kid hit the short shots. They then had a final round between Durant and Westbrook, and Westbrook won by a score of 40-30 (or something close to that) because he kept making 8 point 3s, which was a ridiculous way of scoring. Derrick Byars came back, but he had ice taped to his chest. He seemed fine, though. Then, P.J. gave a final word, and it was over. Some of the players spent some time meeting with the kids afterwards. And that was that.

Quick Blogroll Update:
Thunder Balls

This seems like a fan-made version of Thunder Madness. It's ad-ridden and just starting out, but you've gotta support anything that is an alternative to something run by Wimgo. As The Lost Ogle guys would say, "WTF is Wimgo?" Still, if you're into that sort of thing, check these guys out.

Or next games are Thursday versus the Suns, and Friday versus the Lakers.

NBA Blogger Previews: The Oklahoma City Thunder

2008-10-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

Oklahoma City Thunder

Last Years Record: 20-62
Key Losses: Luke Ridnour, Donyell Marshall, The City of Seattle, Squatch
Key Additions: Desmond Mason, Joe Smith, Russell Westbrook

1. What significant moves were made during the offseason?

As with any bad team, our off-season moves usually start with the NBA draft. The Seattle SuperSonics began with a questionable pick of Russell Westbrook out of UCLA at #4. It wasn't totally out of the blue, but some might have rather had Kevin Love, who was drafted a pick later. Later in the draft, we selected Serge Ibaka, a Center from Spains Club Baloncesto L'Hospitalet. The SuperSonics also traded for D.J. White, giving up second rounders Walter Sharpe and Trent Plaisted. Lastly, the SuperSonics drafted DeVon Hardin pretty late, but before Pre-Season began he signed with an Isreali team. There's not much to say about the later moves. They made a good move in getting a potential project in White, over two worthless second rounders, and a good move in drafting someone they could potentially bring over later in Serge Ibaka. If he was drafted in the first round, he's gotta be good.

Then, there was the little move from Seattle to Oklahoma City. Most of it has been said, but for the people who would still like to know, I'll give a little recap. The people of Oklahoma City really don't feel the hostility from Seattle fans. A lot of the Oklahoma University fans went up to Washington for the game against Washington University, and they didn't feel any open hostility from the people over there. Zeb has relatives who live in Spokane, and they've told him also that nobody cares. In the words of Bens second-cousin, Jackson, "You can have 'em." Now, this is doing nothing to insult the people who were actually fans of the team. In Oklahoma City, we know what it feel like to lose a team (the USFLs Outlaws, Arena Footballs Wranglers, the Hornets). When Zeb left the final Hornets game, he would describe it as "like the last night of the ABA". It's never fun, we know that it was a terrible way to go out, but you've gotta pick up, move on, and hope that David Stern decides to expand the NBA again. Or, hey, just steal another team. As for how we feel? Totally psyched. Ever since we were little kids, we'd go to minor league baseball games or play NBA Live 98 and ask our parents why we couldn't have a team of our own. Now we have one, and we plan on having as much fun as possible, even if they suck.

Lastly, we had an off-season trade. We traded Luke Ridnour in a three-team trade, and when it's all said and done, we got Desmond Mason and Joe Smith. I think that if you look at it initially, it was a trade to bring the beloved Mason back to OKC in order to alliviate the hate that will come with a losing season. But if you look at it more deeply, we also get the best player from the Bulls last year. He will undoubtedly produce late in the season and late in the game, when most of our younger guys will tend to fade. Lastly, we get rid of a guy with large ties to Seattle. He grew up in Washington and starred at the University of Oregon. Undoubtedly, he was unhappy about the move, and it's not unreasonable to think that he asked to be traded. On top of that, he's one of the dirtiest defenders in the NBA, and not many NBA Point Guards like him very much.

2. What are the team’s biggest strengths?

Most here would make a joke about how bad we are, but we've heard it all already, so I'll cut to the cheese (as in how bad we stink! like a fart or stinky cheese! haha!)

Our #1 skill is, undoubtedly, rebounding. Our lineup, quite simply is huge. Durant is big enough to play PF, but he's an SG. We have a log jam of inside tendencied SF/PFs (Mason, Collison, Wilcox, Smith, Green), and our Centers (Swift, Petro) are like sticks. I mean, we don't have a Troy Murphy like rebounding star, but we can rebound the ball simply because we'll have so many tall guys with hands in the air.

The #2 skill we have is post defense. Like we said before, the Thunder have a lot of tall guys. Tall, tall guys. But, most of these guys are defensively minded. However bad one may think Petro, Swift and Sene are, it's obvious that they weren't drafted for their 3 point shooting. These guys are defensive specialists all the way. Our Power Forwards (Collison, Wilcox, Swift) are a bit more offensively minded, but its easy to argue that they also can play well on the defensive end. Again, nobody is an all-star here, but with so many teams going small these days, having tall guys who can play some sort of defense can pay massive dividends for team that like to slash to the hoop a lot. Now, I'm not going to claim that we can stop Kobe, but we can stop a lot of And 1s and easy buckets. And if they foul out, don't think that we're afraid to put in reserves that are almost as good.

Regrettably, our #3 skill is getting to the line. We have some guys (namely Kevin Durant and Jeff Green) who drive to the basket and then act like they just got hit with a brick wall, causing a lot of ticky-tack fouls. It makes the game boring, but it's very useful when the offense is stalled, and as long as they sink their free throws, it's all good. There are others who go inside a lot, like Desmond Mason, Damien Wilkins, and Jeff Green, but they generally have the intention of actually making the shot. Still, they also get to the line.

Our last major skill would have to be mid-range jumpshots. We shoot less 3s in a game as a team than Steven Jackson does, but we're mid-range monsters. Most of this comes from Wilkins, Durant, and Green. They do it less than driving, but when the mid range shots actually start going down, it's oh-so-sweet.

3. What are the team’s biggest weaknesses?

The #1 weakness is just lack of overall talent. Our Team revolves around Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, and Russell Westbrook. Those guys are all young, and not ready to be stars. Aside from that, we have Chris Wilcox, Nick Collison, Desmond Mason, Joe Smith, and Earl Watson....do you see a star here yet? While all guys have their respective skills, none of them have what it takes to lead a team or be a 20 point scorer every night. In a couple of years, sure, maybe Durant could do that....but right now, he doesn't look like Chris Paul.

The #2 weakness is the fact that we have no true point guard that can lead the team. Okay, we have Earl Watson, but he's no great distributor. Mostly he just passes off to the other guys and hopes that they can create something on their own. He is supposed to be able to shoot 3s, but nobody creates opportunities for him, and I haven't seen anything from him yet. As Royce, from the Thunderworld, once said, "he has backup PG written all over him." Russell Westbrook is more of a slasher, and is better suited to a shooting guard role. Sure, he has maybe 2-3 "great" passes per game, and people will remark on how he could be our next PG, but in the end it amounts to less than 5 assists. You can't have that on your starting PG. John Lucas III might make the roster, but he's more of an overall energey guy, and definately not starter quality. Now, some would say, "Why not just have Durant bring up the ball, and then rely on Westbrook to slash or Watson to shoot 3s?" Well, first of all, Watson is no Derek Fisher, and Westbrook is no Monta Ellis. They aren't good enough at their respective skills to have your star SF bring up the ball and just dump it to them when needed. Secondly, Durant is no Kobe Bryant. Even if he does reach his potential, he will never be Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. He's more of a Grant Hill....without the passing. Its hard to find a comparison. He can't create for his teammates very well, and most of the time he'll either try to drive to the hoop and get fouled or take a fadeaway midrange jumper with two hands in his face and clank it. He needs someone to create these open mid range shots or open lanes to drive for him, he can't create them on his own like Kobe or T-Mac can. And there's the fact that he can't shoot 3s. I know, sometimes he'll fire thme up at the end of games, but so does Kevin Garnett. We need a true point guard to really unlock the potential of all the midrange shooting and driving that we have.

Our #3 weakness is our lack of 3 point shooting. Some people put this as #1, but it's not a nessessity for teams to survive. Nevertheless, it is a weakness. The few guys who can shoot the 3, Watson, Wilkins, and to some extent Durant and Westbrook, are average at best. More importantly, no one gives them opportunities, and it doesn't look like Carlesimo gave them the green light to shoot many. Our team looks like it's from the early 1980s, when the 3 point line was just added. We continue to either go to the hole or shoot midrange, and avoid the line for the most part because nobody can shoot it. Most of the time, our scores will reflect this philosophy. The point that this weakness will effect us the most is late in games when we need to catch up and rely on Durants shaky long distance shooting. When we gave Ridnour away, no matter how good the social implications, we knew that we were saying goodbye to our only semi-reliable long distance weapon.

#4 is the fact that we have no offensive productivity. Just not that many guys are very good offensively. It's been said that the Thunder have to rely a lot of midrange shooting and inside play, but most of that comes from a select group of guys. We have a remarkable number of near useless, unskilled big men (Petro, Swift, Sene, maybe White) who give little to no productivity, meaning that we can't always have everybody be a scoring threat on the floor. And while we have other guys who can score, with our lack of PG to move them around, the Thunder are usually stuck shooting a lot of bad shots and driving the lane at bad times.

And our last major weakness is just how young our team is. Our only grizzled vets are Joe Smith, Desmond Mason, and Earl Watson. After them, we have some semi vets in Collison and Wilcox. And after them, the guys we have are still pretty young. It gives the title of the blog "Third Quarter Collapse" a whole new meaning. It's been said many times that if the NBA game was 3 quarters long, we'd see a lot more upsets. That will definately be true for the Thunder this season.

4. What are the goals for this team?

On the court, this team has absolutely no expectations. Almost everybody predicts them to finish dead-last in the West. Player-wise, we are looking to develop everybody. If we can find a star out of the blue, like David West was when the Hornets were here, we'd consider it a successful season. We're not looking to put a win-loss total on the Thunder this year. We just expect them to go out there, try their hardest, and have some fun.

5. What do you think of the Thunders Logo?

It's incredibly bland. What we've gathered is that Clay Bennett and Co basically swept in and eschewed the design team that is supposed to make the logo marketable. The marketing guys didn't even know what the logo looked like before it was leaked on the internet. This is why we have an ultra crappy logo, with absolutely no mascot. We do understand that teams like the Knicks and Nets don't have one either, but they're classics, and don't have the ultra lame Thunder font above them. In our opinion, they didn't really want to create their own, distinct image. They chose "Oklahoma Blue" for the main colour because they wanted to come as close as possible to what the Hornets looked like. They're just copycats who don't want a name. It sounds harsh, but when you look at the evidence, it's the truth.

6. What do you think of the new uniforms?

Not much. To Zeb, the road uniforms look like the teal Pistons uniforms of the 90s. To others, they look like light-blue knicks uniforms. The home uniforms look a lot like the Warriors uniforms, and they are almost a mirror image if you look at them both above the team name. But the important thing to note here is that if you look at them design wise, they look like....the Hornets old uniforms. And who changed their uniforms this season? The Hornets! Conspiracy? Probably not. Reguardless, our uniforms suck, and Oklahoma City just looks crowded on the roads. High school teams have better uniforms. On top of everything, they had to include the incredibly gay logo on the back of the shorts, right on the butt crack. Who the hell wants to see that? I mean, comeon!

7. Who killed Thunder the Mascot?

Chris Cohan killed him, not Clay Bennett. While it is apparent that after the Thunder copied the Hornets, they decided to also copy the Warriors, Cohan wanted Thunder gone for a long time. He's been looking to change the logo for a long time from the Thunder styled logo to the flying W, but it costs $500,000 and he's too much of a cheap skate to do it. This was just an excuse to finally get rid of him. Still, Zeb thinks that he was the awesomest NBA mascot, and he'll always miss the muscley greatness. Lets bring him to Oklahoma City! Start a movement!

8. The Thunder have a plethora of project big men from a previous era. On a case-by-case basis, do you feel any of them are worth keeping around, or are they a waste of space?

You could put them in 2 groups. The first, "Like to Keep", consists of Collison and Wilcox, while the second, "Show me something or we'll cut you" consists of Sene, Swift, and Petro. Joe Smith doesn't count, since he's new.

9. Jeff Green was overshadowed by fellow rookie Kevin Durant last season. What role should he play for this team? Should they rely on him as a starter right away or continue his development on the bench?

Jeff Green should basically be our key sixth man. He's definately a good player, but his talent level at this point doesn't warrant playing him or somebody else out of the position to put him in the starting lineup. While Durant is now playing at SG, the general feelings of us at Blue Blitz is that he should be put at SF, and the team should allow someone like Russell Westbrook or Damien Wilkins to play SG, leaving Watson and Lucas III at PG. It just makes more sense than having a bunch of huge guys on the floor and forcing them to create for themselves. It would just be a lot better overall if the Thunder could trade a couple of big guys for a solid PG. With our current log jam though, it's obvious that Jeff Green is going to be starting for some time, unless Desmond Mason or Joe Smith step up to take it away from him.

10. How secure to you feel P.J. Carlesimos coaching job is after this season?

If this were a normal development team, this year would be still kind of a honeymoon period. But since this is Oklahoma City, it's not. Carlesimo plays a slow, plodding brand of basketball that scores very few points. To Oklahoma fans, if you're not winning, that's suicide. Even when Kelvin Sampson was doing well coaching the Oklahoma University basketball team, people would call for his head. When Billy Tubbs, a very fast-break minded coach, coached the same team, he could do no wrong in the eyes of fans. So, unless P.J. wins at least 30 games this year, we'd think that public opinion of him would push him very close to being ousted, albeit unfairly. Still, hopefully management will not give in to the requests of fans and keep him on at least through next season. If there was a guy who could coach a team of mostly big men who can't shoot 3s, it's this guy. Even without this situation, NBA coaches generally have extremely short lifespans unless you're named Sloan, Riley, Karl, Jackson, or Nelson. Mike D'Antoni and Avery Johnson were both fired shortly after being coach of the year, and Sam Mitchell is on the hot seat after doing the same, so that's got to say something.

11. How do you expect attendance to be like this year?

We'll pack the arena at first, but when the team starts losing games, less people will want to come to the games. Still, we'll never reach a low like Atlanta used to. We'd say it'll reach a low af maybe 10,000 for those snoozefests against the Clippers, but people will still pack the Arena for matchups against teams like the Spurs and for the last game of the season.

12. Who do you expect to be the "break out" player this year, if any?

We'll disregard the rookies, since it's impossible for them to "break out" from a previous season. This is a unique situation, because a lot of the guys are in that last year where its really possible to break out before they're declared a known quantity.

Zeb would go with Damien Wilkins. He's had a hell of a Pre-Season. He seems to be the only guys shooting well from the floor. On a roster absolutely loaded with so many big men, Wilkins is gonna get a lot of burn at SG. If he can really exploit his ability to score without having to go to the line, improve his defensive ability, and become the teams one reliable 3 point shooter he'll look really really good this year.

Ben's going with Wilcox. For years he has had the reputation of not bringing his all to the games and not leaving it all on the court. However, new city, new crowd, new uniforms (albeit ugly ones) could inspire more passionate play from the Thunder big man, which would be key to any sort of winning they hope to achieve this year. I mean, he was "Sleepless in Seattle", but in OKC, there's nothing to do but sleep, so he'll be plenty rested for those home games.

13. How long before we can expect this team to be a playoff contender?

According to Jim Traber, local afternoon radio host on WWLS The Sports Animal, 2 years.

According to Ben, we could be waiting a little longer, possibly 4 or 5 years. We're soo far from being anywhere near the playoffs right now and I have legitimate concerns about being able to draw in big name free agents to OKC. I mean, for the most part we'll be ok, don't get me wrong, but we're not signing anyone thats going to make us contenders right away, and hell, you can just forget about D-Wade and LeBron in the approaching free agent mega sweepstakes. Still, if we give the young players time to develop, we may be able to have our own homegrown playoff team. With some trade help and lower profile free agent additions, of course.

According to Zeb, this season. The NBA is a league where over half the teams make the playoffs, and a league where teams with horrible rosters, like the Hawks and Warriors, can challenge ginats like the Mavericks and Celtics. Granted, we shouldn't think about the regular season conference or division crown in a realistic sense. But the sky's the limit, and every team starts with the same amount of players, the same amount of game to play, and the same record: 0-0. The playoffs are possible every season, and that's something that is so magical about the NBA that is never realized in the NFL and MLB.

According to Jim is a horrible show.

14. Do you think that the Tulsa 66ers (The Thunder D-League Affiliate) should be used as a serious farm team?

It was a good idea for Clay Bennett to purchase them. Socially, it solidifies the connection between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, making the team moreso of an "Oklahoma Thunder". They should definately be used kind of like the Los Angeles D-Fenders are. They should try to run the same type of offense that the Thudner do. If you've got a Don Nelsonesque guy coaching up there, it's not going to help your team that much. But if you've got a guy doing the same thing we're doing here in Oklahoma City, you can find a guy who thrives well in the system and potentially get a really solid backup. Or, if we're lucky, we could find a star. Still, don't expect too much from it. The NBA is not baseball yet.

15. Who do you think on the team is most likely will throw the wildest parties that Oklahoma City has ever seen?

Ben says that it will be Robert Swift, because he looks like the ultimate party type. Kevin Durant has the most bucks to make spectacular parties, but I see him as more of a small posse kind of guy. Ain't no party like a Petro party! Masons got a family, and he's an art kinda guy, and not even in the drug sort of way. Wilkins is hard to define by just looking at him. Zeb says that it will be Joe Smith, because he's obviously most experienced with partying. I mean, what do you expect he did all of those years in the NBA at all of those different cities he played for? Had massive parties, of course! We would say Weezy, but he's too laid back, and he seems like the type of guy who would hang around in the back and use his silky smooth saxophone to woo the ladies.

Predicted Record: 17-65

The Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational presented by the brands of Ebonite International

2008-10-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

Via the Printed Edition of Sports Illustrated:

Have ESPN? Love the NBA and Bowling so much that you couldn't wait to see them collide? Well, look no further!

The Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational presedented by the brands of Ebonite International will air this Sunday, that's right, this Sunday, at 1 PM EST! ESPN thinks so highly of this event that it would run it in direct competition to the NFL! I mean, you can watch NBA Stars such as LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kevin Durant, and Rudy Gay! Who cares that the tournament was actually run September 20th?

Well, at least it will be better than Steve Garveys Celebrity Billfishing Tournament....that wasn't for charity.

If you've never seen Cheap Seats, you need to watch that.

Oh, and it's totally awesome that Chris Paul is doing this for charity and everything....it's just probably going to turn out hilariously bad on TV.

Season Predictions

2008-10-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

Since everybody else is posting it, I thought I would too. Basically, Zeb (Zorgon), Ben (OKluschen), Royce (from the Thunderworld) and Joe (from Thunderguru) all posted their predictions on various things like playoff teams, this years MVP, and the Defensive Player of the Year. Oh, and we predicted some Thunder stuff too. It's worth a look.

Here 'tis.

NBA Blogger Previews: Central Division

2008-10-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

I know that all of you at home are counting down the seconds until tomorrows Thunder NBA Blogger Preview is up. And we blew the roof off. I mean, we didn't do this thing halfway, we went full throttle to create the end all be all statements for nay possible burning questions you may have about the Thunder.

But, here's the Central Division Previews to tide you over:

Chicago Bulls
Nels: Give Me The Rock
Matt: Blog-a-Bull

Cleveland Cavaliers
Rock: Waiting For Next Year
FTS: Fear The Sword
David Friedman: 20 Second Timeout
Amar Panchmatia: Cavalier Attitude

Detroit Pistons
Brian Spencer: Empty the Bench
Natalie Sitto: Need4Sheed.com
Matt Watson: Detroit Bad Boys

Indiana Pacers
Tom: Indy Cornrows

Milwaukee Bucks
Jeramey Jannene: The Bratwurst
Frank Madden: BrewHoop

Pre-Season Game 5 Recap: Clippers 90, Oklahoma City 88

2008-10-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

Dr. Strangesmell or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Stench
Yahoo! Boxscore
The Thunderworld Recap

Tonight was a night of bad jerseys, bad play, and badass dancing.

When I went to the Ford Center around 5:45, there were more people there than expected. That was good, but what was not good was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to do. It was completely and totally boring. They had the typical food from the World-Famous Slap Shots, and they had the typical lottery stuff, but aside from that everything seemed kind of lame and last minute. There were no activities or anything. There were no signs in the stadium, very little overall theme, and the floor simply read "Ford Center". Still, it's the Pre-Season, so I expect them to have everything in order in time for the Season Opener.

Almost every activity that they had was a copy of what happened when the Hornets were here. T-Shirt throwing, kids slam dunk contest, free throw contest, running around the bat and trying to make a layup, seat upgrades, and the dance cam all made returns. You name it, and it'll probably be copied by the Thunder. Speaking of the dance cam, if you saw a particularly sexy guy in a blue shirt and blue headband doing the "Apache" dance and getting more than 30 seconds of full-fledged camera time, you guessed it, it was me. (Yes, I looked like a total dork.) Oh, and every single time they asked, "Whose ball is it?", I would automatically say, "Hornets ball!!!!". I guess I'm a creature of habit.

One last side note....2 of the worst NBA uniforms were out there tonight. The Clippers uniforms have always totally sucked. The red, white, and blue looks really cheesy and bland. Honestly, I'd rather them just rock the light blue Buffalo Braves uniforms all year. As for the Thunder uniforms, we've already been over that.

Anyway, on to the game itself. The crowd seemed pretty apathetic towards the pre-game lineups, and the first quarter. The first was full of high energy low post manuvers by both teams. Then, in the second quarter, the Clippers bought in all of their subs minus Ricky Davis, and it was a sludgefest through the third quarter. The Thunder had their starters out, but they played like total crap. It wasn't a defensively-minded game, like you would see in a Spurs matchup. Rather, it was just total crappiness and sloppiness on both ends.

Well, every time except this time....

Most of the time, the Thunder would have to rely on Durant or Westbrook pretending that there was a brick wall in front of them and getting "fouled" while having no intention of hitting the shot. I mean, is that even satisfying? Other players I've seen, like Baron Davis and Chris Paul, do it a lot, but they at least make it fun because they actually try. Westbrook, Durant, and more famously Dwayne Wade hardly even try to shoot, and just act like they got an electric shock. I know it's kind of a soapbox here, but it makes the game boring and makes them look horrible on the stat sheet (Durant went 6-18, Westbrook went 3-11). Comeon guys, at least try.

Well, eventually after a total sludgefest, about 1/8th the arena filed out at the end of the 3rd, with half of the remaining people seriously considering putting on their coat. Than, suddenly, the energy increased and the game got intense. Durant was hitting his shots, and everybody else on the floor was contributing well. On the other side of the coin, Mike Taylor played absolutely insane. Who is Mike Taylor? I don't know, but he was incredibly intense. He had a clutch 3 and he got a key steal for a dunk within the last 2 minutes.

Is it the shoes?

Anyway, long story short, we were pretty close going into the final two minutes. Then, Johan Petro got two freethrows and missed them both. On top of that, Mike Wilks got a steal for a dunk. All said and done, we ended up down by 3 with about 13 seconds to go. Durant had a "shades of Atlanta" 3 point shot, but it rimmed out and Houston got the rebound. Ricky Davis sank 2 freethrows, and Russell Westbrook sank an irrelevant 3 at the buzzer. The whole arena was kind of bummed, but they clapped for the team anyway, and it gave me hope that we can cope with losing for a couple of seasons.

Now, for tonights....

Thunder Wonder and Blunder: Johan Petro
12 Points, 6-9 Shooting, 14 Rebounds, 3 Blocks, 1 Turnover, 1 Steal

Johan Petro had a super game tonight. I mean, nobody could have predicted this at all. He got some good momentum early with an extreme dunk, and just kept producing all game. Hell, he even hit a 12 footer! I mean, he didn't out step his place, and did what he needed to to help the team. Probably a career Pre-Season game. So then, why is he also the Blunder? Well, he missed a couple of clutch freethrows down the stretch, and that was really the turning point that put us back behind the Clippers.

Thunder Down Under (Honourable Mention): Nick Collison
10 Points, 4-8 Shooting, 8 Rebounds, 1 Steal, 1 Block, 2 Fouls
Not particularly impressive on its own, but considering that he only played 15 minutes, he was extremely productive. Everybody elses play seems far too sloppy to include. 13 team assists?! I mean, comeon!

Thunder Plunderer: Al Thornton
23 Points, 8-13 Shooting, 6 Rebounds, 5 Turnovers, 1 Steal

His turnovers were a bit high, but Al was an absolute scoring beast tonight. He hit a whole lost of midrange jumpers and simply couldn't be stopped, even during the extremely lame-duck quarters.

Thunder Plunderer Down Under: Mike Taylor
14 Points, 5-9 Shooting, 2 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Turnovers, 3 Steals

I don't normally do this, but I gotta give props to this guy. His stats are only good at first glance, but he played with extreme intensity on the defensive end. He very nearly forced a whole lot of turnovers, and the ones that he did force were crucial. He forced the Thunder to be constantly on their toes bringing the ball up, and he even hit a clutch 3 late in the game along with a crucial jam in the final minute. Somebody give this guy a roster spot!

That's it for tonight....stay tuned for the last two Thunder Pre-Season games, Thursday Oct. 24th at the Phoenix Suns, and Friday Oct. 25th at the Los Angeles Lakers!

Bonus!
Fashion Notes:

P.J. made an excellent choice of tie tonight.

Along with that, Mike Dunleavy Sr. is the last guy on the planet besides Mike Morgan to have a fake handkerchief in the right pocket of his suit simply for style. Rock on, man.

Preseason Pregame 5: Clippers at Thunder

2008-10-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

The Thunder racked their first win of many (hopefully) the other night in Tulsa. As I predicted, the crowd was only decent. On the other hand, it was just a preseason game and to my surprise, there was a whole lot of Thunder gear in the crowd. Still though, tonight marks the opening of play in the Ford Center, and look for an even more supportive fans in what may be the most vigorous crowd in preseason history. The era of Thunder basketball in Bricktown had begun...

Backstory: The Thunder are finally in the win column, but how will they cope with this success? Young teams generally respond with winning in two ways, either they get on a roll with confidence, or they become overconfident and suffer greatly. Which will the Thunder choose? Well, neither. This is the preseason, nobody freakin' cares about winning!

Also, Kevin Durant was en fuego in the last game, or actually, the fourth quarter. Which KD will we see tonight? I'd bet on the one from the first three quarters. I expect Kevin to turn it on during the regular season, but really, who can stay pumped for preseason more than one quarter?

Analysis: The Thunder starters continue to improve, along with Desmond Mason. Everyone else, especially Russ Westbrook, seem to either be in park or reverse. Westbrook is shooting less accurately than those random thug guys in National Treasure.

Still though, the Thunder continue to be hampered by injuries. Damien Wilkins was taken out of the fourth quarter of the last game and Jeff Green won't return tonight, not to mention Joe Smith. Actually, it's probably best that they catch the injury bug now, so that they can get it out of the way for the regular season.

Now, back to the game, the Clippers are a better team than the Thunder. However, that didn't stop them when they played the Rockets, a very good team. If Baron Davis or Chris Kaman see much action, it could be tough, but as evidenced by the last game, not impossible.

Player to Watch: OK, it's about time I give it to him. Be on the lookout for Thunder forward Damien Wilkins tonight. He didn't look to spectacular the other night, but I have a feeling his return will be very impressive, and it won't be too long before he's a household name in the metro area.

Predicted Result: Thunder win their first game in the Ford Center (I'm a sap for good stories) 100-94

Pre-Season Game 4 Recap: Thunder 110 Rockets 104

2008-10-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason Rick Adelman isn't happy to see the Thunder's first win

Yahoo! Box Score

We went to Billings...and got nothin. We went to Sacramento...and got nothin. We went to Oakland...and got nothin. We came to Tulsa to face a playoff team for the first time and expected much of the same. Well my friends, I'm happy to report that we were wrong. Congratulations to the Thunder for capturing their first ever victory!

It didn't look good at first. I was relieved when I heard T-Mac wasn't going to play, but when I saw Nick Collison guarding Yao Ming, probably giving him a good 8 inches, I again had my doubts. My doubts may have been legit if it wasn't a pre-season game, he had 15 points and 16 rebounds in just 24 minutes. Nevertheless, as the game progressed, you could see a certain fight in the Thunder that just wasn't there before...

It started like every other Thunder game. We fell in a big hole early, Durant was struggling from the field, and Wilkins and Weezy were providing the scoring. Wilkins would soon fall off in the scoring department, which would usually be bad news for the Thunder. After all, Wilkins has won the prestigious Thunder Wonder award more than any other player, in fact, he's the only ever recipient.

Thankfully though, Desmond Mason was able to play tonight, unlike what was predicted by yours truly, and gave his best contribution to date as a member of the Thunder. He went 7/10 from the floor with 16 points and 3 boards including a pretty reverse layup before the half.

Before the 4th quarter it looked like the big men would be the story for the Thunder. Both Chris Wilcox and Nick Collison had outstanding games. The highlight of Weezy's game had to be the powerful jam he scored right over Yao. Nick Collison also had a memorable play against Yao where the Great Wall came down with the rebound (as always) and Nick swiped it clear out of his hands. Collison finished the night with 21 points and 4 boards, shooting 60%.

Like I alluded to earlier though, in the 4th quarter it was all Kevin Durant. 20 of his 26 points came in the 4th quarter and he had two blocks and one steal in the final 35 seconds or so, not to mention clutch free throws and a nice fade away to help salt things away.

The star Rocket player played as expected. Like I said earlier, Yao dominated, though he missed constant layups which was really crucial for the Rockets. Ron Artest looked very strong early, but finished with only 8 points. Of course, T-Mac didn't even see the court.

Thunder Wonder: Kevin Durant 26 points, 8/16 shooting, 5 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks, 4 assists, 2 turnovers, 2 fouls
KD filled up almost every stat cat today. Really, he won the game single handedly today, and on both sides of the court. Also, don't forget, he went down with what appeared to be a sprained ankle in the second half only to get right back up and not miss any time at all.

Honourable Mention: Weezy 13 points, 6-10 shooting, 14 rebounds, 4 steals, 2 blocks, 2 assists, 1 turnover, 2 fouls

It was a close call, him or Collison, but Wilcox was able to do more than just score.

Thunder Blunder: Russell Westbrook 5 points, 1/8 shooting, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers

Continues to struggle. It's ok though, he still has lots of room to improve. I remember Chris Paul didn't look so hot his first few games either.

Thunder Plunderer: Yao Ming 15 points, 4/10 shooting, 16 rebounds, 3 blocks

Yeah, he shoot terribly, and theres no excuse for a guy that tall to shoot 40%. Still though, he was killer from the line and nearly unstoppable for the Thunder all game long.

Blue Blitz on SI.com

2008-10-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Sports Illustrated Oklahoma City Thunder Preview

We were recently emailed by Paul Forrester of SI.com and he asked for a quick preview of the Thunder. We answered the call, and now our preview is up on the website. Look down in the corner to see the "Bloggers Take", and it shows my name. Ben was inadvertently left out, and we emailed them about that, since we did collab on it.

Here's what we originally sent them. Looking back on it, it's pretty bad. Actually, it's really bad. For some reason, we wanted to get it in as fast as possible and spend no time proofreading. Bad idea. It came out with bad grammar and a really bad flow, and we have to give a huge thanks to the guys at SI for cleaning it up. Nevertheless, here it is:

We think it's pretty bad on the whole that the SuperSonics ceased to exist, but we're not really all that sad about it. For the most part, the Sonics were a bad team throughout the 2000s. Key Arena was last reviatalized in 1994, so it's reasonable to move the team if the city is not willing to update its arena every 10 years. The general feeling for Seattle around here, quite frankly, is "too bad so sad". Nobody is really feeling the remorse, and there was only one person (Zeb) wearing Sonics gear at the unveiling. The Oklahoma Sooners football team went to Washington to play a game, and the general feeling in Seattle wasn't hostile, according to many fans.

"The fanbase for the NBA here is generally below average. Before the Hornets came, most people followed the Dallas Cowboys, and didn't pay attention at all to the NBA. People went to Oklahoma Sooner Basketball Games, but they generally only liked high-scoing contests. Defensive-minded coaches, like Kelvin Sampson, had many critics. When the Hornets finally did come to town, people generally didn't see beyond Chris Paul. They hardly had any idea about the NBA at large. But, needless to say, this is a growing process, and the fans will generally become more acclimated to the NBA. What they don't have in knowldge they make up for in loud, college-like cheers.

So, what are our hopes for the team? Well, most fans around here would probably settle for nothing less than an NBA Championship. Realistically, we can't expect to win more than 30 games. If you look at our roster, our 3rd and 4th best players (Behind Durant and Green) are probably Chris Wilcox and Nick Collison. That should say a lot about our win record. For this season, we expect to be partially a development team for the younger players, and partially a stowaway for ancient NBA castaways.

Roster-wise, the team should aim to get better big men. Most of the big men, aside from Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox, who are average, are basically failed projects. There's no starter-quality Center, as Johan Petro, Robert Swift, Saer Sene, and company are all backups at best. We're basically set at Power Forward, Small Forward, and Shooting Guard, so we need to aim to get a better Point Guard. Earl Watson is a 3 point specialist and shouldn't really be a starter, and Russell Westbrook is more of a combo guard. So basically, we need to work on the positions at both ends of the spectrum."

Yeah, pretty embarassing. Anyway, this is a growing process, and we continue to get better as time goes on.

Big thanks once again to the guys at SI.com, and whoever cleaned up our mess!!!!

Preseason Preview 4: Thunder vs. Rockets

2008-10-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

The still all-time winless Thunder finally have their first home game...sorta. It's in the BOK Center (of Tulsa, of course) an arena that is arguably better than the Ford Center, but we don't really want to talk about that. The Thunder will also be the away team tonight, which means they still can't get out of those God-awful away jerseys. Will the Thunder finally win a game? Will Kevin Durant get his game back? How well will Tulsans attend the game? All this and more on the most recent version of Preseason Preview!

Backstory: The OKC Thunder take court in the Sooner state for the first time today. But does anyone in that other city really care? According to my dad, who spent the past week in Tulsa "house sitting" (long story) theres been no Thunder hype up there whatsoever. One of the reasons Stern was so excited about having the NBA in OKC is because he can take advantage of the Tulsa market, too, but from what I've heard, it doesn't look like that's happening. This game will be a big test for that. What will the crowd be like in Tulsa? I'm predicting pretty solid, but maybe a deceiving number. I think Tulsans are more excited about the first major sporting event in the new BOK Center than Thunder basketball. It won't be a sell-out though, mark my words.

Analysis: OK, we know this much, the Thunder have been pretty uncompetitive against some of the league's lesser teams the past few games. In pre-season play, no less! So how will they stack up against a team that some predict (including the minds here at the Blue Blitz) is good enough to win an NBA championship? Well, not well. OK, I know, it's preseason, but the Houston bench is probably better than the Thunder starting 5, it's that bad of a mismatch. We'll once again be relying on Weezy (who I heard may not be starting tonight) and Damien Wilkins to carry the team, while consistantly feeding the ball to Durant who's been struggling shooting%-wise. Of course, theres the problem of stopping YAMs: the three-headed monster of Yao-Artest-McGrady. This is tough for even the best teams, much less one of the worst in recent history. Also, not to be over looked, Luis Scola is having a good preseason, averaging almost 11 points and 5 rebounds.

Player to Watch: Let's see, no Joe Smith, Desmond Mason and Jeff Green are questionable, which in the preseason, means not playing, and Robert Swift and Kyle Weaver are out for sure. That doesn't leave a whole lot. So...I guess I'll put my neck on the line and say that Kevin Durnat will have a solid game tonight. I don't have any basis for this, and TMac will be a tough match-up for him, but perhaps the first kind-sorta home game will inspire him.

Predicted Result: Rockets 98 Thunder 87

NBA Blogger Previews: Southwest Division

2008-10-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

Next up in NBA Blogger Previews: The Southwest Division. Let's just take a minute and think about how grateful we are that we aren't in this division.

Once again, definately check these previews out if you're a fan of the NBA. Required reading, people!

Dallas Mavericks
Jake Kerr: Mavs Moneyball

Houston Rockets
grungedave and UofTOrange: The Dream Shake

Memphis Grizzlies
Joshua Coleman: 3 Shades of Blue

New Orleans Hornets
Rohan: At the Hive
ticktock6 & mW: Hornets Hype
Ryan Schwan & Ron Hitley: Hornets247.com

San Antonio Spurs
Graydon Gordian: 48 Minutes of Hell

Pre-Season Game 3 Recap: Warriors 122, Thunder 102

2008-10-11T22:19:00.000-07:00

A Season Preview: Kevin Durant and Johan Petro marvel at the floating basketball, while Marco Bellinelli actually goes and gets the ball.

NBA.com Box Score

The Thunder fell for the Warriors trap tonight, possibly injured Jeff Green, and played Kevin Durant and Damien Wilkins 34 Minutes.

Yeah, this is bad news.

The Warriors were absolutely torching the Thunder out of the gate. Bellinelli and Jackson were hitting easy 3s on the fast break, while the Thunder kept trying to low-post the best defensive Warriors, like Jackson and Harrington. But eventually, the Thunder moved into their own brand of the Warriors fast break game. They didn't hike up a lot of 3s, but drove to the basket, and were very successful at it. A hint to Carlesimo about future strategy?

After that, every time Oklahoma City got a little bit of momentum, the Warriors always stole their Thunder. The 3 point line was left far too wide open for the Warriors to possibly miss, and the Thunder would always lose points on ridiculous 12-Footers from Petro and Kevin Durant reverse hooks.

Some hilarious technical problems at hafltime. Brian Davis was barely audible, with a shot of the Oracle Arena ceiling continuing to pan ever-so-slowly right. A technician or Grant Long (don't know which, more likely the earlier) interrupted Brian twice, assuming we couldn't hear him. Eventually, he said, "We'll have more from the Bay City Area where the Warriors lead 70-55, we'll be right back." Right, the Bay City Area.

When they returned, Brian Davis said that the squirrel that runs their microphones went on a coffee break. Ooookay.

John Lucas III came into the game and really brought this team together. Since the guy is playing to survive, it's no surprise. After a great And-1 by Weezy off of the Lucas assist, the Thunder are only down by 8 heading into the 4th.

I think 1 statement can summarize the 4th: A whole lotta sparks, but no fire. The Warriors just kept hitting as the Thunder defense looked hapless and the Thunder offense looked mediocre at best. All of this while we were playing some of our best guys and the Warriors were playing almost exclusively bench.

If I have to hear those KSBI guys say that the Thunder are "brewing the late night coffee pot" or that fans have to "stay up late" to watch the came, I'm gonna break someones crayons. Hi-yah! Oh, and both of the guys just said essentially the same thing, one after the other. And then the dude barely got off the highlights. You know, there is a certain appeal about these broadcasts....I'll just miss the unprofessional hilariousness.

Anyway, now for tonights....

Thunder Wonder: Damien Wilkins
23 Points, 7-14 Shooting, 3-6 3 Point Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 3 Steals, 4 Turnovers, 3 fouls

I know I'm a sucker for this guy. But he's performed in all 3 games this season, and I've just gotta give it to him again. He proved that he can not only succeed in a slow paced, half court set game, but also prosper in a fast breaking, more wide open game. We also got a glimpse of his 3 Point Shooting. If anyone has to compare him to a Hornet, think of him as like....a way better Rasual Butler. Russell Westbrook missed a LOT of layups, and Kevin Durant fired up a lot of bricks himself.

Honourable Mention: Weezy, 15 Points, 6-11 Shooting, 8 Rebounds, 3 Steals, 4 Fouls, 3 Turnovers. He basically misses out because of Wilkins' consistency.

Thunder Blunder: Johan Petro
4 Points, 1-10 shooting, 7 rebounds, 2 Assists, 2 Fouls

I really don't want to make Field Goal Percentage the main factor for being a Blunder or Wonder, but when you're a Center, 1-10 is baaaad. He looked almost comical on the floor tonight. A lot of missed turnarounds and hooks after posting up, and even a couple of clanked 12 footers. I don't know what he did in practice to get the green light to start doing this, but it better start showing in games. But, there's no harm in testing it out in the Pre-Season, so you can't really blame P.J. or Johan here.

Thunder Plunderer (AKA Warrior Wonder, shout out to my boys at Golden State of Mind!): Marco Bellinelli
22 Points, 8-13 Shooting, 3-6 3 Pointers, 3 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 2 Steals

This is Bellinelli at his best. This is the guy you WANT to see on the floor every night. He could just spot up from anywhere, have perfect balence, and sink the 3. It's as if his colourless shoes have magic in them! He was a great distributor, and scorer. But most Warrior fans are skeptical, as we've all seen this from him before. But, almost every time he's come into a real NBA game, it's been a whole bunch of turnovers and clanks. He'll definately see minutes with Montas injury and Barons leaving, but it remains to be seen if Warriors fans will be experiencing a whole lotta Beli-Swoosh or a whole lotta Beli-Clank.

Honourable Mention: DeMarcus Nelson, 8-10 Field Goal Shooting, 4 Rebounds, 7 Assists, 4 Steals, 2 Turnovers. It was wierd seeing "D.Nelson Technical Foul" or "D.Nelson Steal" on the game log. Still, this guy played his heart out, and don't be surprised if he captures a roster spot on the Warriors this year.

The Thunder's next game is vs. Houston in Tulsa at 7:30 CST.

We'll have an update on Jeff Greens injury later.

Also, just a little poll I'd like you guys to answer:

Thanks for letting us know.

Quick Update: Golden State of Mind has a game thread that I somehow missed earlier. Granted, none of them could see the game, but you can look at how they marvelled at the Yahoo Gametracker. And how they hate Clay Bennett.

Also: Royce's Recap
Joe's Recap

Pre-Season Game 3 - Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder Live Blog

2008-10-11T18:53:00.001-07:00

Pregame in a Paragraph: Thunder at Warriors

2008-10-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

OK, this preview is completely rushed cause I'm in a hurry to get out of town and hopefully Zorgon will add a short take to this, considering it concerns the Warriors. So here's nothing:

Backstory: The Thunder are still winless, and have fallen into huge holes in these games only to come back in garbage time. Obviously they hope to reverse this trend tonight against a Golden State squad that lost a lot of fire power this off-season. Also, we hope to see an improved Kevin Durant, that is if P.J. plays him at all.

Analysis: Lots of scoring, blocked shots, rebounds, timeouts, who cares. The Thunder will prob lose their third game in four days. Why is that? Because its their third game in four days!

Player to Watch: Jeff Green. If Durant sits, they'll def be feedin the ball to Green to look for some spark, any spark, for a struggling Thunder team.

Predicted Result: Warriors 89 Thunder 80

Zorgons Take: Okay, Okay, I'll add my take.

Am I totally psyched for this game?! Yes. Am I the ONLY person in Oklahoma who will be watching this instead of the Oklahoma State matchup or sitting alone in their room being depressed that Oklahoma lost? Yes!

What team will I be cheering for? The Golden State Warriors. Always have been, always will be. Sorry guys, but I'm a Warriors fan through and through. I'll be cheering on Corey Maggette, and hoping he destroys Kevin Durant. I hope I'll see lots of late game Stephen Jackson 3s. Most of all, I'd love to see Big Al and his post game. Of course, not much of this is going to happen, as it's a Pre-Season game.

But this game is really interesting to people who are not me because this game is a total clash of styles. The Warriors are a fast-paced, break neck team that fires up 3s like nobodies business. The Thunder are a slow paced, mid range jump shooting team that avoids the 3 as if it were a new invention. Now, don't get me wrong, we're NOT the Spurs. The Spurs are a team that relies on inside play from Duncan and drives/3s from Parker and Ginobili. The Thunder sometimes drive, but also shoot a LOT of midrange. If anything, think of this game as the 80s vs. the 00s.

In the end, though, the Thunder will probably win the game. Why? Well, P.J. Carlesimo is still trying to get his lineup figured out, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Weezy, Green, or Durant on the floor at the end of the game. Don Nelson is more old-school, and is a believer in resting his starters for real games because they deserve it. Expect the Warriors to get out to a quick lead and then slowly lose it throuhout the 2nd half. But, in the first, expect them to run the Thunder into a panic, and for the Thunder to start taking a lot of forced shots.

Zorgon's Predicted Final- Oklahoma City 99, Golden State 92

Pre-Season Game 2 Recap: Kings 94, Thunder 85

2008-10-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Something tells me we're gonna be seeing a lot of this this season....
NBA.com Box Score

And, we are on a 2 game losing streak as the Thunder fall to the lowly Sacramento Kings.

For the second straight night, the Thunder looked like an 80s team. Lots of mid-range jump shots, not a whole lot of 3s. Still, when you can say you shot 50% from the 3 point mark, even if it is only 3-6, it's always a good sign.

The biggest news that could possibly come out of tonight was that Joe Smith played and sucked pretty bad. While me and Ben were pretty high on him having a breakout game, he just looked sluggish out there. 4 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 fouls on 2-9 shooting isn't anything to call your mom about, especially when you play 25 minutes.

The second biggest news you could take out of tonight is that Kevin Durant didn't play, for obvious reasons. He's a known quantity, and not somebody we need getting hurt right now.

Weezy only had 2 points tonight, but at least they were stylish....

The third biggest news that you could take out of this game is that it seems P.J. Carlesimo doesn't have much of an intention of playing his Pre-Season signees more than one game. Derrick Byars, a late 2nd round pick that the Thunder recently signed, got some burn tonight. Unfortunately, nobody else that's not expected to play did play, including Courtney Alexander, who got some minutes vs. the Timberwolves. He didn't do much but shoot, and had 3-5 from the floor, including 2-3 from the 3 point line, totaling 8 points. Nevertheless, I wouldn't expect to see him again. Shooting is probably the least valuable quantity in the NBA. There's been a whole lot of players who have shot great in the Summer League or Pre-Season, but really sucked it up when it somes to the real NBA. So, unless he shows something else, he'll probably be riding the D-League.

On the other side of the ball, Bobby Brown had a great game, with 22 points on 9-14 shooting, 4 assists, and 4 turnovers. I'm not gonna call him the real deal yet, but when I was in Germany in June, this dude was all over the news. On the subway, they'd have a little thing called the "Berliner Fenster" (Berlin Window) which would show daily headlines. Usually, after the soccer update, they'd talk about how Bobby Brown had a great game or was battling through injury to help out ALBA Berlin in the championship. After that, they'd have actual news. He seems like one of those score-first point guards. Best case scenario, he turns out like Baron Davis. Worst case Scenario, he turns out like Will Bynum or Tyronn Lue.

Now, for tonights....

Thunder Wonder:

Jeff Green
19 Points, 7-17 Shooting, 7 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals

Normally I wouldn't put someone with such a low shooting percentage (with no 3s attempted) as the Thunder Wonder. But tonight, Jeff Green showed some real leadership on the floor as he lead the Thunder to within 1 point in the 4th quarter before falling behind. If Kevin Durant ever gets injured, this is what we're gonna need to see out of this guy.

Honourable Mention: Damien Wilkins, 14 points, 6-12 shooting, 6 rebounds.

Thunder Blunder:
Joe Smith
4 points, 2-9 shooting, 5 rebounds, and 5 fouls.

Well, there's not much else to say other than this guy had a horrible game. Given that he's the most experienced guy on the team by far combined with the fact that this is only the Pre-Season give me the impression that he'll step his game up soon.

Thunder Plunderer:

Bobby Brown
22 Points, 9-14 Shooting, 4 Assists, 4 Turnovers, 2 Steals

While not an incredibly effective pure Point Guard, and by no means a Mike Bibby, he's a great score-first Point Guard who has shined so far in the Pre-Season.

And, just for kicks, tonights....
Thunder WTF:
Russell Westbrook
8 points, 0-9 shooting, 8-10 Free Throw Shooting, 4 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 4 Fouls, 1 Steal, 3 Turnovers

Basically, he got fouled a lot but didn't manage to score 1 measly point from the floor. Just a wierd, wierd game.

Sorry for the shortness of these recaps, but hey, it's only the Pre-Season, and if you attempt to read into it too much, you'll find yourself proclaiming Damien Wilkins an All-Star. Stay tuned for a preview of tonights matchup with the Warriors (which I hope the Warriors win)! And remember to watch this mornings matchup with Texas (which I hope the Sooners win)!

To Answer Ben: Sooner! And We Believe 2009!

Preseason Preview 2: Thunder at Kings

2008-10-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

As predicted here, the Thunder still have yet to win an organized game of basketball. Now, they head from Billings to Northern California for a series of games against the Kings and Warriors. Can the Thunder get a win in the Golden State, perhaps even against Golden State? We shall see...

Backstory: The Thunder did not look good in their first ever game, and it took a bunch of bench players to at least get the score to look respectable. Fortunately for them , they face the Sacramento Kings, another one of the west bottom feeders, so hopefully OKC will enter the winners circle after tonight (the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets first win was against Sacramento, if that means anything). While Durant and other starters struggled in the last game, Westbrook led a strong looking bench. Also, the Thunders first game in an NBA arena, thank God. Few things annoy me more while watching a basketball game than seeing both the college and NBA 3-point lines together, so I'm glad we're done with that for now.

Analysis: Gone are Mike Bibby and Ron Artest, replaced instead by the formidable John Salmons and Bobby Brown, who will likely get the nod at PG with Beno Udrih out. King cornerstones Brad Miller and Kevin Martin have yet to contribute to their team, but theres a good chance they'll see some decent minutes tonight. As for the Thunder, expect the full starting 5 to take the court and perhaps even the debut of Joe Smith. I definitely think that the Thunder can sneak away with a win here. Sure it's in front of a hostile road crowd (if you can call pre-season game crowds hostile). However, they need to make sure they can contain Brad Miller, because they struggled at times against Minnesota's Kevin Love, basically a rookie version of the center.

Player to Watch: How about Zorgon's boy Joe Smith. If he sees action tonight, I'd expect the veteran to do well, especially after the Kings sit Miller. Also keep your eyes on Chris Wilcox, 'cause he exploded in the last game and had at least a couple of thunderous, no pun intended, dunks.

Predicted Outcome: Thunder 90 Kings 85

And good luck to my boyz in Dallas this weekend, BOOMER!

Pre-Season Game 1 Recap: Timberwolves 88, Thunder 82

2008-10-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

NBA.com Boxscore

If I had to describe this game in one word, I'd say: throwback.

First of all, the game was broadcast on KSBI-TV, channel 52. Back in the 90s, many teams had no FSN affiliate and broadcast their games on local stations. The presentation here reminded me very much so of that. The cameras were high-school football quality. The graphics were very minimal, and the musical theme, essentailly a thunder clap and a trumpet, sounded hilariously bad.

Secondly, the whole arena looked very old school. There was minimal floor design, and there was no moving advertisements in front of the scorers table. The highlight of the game was probably when Rodney Carney dived for a loose ball and knocked down the banner on the scorers table, and no one ever bothered to put it back up.

Thirdly, the game was a gruelfest. It was a combination of the fact that the players that were good were playing like crap, and the fact that both teams refused to shoot a lot of 3s. It reminded me a lot of those games in the 80s when they had just invented the 3 point line, but most teams were too scared to shoot the shot regularly unless they had Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

When you get right down to it, this was a really bad outing for the Thunder. I know that it's hard to take anything of value from Pre-Season games, but lets just look at the Field Goal shooting of our starters:
Chris Wilcox 6-10
Jeff Green 1-7
Nick Collison 2-7
Earl Watson 1-7
Kevin Durant 3-13

Aside from the good game of Wilcox, the shooting was horrible. What's even sadder is that most of these shots were from mid-range. All 5 starters shot a combination of 2 3s. Yeah. On top of this, everybody from the starting lineup saw heavy, heavy minutes. You could see that they were tired, but coach Carlesimo didn't show much interest in bringing the signees off of the bench.

The roatation players were a different story. Damien Wilkins looked like he was doing everything that Durant was supposed to do: Actually making his jump shots, goin 7-12 from the floor and scoring 19 points. Russell Westbrook also looked good. He had 13 assists and 3 points, but his game was marred by a whopping 5 turnovers. He really didn't look ready at all to lead the team at Point Guard.

If you're going to take something from this game, here's 3 Key things:

1. The Thunder really, really, really, really need a true point guard. Most of the time, Durant had to create for himself, and he utterly failed. This isn't college anymore, and he needs someone to distribute to him and get him open looks. Watson certainly wasn't proving himself to do that, with just 4 assists in 28 minutes, with a whopping 5 turnovers. Westbrook had almost the same problem. It's painfully obvious that Sam Presti has to make some moves in order for this team to be successful.

2. 3 Point shooting is not our main problem. Teams can survive without scoring a lot, as evidenced by how we kept the game close even after getting so far behind in the first. Contrary to what the Oklahoma City fans want, this team will survive on a lot of defense and 12 foot jumpers.

3. We need to play our other guys. Carlesimo was giving a whole lotta minutes to the main guys. We played only 10 guys, with the only real non-rotationer being Courtney Alexander, who played for a paltry 6 minutes. I'd like to see what the training camp signees are made of.

Anyway, on to our Thunder Wonder and Blunder:

Thunder Wonder:
Damien Wilkins
19 Points, 7-12 Shooting, 1-2 3 Point Shooting, 4-6 Free Throw Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 1 Steal

Have to give the Wonder to Damien tonight. He essentially carried the team through the 3rd quarter after its 2nd quarter surge, and was really the only reason we stayed in the game. Weezy had a good night too, and was a close second.

Thunder Blunder:
Earl Watson
2 Points, 1-7 Shooting, 0-1 3 Point Shooting, 1 Rebound, 4 Assists, 5 Turnovers, 1 Steal

Kevin Durant was close to getting this award, but while he had similar shooting, he didn't have more turnovers than assists as a point guard, and he had no rebounds. Earl Watson was really, really useless today.

Well, there's not much more to say about the game at this point. The good people of Billings, Montana got their fair share of pro basketball, and we got our first taste of what the season will be like.

And as a side note, apologies for the pictureless recap. Pre-Season games aren't covered so well media-wise.

Preseason Pregame 1: Thunder vs. Timberwolves

2008-10-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

At long last, the Oklahoma City Thunder will finally take the court in a "competitive" game. Of course it's only fitting that the game take place in the media megaplex known as Billings, Montana in the historic MetraPark Arena. Without further delay, here's a breakdown of today's game:

Backstory: Well, this is the first game for either team, so not much backstory as far as that's concerned. However, there are some interesting angles to look at. First, like I said earlier, it is the premier game for our dream team. If you're into NBA basketball in OKC (like me) and into the NBA preseason (unlike me), then this is probably the game of your life. I'm sure seeing those Thunder jerseys taking the court for the first time will bring tears to many eyes, in more ways than one. Secondly, one shouldn't forget that this is a struggle between two of the NBA's more pathetic teams. Tonights game may give us an indication of how these teams have improved, or perhaps even deproved, if thats possible.

Analysis: Though it's pointless to breakdown what will happen in a preseason game held in Montana, it's how I earn the big buck$ so here goes nothing...

Like I said earlier, both of these teams were quite frankly embarassing last season. We already know that Johan Petro is out of this one, along with Joe Smith being a game-time decision. Also, I wouldn't expect Kevin, Weezy, or Collison to play any amount of extended minutes. Likewise, Big Al should make him self quite comfortable on the pine. This leave a whole lot of nothing for tonight's game, poop quite frankly. I do think that the T-Wolves have the slight talent edge after you remove those players, still though, it isn't much.

Player to Watch: Russell Westbrook. It's his first actual NBA game and he looked very promising in his summer league action. In the Oklahoman today, P.J. said that Westbrook was chomping at the bit to see some action and that "he's very hungary."

Predicted Outcome: Timberwolves 88 Thunder 85

I bet your arena doesn't have huge boulders! Support the Billings for Next NBA City Movement!

NBA Blogger Previews: Atlantic Division

2008-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

This year, we're doing the NBA Blogger Preview for the Thunder. If you're into the NBA, you should definately check these links out.

Boston Celtics
Jeff Clark: CelticsBlog.com
Jim Weeks: Green Bandwagon
FLCeltsFan: LOY's Place
John Karalis: Red's Army
Dustin Chapman: Celtics 24/7

New Jersey Nets
Dennis Velasco: About Basketball

New York Knicks
Joey: Straight Bangin'
Seth Rosenthal: Posting and Toasting

Philadelphia 76ers
Dannie & Pete: Recliner GM
Jon Burkett: Passion and Pride

Toronto Raptors
Franchise: RaptorsHQ.com
Ryan McNeill: Hoops Addict
Cuzzy: Cuzoogle

Thunder the mascot has been fired!!!!

2008-10-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Via Golden State of Mind:

No, Thunder, you haven't been benched. It's much, much worse than that.

The Golden State Warriors much beloved mascot, Thunder, has been fired. Why? Because of us. Because of us and our having to have an extremely stupid nickname. Why not just name ourselves the lightning and avoid this altogether?

But no. We all had to follow the Daily Dissapointment's (AKA, the Oklahomans) stupid write in contest, where they predicted the names and we just followed along like mindless cattle. And so did the people who own the team.

I've heard from a few sources that the people who would normally approve the logo were left out of the process, and the management eschewed them in favour of taking "Thunder" and running with it.

Now, the least that they could do would be to re-hire Thunder. Thunder is a great mascot, and they don't need to repeat the debacle of the name and uniforms with a mascot debacle. Sure, Warrior fans will hate us even more, but it's better to start a good rivalry with another fan base rather than to have your own fan base hate you.

Start the movement now! The revive Thunder movement!

Bring the Noise!

Getting to Know You....P.J. Carlesimo

2008-10-02T00:46:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start a new feature here on Blue Blitz. Since most people in Oklahoma City are new to the NBA, the faces in the organization probably mean nothing to you. So, its only fair that we all get acquainted, right?

First, our coach: P.J. Carlesimo

P.J. Demonstrating the "Shout and Point while trying not to look wierd" technique.

P.J. demonstrating just how cool he is.

Anyone who has heard the name P.J. Carlesimo before he became the coach of the SuperSonics last year, probably knew about the time he was choked by Latrell Sprewell. In fact, that's probably the only thing they knew about him.

But, lets start at the beginning....

Unlike most major coaches, he never played basketball at a professional level. Rather, he has coached his entire post-college life. At least no one can debunk his experience. Carlesimo started his coaching career at Fordham University. After that, he skipped between several minor colleges in New England until 1982.

P.J. in his less salt-n-peppery days.

In 1982, he became the coach of Seton Hall. This is far before my time, but basically he picked up a no-nothing program and brought it all the way to a National Championship loss in 1989. He also assistant coached the Pre-Dream Team in 1990 (under Coach K) and the Dream Team in 1992.

Afterwards, he made the jump to the pros. This is where things finally get interesting. He was hired by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1994.

The Trail Blazers were a coming off of some glory years under Rick Adelman. In 1990 and 1992 they reached the NBA Finals under the play of Clyde "The Glide" Drexler. One couldn't blame the for these losses, as the first loss was to the "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons and the second loss was to Michael Jordans Bulls. Inbetween (1991), the Pistons posted a 63-17 record, but lost to Magic Johnson's Lakers in the West Finals. The great teams had to beat somebody, you know. Yet, somehow the team fell into mediocrity. In 1993 and 1994, they couldn't advance past the first round, though one could hardly blame them with Barkleys Suns, Olajuwons Rockets, the Sonic Boom (Kemp, Payton) Supersonics, Malone and Stocktons Jazz and David Robinsons Spurs standing in their way. So, Paul Allen (the owner) and Co. decided to lay the blame on Adelman and fire him.

P.J. with the Blazers.

They hired P.J. Carlesimo. Carlesimo, basically, still had the core of the 1992 Finals roster to work with. By now, all of the players were getting old, and management didn't make any moves (besides moving Kevin Duckworth) until after Carlesimos tenure. So, he just rode out the mediocre roster for two years, and left in 1996 before Portland became a mish-mashed mess.

Then in 1997, he joined an even worse mess in the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors, at this time (and still are) owned by a penny-pinching, hands off owner who cares about nothing but making a profit, Chris Cohan. His incompetance, basically, was the main reason the Warriors missed the playoffs for 13 years.

On top of that, they were lead by what Warriors fans like to call "the Worst GM in sports", Garry St. Jean. Garrys basic strategy for building a basketball team was combining young prospects with seasoned veterans, so that they could learn from each other. Sounds good, right? Not when executed so horribly. Firstly, his drafting abilities were as good as John Blakes coaching abilities. He drafted Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant, Peja Stojakovic, Steve Nash, and Jermaine O'Neal. He traded Vince Carter for Antawn Jamison. Often, he ould trade for players in the very end of their careers, like John Starks and Mookie Blaylock who would serve to hurt the team more than help them.

P.J. drafting the greatest player of all time, Adonal Foyle.

In 1997, the team was dismal, basically serving as a pit stop for older NBA Stars and younger NBA prospects before both varieties moved on to greener pastures. For example, the pre-season starting lineup on NBA Live 98 (Carlesimos first year) read as so (for everyones information, this was the team that got me interested in basketball as a kid):
C- Erick Dampier - Hadn't developed yet
PF- Joe Smith - Just as he came into his own, he was traded
SF- Donyell Marshall- Ditto to the above
SG- Latrell Sprewell- In his prime, but had a temper
PG- Mark Price- Used to be on some great Cavalier teams, but his career was just about over.

Needless to say, his work was cut out for Blogger: Blue Blitz: News and Editorials on the Oklahoma City Thunder - Create Posthim. He had a disgruntled star and a bunch of guys who were not above role player status. The record of this team was dismal, and one day, Latrell had had it.

The legend goes like so. Practice is going as normal, and the team is doing drills. Latrell had just made a soft pass.

When yelling the infamous line, P.J. was no doubt using this powerful "double handed shouting" technique.

PJ: Put a little mustard on that pass!

Latrell: I'm telling you, coach, I'm not in the mood for this right now. Don't come towrds me!

*PJ approaches him*

Sprewell then threatened to kill him and dragged him to the ground by his throat, choking him for 10-15 seconds before his teammates pulled Sprewell off his coach.

15-20 minutes later, Latrell came back to practice and attacked PJ before leaving again. During this attack, he threatened to kill him.

P.J. post-confrontation. Ouch, don't mess with Spree.

Sprewell was suspended for an entire season, and Carlesimo was never looked at in the same light again. Most Warriors fans think of this as the dark days of the franchise. Indeed, when Matt Steinmetz (Warriors sideline reporter) was asked what his worst moment covering the Warriors was, he responded with the incident.

When asked about it later in a 60 minutes interview, Sprewell said, "I wasn't choking P.J. that hard, I mean, he could breathe.

With his star gone, the situation only got worse for Carlesimo. The team finished 19-63, and Carlesimo became notorious for giving heave minutes "worthless" big men, such as Erick Dampier, Adonal Foyle, Chris Mills, and Jason Caffey.

The next season there was a glimmer of hope for Carlesimo. He had just gotten a nice rookie star in Antawn Jamison. The NBA had just witnessed a player lockout and the retirement of Michael Jordan. Many of the teams were bad. So, he managed to pull off a 21-29 record with a lineup of Bimbo Coles, John Starks, Chris Mills, Jason Caffey, and Erick Dampier. The shortened season benefited the team, as younger team generally tend to fizzle out late in the season.

The shadow forever haunts him....

Sadly for Carlesimo, this highered expectations for next season. His team quickly fell to 6-21 and he was just as quickly ousted from his job. With a bad reputation following him and 2 relatively bad coaching stints, nobody in the NBA wanted to hire him.

After his stint in Oakland, P.J. went on to persue other career options. Like Gardening!

And house....making.

So, starting in 2002, he spent 5 years as assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs under Gregg Popovich. Here, he let things cool down and got to play all of the big men that he wanted to.

Eventually, the SuperSonics hired him in 2007, and you should know the rest of the story. They traded Ray Allen and most of their previously built team so that they could build around Durant, and they finished 20-62.

And now, you know the story of Coach P.J. Carlesimo. Next up: Sam Presti.

Okay, one last picture.

Head2Head!

Off-Topic, But I Feel it Must Be Mentioned....

2008-09-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

Atma Brother One has left the blogosphere.

I know this means nothing to virtually all of you, but this is the guy who introduced me to the blogosphere, and, quite frankly, inspired me to start blogging. His last post is one of his best, and I hope you take the time to look.

My Comment to him:

You know, I’ll always miss Atma playing hardball on the Warriors. Whereas some guys will always say things are great and praise every move, when Atma sees something wrong, he tells you. He gets a LOT of flak, but you’ve gotta respect a man who does things like that. The era really did end with Baron leaving and Monta injury. Some of the guys are still there, but you just can’t have it without Jason Richardson, and the demi-god Adonal Foyle.

This blog was the first sports blog I ever went to, and I still try to visit every day. Atma has worked consistently to make this place fun to be at. He’s endured a lot of hard times, and had a lot of good times. Man, is it hard for me to see him go.

But I could only see this coming. Keeping up a blog is a lot of work, and he wasn’t just keeping up a blog, he was building a community. He consistently said that when this stopped being fun, he would leave. I think that time has finally come, what with the dark days of the Warriors re-emerging and lots of nasty comments.

Well, it’s been a long ride Atma. I respect what you’ve done, thank you for all the help you’ve given me over the years, and wish you luck in the future.

Thunder Uniforms Unveiled

2008-09-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Via Newsok.com:

Yep, you guessed it, the uniforms have been unveiled.

They don't seem too bad at first glance....but they do have a few fatal flaws.

First of all, who wants that stupid mini text on the players butt crack? That's been a huge trend in recent uniforms, and it's really stupid. I mean, are we going to look there FOR the team name? I just don't get it. Isn't the sides enough? Anyway, it's safe to say that I WILL NOT buy these shorts.

Second of all, the logos are extremely reminiscent of the 90s Pistons uniforms. Royce says otherwise, calling them "New York Knickish". While they do look so if you look at it on that drawing he has on his site, if you look at the actual thing, they look moreso Pistons to me. But of course, the Pistons uniforms were much more outlandish, cartoony, and just plain cool. These look sort of bland an generic, just like....the logo! Whaddaya know!

Third of all, the fronts of both uniforms are just a little bit too bland and noisy. The white uniforms have orange tracing around them for some god-knows-why reason. Combining it with the white and yellow doesn't turn out too well in my opinion. The road uniforms also suffer from problems, as it just looks like they slapped Oklahoma, City, and the numbers on there with absolutely no regard for style.

In conclusion, after a second look, these uniforms are pretty poor. They have some positive points on the colouring, but the uniforms are eternally marred by their use of butt crack logo and their overall genericness.

okluschen note: To me, it seems as if Thunder is just a formality for this team and if they didn't have to have a team name, we wouldn't have one. Everything the team does seems to be distant from Thunder. If you're going to choose a name like the Thunder, show me some clouds or bolts or something! In the logo and the uniforms, they seem to be going conservative in their selections, as not to piss off anyone. However, in doing this, they've managed to offend everyone! Give us something to be proud of, please. It doesn't need to be good even, Oklahomans will take to whatever. But give us something that isn't plain jane generic.

Thunder Games to be Broadcast on Fox Sports Net

2008-09-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Via TheSportsAnimal.com:

In news that comes as no surprise, the Thunder have announced that they will televise their games on Fox Sports Net. Furthermore, in news that comes as total surprise, Fox Sports Net will create a new network, Fox Sports Net Oklahoma, to cater to local interests. This replaces the old network covering Oklahoma, Fox Sports Net Southwest.

During Thunder games, the new network will be labeled as Fox Sports Thunder. It will have pre and post game shows (aptly named Thunder LIVE), along with a weekly magazine show.

Besides Thunder games, the piece says it will show OU, OSU, and "Olympic" events. They say that they'll even have some shows specializing in local sports.

So, what does this mean for you? Is it good news?

Well, first of all, yes, this is fabulous news. If fact, the news probably is all we could ask for. I was kind of hoping that we'd get to our roots and have the games broadcast locally on the CW or Channel 43, but Fox Sports Net is just as good. I have no doubts that it will be much better than Cox would be, as it makes the games available to more customers without NBA League Pass.

The creation of a new network is even better news. If they had attempted to stick us on Fox Sports Southwest, Thunder games would spend a lot of time on FSN+, which people have to pay for. As a longtime Warriors fan who watches games on Fox Sports Net Bay Area, believe me, it's a very bad thing. If you'd look through the comments on several Golden State of Mind game threads, you'd find a bunch of super pissed off fans, who didn't like the fact that they got replaced by Sharks hockey.

But, the question remains. Outside of Thunder stuff, why would you watch this network? I mean, OU and OSU football and basketball are already contracted out, except on rare occasions when the games are on all FSN affiliates. I can tell you right now, there's not going to be much worthwhile. Most of the programs will be cookie cutter national crap that no one watches.

Still, this is a very small complaint, given that we're getting a whole new network and maximum coverage. 65 games will be covered, with over half of them in HD. Absolutely meaningless to HD-less people like me, but I've heard from other fans that non-HD on an HDTV really, really sucks.

Stay tuned for more info from media day as soon as we can bring it to you!

OKluschens Note: This really sucks for Mavericks fans in the state, who will no longer be able to get most of the season without League Pass. Same for anyone else who relied on anything in FSN Southwest. Nevertheless, this is a lot better than just tacking on games to FSN Southwest.

Uniforms Were Leaked....Maybe

2008-09-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Via Thunder Rumblings:

Well, at least it wasn't the teams fault this time.

Presumably, someone on the development team for NBA2K9 decided to post a video with the Thunder jerseys in it. The NBA probably required the Thunder to give it to 2K Sports early, so it could be in the video game.

This image, from NBA Live 09, shows another variation on the uniforms. This one looks like it was from an Alpha though, as the scoreline is formatted poorly and the graphics look like they're from NBA Live '99.

Only time will tell, but if I had to guess, I'd lean towards the video being a more realistic representation of the uniforms. We'll all see on Monday's Media day.

Side Note: Did anyone see the super slick presentation in NBA 2K9? Damn! The first game to include actual video since NBA 2K6, and the way everything is done makes me feel like I'm actually watching TV. The line between TV and Video games continues to become more and more blurred....

EDIT: New Photos, Via Thunderworld. Looks like the uniforms are pretty much confirmed. These unis are the same as the 2K version, except from NBA Live 09.

Kevin Durant's Q&A with Sporting News Today

2008-09-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Royce Young/Contributing Writer

For those of you that don't subscribe to Sporting News Today, quit reading and do it now. It's awesome. It's basically a digital newspaper delivered to your email every stinking morning and it's FREE.

Today they have a great interview with Thunder star Kevin Durant. He talks about the new look, the new team, his goals and what it's like in OKC. A really great read. (Click it to make it bigger. That's what she said.)

A few interesting things he said:

1. "Your team name is supposed to make people afraid. People are afraid of Thunder." I hate to disagree there Kevin, but who's really afraid of thunder besides six-year-olds? "What was that, dad?" "Nothing son, just thunder. It's only a sound. It can't hurt you." Remember that conversation when you were a kid? Also, who's afraid of the Lakers? Or Mavericks? Or Spurs? Oooh, the Spurs. Are those really terrifying names that intimate opponents before they step on the floor?

2. "I talked to Chris Paul about [Oklahoma City], and it seems like a good, quiet kind of place, a family-oriented kind of place. And he said the fans are great, they're unbelievable. It sounds like it is almost a college atmosphere when you get to game night." Darn night KD. People around the country make fun of OKC about being a small town. They think we have teepees and ride horses to work. But that's fine because if they actually knew what it was like, they'd all be moving here in a heartbeat. Low crime, virtually no traffic, great jobs, great economy, extremely low cost of living, wonderful people and great schools. I think I've said too much.

3. Q: How about the chances of seeing the Thunder in the playoffs? "Oh man, it's way too early to think about that. We still need to jell together, to get better as a group, as a family. Let me think about training camp before the playoffs. Ask me in the middle of the season about the playoffs, and maybe I can give you a real answer." Translation. And the reason he'd rather be asked in the middle of the season is because by then the Thunder will be 12-29 and no one in their right mind will be asking about the playoffs.

I guess this comes with being a big league city

2008-09-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

Royce Young/Contributing Writer

Ticket scalpers suck. Like big time. Like Tavaris Jackson at football. Like Michael Moore at life. Like me at making crappy analogies.

And now, they've hit OKC.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290262815283&category=16122

It's not like this is something new. Oklahomans have dealt with ticket scalping with OU and OSU - well, OU football. But now it's big league scalping for a big league city. Two seats in the upper deck, row G at $2,499.00?!? That's $1,679.00 over face value. That's beyond disgusting. A regular $10 upper "Loud City" deck seat is turned into a $30 ticket.

Scalpers are the lowest of the low. The scum of the sports world - well, maybe even the scum of the world. These greedy little money lovers come in, scoop up the ticket with no intention of using it and then rape us true fans by hiking the price.

I've had this debate with numerous friends. And I've actually convinced a few how wrong it is. At OU, we have this game we play in Dallas every year against a team from Texas. Students run and buy up tickets but in my estimation, only about 40 percent actually go to the game. The remaining 60 percent snatch up a ticket, charge it to their parents bursar account, toss the ticket up on Ebay and reap some major reward to go buy more beer and doritos. While some super Sooner that can just afford the $95 face value price misses out because he had to work all day and couldn't get to the box office. Now the ticket is 500 yammers and the true Sooner is hung out to dry.

Let me put it this way. Metallica released a new CD last week. You're a HUGE Metallica fan. You've been looking forward to Death Magnetic for months. (Go get it, it's good.) When the disc dropped last week, you had to work. But after you got off you were running straight to Best Buy to pick up your brand new copy. You've been thinking about it all day. The clock strikes five and you hit up BB. You run in and don't see it anywhere. You turn around and there's a guy behind you with 50 copies in his cart. You're a little stunned. The guy is wearing a Fall Out Boy shirt and eyeliner. He clearly wants nothing to do with Metallica.

He says to you, "Hey you want one of my copies?"

You say, "Yeah! Thanks!"

He grabs one, holds it out and says, "I like you. Just make it an even 75."

"What? But it's only $9.99. You don't even want the thing!"

"I don't care. I got here first. Now make it 80."

Now save your spit because I realize there are more places to buy the CD and whatnot, but you see my point. See how ridiculous that sounds? Best Buy and the record company determine the price of the CD, not some dude that just got there before you did. We yell and complain about gas gouging, but we let ticket scalping go. Some morons just claim, "Hey, that's capitalism." Well no, capitalism is having a market that determines the set price of the ticket in the first place. The market determines the price not some jerk trying to make a buck. Wal-Mart and Target compete for consumers so they set prices based on each other. The Thunder set its prices based on the rest of the league. Scalpers aren't competing with anyone. They just want to stuff their pockets.

So my plead is, don't buy scalped tickets. JUST DON'T DO IT. And for the love of Mohamed Sene, don't scalp a ticket. If you buy one and can't go/realize this team is going to totally blow, sell it - for what you bought it for.

Or I will find you. And when I do... I'll probably just tell you, you suck.

Now introducing.... me!

2008-09-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

The guys here at Blue Blitz have been gracious enough to extend me a spot here to help contribute to making this the premier blog for all things Thunder basketball.

Just to let you know who I am and what I'm about. My name is Royce and I'm a senior at the University of Oklahoma and I'm about to get my degree in journalism. I've written for the Oklahoma Daily, OU's student newspaper and one of the best ones in the country, for the last three years. I've covered the 2007-08 Sooner football team and many other sports around campus - enough to where I've got some 225 clips. I wrote a weekly sports column for the last few years and also a "Campus Watch" column for thesportingnews.com.

I "retired" from the Daily and after spending about two months not writing about sports and letting everyone hear my opinion, I needed an outlet. Or I was going to explode. So thankfully, this blog thing is going and even if the only person reading what I write is my mom, it's worth it.

So anyway, I'll be contributing my very best material here to Blue Blitz, bringing you hundreds of zingers and hilarious Thunder basketball anecdotes. If you're reading one of my columns and you think to yourself, This guy's ripping off Bill Simmons - I probably am. I only wish I could write with that kind of ability.

I'm going to be publishing ALL of my columns at another blog - one that encompasses the entire Oklahoma sports scene - tentatively called The Daily 405 (you have no idea how hard it is to come up with a decent blog name until you try is. Makes you appreciate the good ones like With Leather and Kissing Suzy Kolber). It will have more than just Thunder ball there. But those columns will be there too. It's a work in progress and we'll see how much time I have, so bear with me.

I'll be writing previews, post gamers and a bunch of other stuff. So go ahead and subscribe to this blog and tell all your friends, because if you love the Thunder, this will be the place to be.

Uniforms to be Revealed Monday

2008-09-24T01:11:00.001-07:00

The Daily Oklahoman reports that the team uniforms will be revealed next Monday. No words on if there will be an event yet, but the uniforms will probably be white at home, and sky blue on the road. Given all of the sky blue banners at the Season Ticket purchasing ceremonies, I'm not surprised.

KREF Prevents Rowland from Pursuing Job with Team

2008-09-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Toby Rowland, sports anchor for KWTV and morning radio host on KREF, is not being let out of his contract with KREF in order to accept the position of sideline reporter for the OKC Thunder, according to the Oklahoman.

What a cowardly thing to do by KREF. Yeah, he's the only reason anyone listens to this station. Still, how can you hold someone back from an oppurtunity like this?!?! According to Rowland, "One of the things I've been most disappointed in is I have been approached on more than one occasion over the past few years by other radio stations with more lucrative offers. I have turned them away because of a sense of loyalty to The Ref. They were the one that gave me my first show. It's dissapointing that they wouldn't kind of give back the kindness here."

It's a shame that things have to develop this way. Sideline reporter would be a great oppurtunity for Toby and I'm sure he would have done a great job with it. Now he's screwed to being the best host on the third best sports talk station in the area.

Wrong Brian Davis! Also: New Thunder Blog

2008-09-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently, we got the wrong Brian Davis. He's an old bald guy, and used to fill in on the old Seattle SuperSonics broadcasts.

That was a HUGE error, and we here at Blue Blitz apologize for any of the confusion that it caused.

We would also like to thank who alerted us to this error: Joe at Thunderguru.com

He's been in the Thunder blogosphere for longer than us and is a long-time Seattle fan, so you'll definately want to check his blog out.

Breaking News: Brian Davis and Grant Long Named Thunder Play-By-Play and Colour TV Commentators

2008-09-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Grant Long Rocking the Shades

Via The Sports Animal Text Alerts:

Brian Davis and Grant Long have been named play-by-play and colour commentators for the TV broadcasts of the Thunder.

It says to tune into the Sports Animal, but they're talking about the Rider Cup (ugh.)

I've done a quick search, and it says that both are former basketball players.

Brian Davis was a member of the 1991 and 1992 back to back Duke national championship teams. He was selected 48th overall in the 1992 NBA Draft. For one season, he went to Europe to play with Gheorghe Muresan on Elan Vernais Pau-Orthez. The next season, he had an average season with the Timberwolves before dropping out of basketball altogether. He co-owns a company developing a upscale community in Durham, North Carolina called "West Village". The other owners are none other than Christian Laettner and some Duke graduate named Tom Niemann, and the company is called "Blue Devil Ventures". They have donated 2 millions to Dukes basketball program (as if they needed it) and have reportedly tried to buy the Memphis Grizzlies and D.C. United. Why he would want to start doing Thunder play-by-play is anyones guess. He seems like a Duke guy more than anything.

Grant Long is a former journeyman Power Forward for the Heat, Hawks, Pistons, Grizzlies, and Celtics who was known for his defense and rebounding. Now that I think about it, I sort of remember him....but not really. What would make him come to Oklahoma City to do broadcasts?

Still, from the look of that photo, he has some Slammin' shades.

Brian Grant was just on the Sports Animal.

Basically, he was with FSN in the Pacific Northwest. He's also done some Pac 10 basketball and football, along with some Chicago Fire play-by-play. He says he's really excited to be here, and excited about how much fun he'll have. Grant Long got on the phone, and professed that he grew up in a small town, so he's not worried about moving from a big city to Oklahoma City.

Well, I can't say that I'm not a little disappointed. I'm sure these guys are great announcers, but I would've preferred if we could've had someone local who's been doing if for years, like a Bob Barry Sr. and Al Eschbach combination. It will take some getting used to, but hopefully these guys will prove to be great announcers. And please, please don't let them be massive homers. Un-biased commentary is golden (shoutout to Bob Fitzgerald and Jim Barnett, Warriors announcers).

Apparently, earlier everybody thought that Brent Price was getting the job. That would have been extremely cool, especially since Mark Price (his brother) was my favourite basketball player pre-Adonal Foyle.

Reguardless, a big welcome to Brian Davis and Grant Long!

EDIT: This is the WRONG Brian Davis. He is actually an old white guy who used to fill in on SuperSonics broadcasts. Thanks to Joe at thunderguru.com for the correction.

Are Bad Logos Contagious?

2008-09-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

The newly dubed Oklahoma "City" RedHawks unveiled their new logo yesterday. If you thought Thunder sucks, check this out:

Two Oklahoma City embarrassments in less time than it takes Jason White to "run" 50 yards. What must people across the nation be thinking? Well, normally, no one would even be aware of a AAA team changing it's logo. However, the timing of this event, may give us some unwanted exposure. The news comes a day before the AAA championship game. Of course, it would have to be covered by ESPN, and of course, it would have to be held in OKC!

Personally, I find the new secondary logo to be decent, though it is somewhat reminiscent of Miami(OH) (coincidentally, also the RedHawks). The primary logo is a disgrace though. What's with logos that don't represent their teams?

It all started a few years back when Blazers officials decided it was a good idea to change the Blazers logo to feature the new capital dome. Seriously? If they were the Capitals, or the Senators, or the Governors, or the Domes, this would be an acceptable logo. But they aren't...they're the Blazers. You know, fire, streaking speed, not unnecessary architectural feats.

Then of course, came the notorious Thunder logo. This has been covered plenty by this blog and everywhere else in the nation, so I'll save you another tirade and not say anything about "that thing."

Now, we have...this...

I think Aristotle once said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." This is obviously a ploy to sell more RedHawk gear by Scott Pruitt, perhaps trying to make up for potential lost income that will be brought upon by the Thunder in advance. If that's the case, I don't think Scott should be worried. As long as there's dollar beer night, the RedHawks will sell seats.

The Lost Ogle's Take On the New Logo

It's Never Too Early...

2008-09-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

The NFL isn't even through it's second week yet and most college football teams haven't even started conference play, so what better time for NBA Preview magazines to start hitting the shelves!

My favorite sports prediction magazine (Athlon, I've bought all of their college preview magazines for the past 5 seasons) has recently released their NBA preview, so I thought I would share it with you.

First of all, as you can see from the cover, they had to go to print before the release of the actual logo. This results in almost all of the OKC pictures in the mag being from summer league play when they were wearing those generic black unis, except for one of Nick Collison, who's doning a Sonics jersey.

They don't have anything out of the ordinary to say about the Thunder. They spent the entire Thunder intro recapping the story of how they moved from Seattle, a story that I'm sure we're all sick of by now. They also grade all the teams' scoring, defense, rebounding, athleticism, coaching, and intangibles on a scale of 1 to 10. The Thunder got a 2 in scoring (up from 1 last season), a 4 in defense, a 6 in rebounding, a 5 in athleticism, a 4 in coaching, and a 4 in intangibles (up from 1 last season). I can't really argue with any of these. The Thunder are far from being any sort of scoring threat and though in the future I think this will be a fine defensive team, for now 4 is probably about right. This also came before they traded for Mason and Smith, so defense probably would get a boost if they had known about that.

The folks as Athlon also picked OKC to not finish in last in their division, better than some might have hoped. They have the T-Wolves (new jerseys and all) finishing below them. I also found it funny that Russell Westbrook was named our top offseason addition in the magazine, by far one of the more pathetic list of transactions in the magazine. Again though, this was pre-trade.

Athlon seems to be optimistic about the future of the team. They say that, "The Thunder will have one of the most vocal crowds in the NBA, giving them a first-rate home-court advantage" and "Have patience Thunder fans, and a lot of it...Endure the present knowing you will only enjoy the future."

Athlon has the NBA playoffs as follows:
Eastern Teams-
Boston*
Cleveland
Detroit*
Miami
Orlando*
Philadelphia
Toronto
Washington
Boston over Philly in Eastern finals
*-indicates division championship

Western Teams-
Dallas
Houston
Los Angeles Lakers*
New Orleans*
Phoenix
Portland
San Antonio
Utah*
New Orleans over Lakers in Western finals
*-indicates division championship

New Orleans Hornets over Boston Celtics in NBA Finals

Introducing....Blue Blitz!!!!

2008-09-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

After hours of deliberation and logo making, we have decided on a new name and logo....

From the proprietors of The Oklahoma City NBA Sports Blog....To the Max!!!!, we bring you....

Blue Blitz!

Our new logo and colour scheme have been introduced. I know it's bad, but it's nothing compared to the teams ACTUAL logo. Then again, it's no Tony.psd work either.

I was in favour of naming it Hellblau Blitz (German for Light Blue Flash/Bolt/Lightning), but OKluschen reminded me that nobody will know what Hellblau means, and Light Blue Blitz or Oklahoma Blue Blitz didn't have the same ring. Thunder Asunder was also considered, but asunder means "apart or scattered", and that has no relevence to basketball, and it generally has a negative connotation.

If anyone has a better name, or if you are a great logo designer, email us at NBAOKC@gmail.com. Otherwise, we're gonna stick with this.

Coming up: My Season Ticket Buying Experience....

(At least it's better than Oklahoma City BBalls new logo!)

How to Squander Your Fans

2008-09-09T19:05:00.001-07:00

Forgive me if I come off as angry, but, quite frankly, I'm pissed.

Thunder Rumblings, no longer sponsored by John Holt Chevrolet, has informed everybody that anybody with a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday appointment for tickets is SOL. Quite Frankly, this makes me incredibly angry.

I signed up for my tickets the DAY AFTER signups were taken. But, to "be fair", the team decided to randomly scramble the people who signed up from the beginning and some date like a month later. So, basically, some dude who didn't even know that the NBA wasn't coming to Oklahoma City until a month later might be enjoying his season tickets right now.

So basically, when I go to get my tickets on FRIDAY, I'm going to be stuck with a crappy 6 game plan somewhere at the top of section 301. Great. Thanks a lot, Thunder.

Of course, there's absolutely NOTHING I can do about this, and I am VERY spoiled. But I don't even know if my heart is going to be in this the rest of this season. I'm tired of stinky ownership. But of course, this is a fact of life, and I just have to deal with the fact that the NBA is a business.

My couch is a much better seat, anyway.

And when we have about 11 wins riding into the All-Star break, I can get my tickets for free.

Thunder vs. Thunder

2008-09-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

We here at the Oklahoma City NBA Sports Blog....to the Max!!!! have always been against Oklahoma City being named the Thunder. Why? Well, there's many reasons, but one is because we'd be stealing the name of the Warriors mascot, Thunder.

Well, reader Sue submitted a link saying that the Warriors really don't care at all about their mascot. Matt Steinmetz said that the Warriors have been trying to change their logo for years, but they didn't because it would cost them $500,000. Well, I guess why we knew why the Warriors had a 13 year playoff draught (*cough*cheapskates*cough*). But seriously, does anyone remember the last time you saw the Warriors use their full logo?

Well, for fans of NBA logos, this is terrible news. The flying W is a pretty good alternative logo, but as a main logo, it sucks.

But what's more is that Matt wrote an article today saying that Thunder is going away. For good. Thunder is in the Warriors "official" logo, but they never use that logo and, while I love it, from a neutral stand point it looks very late 1990s.

I guess Thunder had it coming, but it's always sad to lose a mascot in the NBA family. Thunder was one of the more unique ones, as he wasn't an animal per se, but he was a blue X-man with slammin' shades. If you are truly going away, as a long time Warriors fan, I'd like to say: I'll miss you, Thunder. You were a great....mascot. Man, I'm gonna miss that guy.

Zorgon on KFOR!

2008-09-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

Slammin'!!!! I'm the guy in the Sonics Jersey, "Zebulun Benbrook". Starts at about 2:20. You might have to refresh the page....several times....to see it.

An Encounter with P.J. Carlesimo, BBJ, and more

2008-09-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

As you all know, Zorgon was on the field reporting for us at Leadership Square. As you also know, he attended the press conference wearing an old Seattle Supersonics jersey. After the epic and now infamous unveiling of the logo, Zorgon bumped into the Thunder's head coach, P.J. Carlesimo...

Here is how it went down (paraphraded, again):
P.J.: (Pat on back) We need to get you a number 35 jersey
Zorgon: (not knowing who it was) Oh, yeah.
P.J.: (Walking away)
Zorgon: (now realizing who it was) Oh, hey, I loved you when you coached for the Warriors!
P.J.: Thanks.

Also, Zorgon had the priviledge of speaking briefly with Channel 4's Bob Barry Jr...
BBJ: I'm lovin the jersey, I'm tellin' you.
Zorgon: Yeah, thanks.

Zorgon was also interviewd briefly by the Oklahoman, "a guy with a moustache" according for Zorgon, so be on the look-out for that.

Apparently a lot of people are walking around with OKC logo shirts now, kind of like those "Oklahoma City" shirts people were wearing per-logo, or so I hear.

Lego My Logo 2

2008-09-03T15:11:00.001-07:00

This is terrible. This logo has nothing to do with Thunder. Quite frankly, I'm Thunder-shocked. The blue is the same color as the state flag. Like I was telling Zorgon earlier, its not bad for a uncreative, unoriginal, generic, unNba logo. Oh well, it isn't the logo that makes the team, its what happens on the court that matters. Who am I kidding, this is the worst thing thats happened in Oklahoma since Dairy Queen pulled out of the state. As Zorgon said, (paraphrasing) "they could spent years at their desks reviewing all the sports logos in history and they couldn't find anything as good as that" (sarcasm). I mean really, we waited months and months...for OKC and a basketball?!?!?!

Worst case scenario.

Apparently, one of the reasons it took so long was because every team had to approve the color scheme. God, I'm glad Bud Selig is ok with Oklahoma flag blue and Oklahoma dirt orange-red.

Lego My Logo

2008-09-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

It was months in the making, but it finally happened. It's Thunder!

The Logo Leak Was True, NOOOO!!!!

2008-09-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

Unless it's part of some huge hoax that Clay Bennett is planning or we're in the twilight zone, the Oklahoma City Thunder Logo Leak WAS true. Anyone else throwing up or crying yet?

If this is an elaborate hoax, it would be awesome. But if not, the Thunder have done a notoriously horrible job in keeping the logo secret.

Reguardless, I'm about to jet to the ceremony, and OKLuschen will update you with any further developments.

Top Hat Tip to Joe over at the newly revived Oklahoma City BBall.

Judgement Day is Upon Us!

2008-09-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

Today at 5 PM, the NBA OKC name will be announced!

Just wanted to give everyone a run down of the places to check:

1. The actual unveiling will be at Leadership Square (211 N.Robinson) in Oklahoma City. It says that the unveiling will be at 5PM, but it doesn't say when you really should be there. It's also your first opportunity to purchase team gear. I'll be there, and I should (hopefully) be holding up a "SIGN ADONAL FOYLE" sign, and a Sonics jersey (not in protest). Why? Because Adonal Foyle is the greatest player of all time, why else? Stop by and say hi if you want.

I'll be on the phone with Okluschen during the unveiling (which will probably be the first place that will show the logo), and he'll put it up on the blog ASAP.

2. The Team's Official Website should have the logo up at 5PM, but the site will most likely be highly trafficed by not only OKC fans, but interested fans nationwide. Also, the team might be slow to update the site, since they want the "official" unveiling to be first. If you're still thinking of checking it, the site is fully Flash oriented (not HTML), so it takes longer to load. Still, it would be one of the places to check.

3. Your Local News. 4,5, and 9 all have newscasts at 5, and will most likely have reporters on the scene. Hurricane Gustav is gone now, but KOCO still might have a whole lot of reporters in New Orleans, along with their news chopper. So I'd probably recommend going with 4 or 9. 4 might be a better choice because they went with 2 sports stories over Hurricane Gustav on Saturday. Not nessessarily a good thing, but it does mean you might get the logo information faster.

4. WWLS the Sports Animal will probably have the info, but it will really only be useful for the name, and not the logo. You can't really see anything on the radio.

5. The Oklahoma City NBA Sports Blog....to the Max!!!! It's a great place, and we'll have all info up as soon as possible. Semi-live blog coverage.

Lastly, we will have our new blog name announced tomorrow (Thursday), and a new design hopefully in place by Friday or so. Stay tuned for more developments, and lets hope that they don't copy off of the Golden State Warriors' Mascot!

Our Inside Scoop: Aftermath

2008-09-01T02:17:00.001-07:00

Our link to the Thunder forums really put our blog on the map. The story was linked to 6 times, hyped up 26 times (and down once :-(), and commented on once (on Blogger, 3 times). We even go linked by places like the Fanhouse and SLAM Magazine! (Thanks, Tom Ziller!) As a result of this, the story has launched our blog (at least temporarily) into the Top 50 NBA blogs on the internet! That's right, top 50! 8 away from Golden State of Mind!

Well, just wanted to give a big Thank You to everyone who hyped us up, and, rest assured, we have much, much more to come. We're all looking forward to Wednesday!

And, before you ask, we DID call the local news stations. I called 4 and 5, Okluschen called 9 and 25. 4 asked for my name and forwarded it. On the newscast they said "all signs are indicating that it will be Thunder" but there was no mention of our story. 5 actually looked at it, was impressed, took down my name and number, and never called me back. It was never on a newscast, but Mark Rodgers got on the Radio and said that he had seen the logo on the internet (without acknowledging us, lol). 9 didn't even take a name. 25 had a phone tree, and the sports guy looked at it, but according to Okluschen he "didn't seem impressed". And, just for kicks, I emailed KSBI 52, but they haven't emailed me back yet. We checked the newscasts, but none showed our story. Go figure.

UPDATE:
Wow, I thought that the story was dead, but apparently it's heart is still beating!
We got linked on Deadspin, AND SI.coms Extra Mustard! It's got 37 hypes! Due to the freshness of hypage, the story has leapfrogged Sarah Palin! I'm still in shock.

On a side note, my Top NBA Players 35 and Older article has 9 hypes and rising, putting it right behind the logo leak! Again, thanks to everybody for all of the support. I can't wait until the real logo comes out, and I also cant wait until the new Ballhype Blog rankings are generated!

Update 2: We got mentioned on the NewsOK NBA in OKC Blog Sponsored by John Holt Chevrolet!!!!

News 9 showed the logo, but we got no mention :-(.

Ball Don't Lie listed us as a 6th man. Not bad, I guess.

Top NBA Players 35 and Older

2008-09-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

I've always liked old guys, so recently I thought it would only be fair to rank some of the older guys around the league, and see how the "team" of them would do in the real NBA. I'll probably be ranking them by general skill. It will also recognize the people who have been balling in the NBA for so, so long. Much respect to them.

The cutoff is that you must be born on or before Dec. 31st, 1973. This may seem arbitrary, but it makes it a whole lot easier to sort through the Yahoo! Rosters.

All players who are still officially on NBA rosters and have not officially filed retirement papers are eligible. (Comeon, I gotta make this fun!)

3 Players Ranked for each position (to make a 15 man roster), and I'll list Honourable Mentions along the way.

Centers-
Starter- Shaquille O'Neal

Making a decision between these big men was really, really hard. 2-3 years ago, this decision would have been pie. But the fact still remains that Shaq can rebound much, much better than the other two. True, his defense is about equal and his scoring, which used to be better, has gone down to their level. But if you look at the rbounds this guys got last year, he's a monster. As Shaq himself would say, "I'm the baddest 36 year old on the planet, and I'm looking forward to another 10 years of my NBA career".

Backup- Dikembe Motumbo
Dikembe probably won't play this season, but he's still eligible according to the rules above. He was a benchwarmer for a while, but when Yao got injured, this guy exploded and filled the 7'6" hole remarkably well, leading the team to a #5 playoff seed appearance. Still, his 43 year old body would probably not be able to take a full 82 game schedule at peak performance. So, he'd get light minutes in a backup role.

Benchwarmer- Alonzo Mourning
I know, the words "benchwarmer" and "Alonzo Mourning" should never, ever go together. But he's only 3rd on the Depth Chart of this team....technically. With these big men so old, fatigue and injures are a large factor. Everyone is basically a hair apart, and they'll help each other out a lot and play naught-equal minutes. Still, Alonzo gets 3rd because he retired as a backup to Shaq. It's not GREAT reasoning, but I had to have something!

Honourable Mentions-
There are no other Over-35 Centers in the NBA. Imagine that.

Power Forwards-
Starter- P.J. Brown

Okay, P.J. took a half season, but the dude is hardly missing a step. His 12 foot jumper isn't near what it used to be, but his defense is still among the best in the league. Pair him with any of the 3 Centers above, and nobody's daring to enter your lane. He could probably have another full season if he wanted, and he's pretty well ahead of the #2 PF on this list.

Backup- Kurt Thomas
He used to be an average Power Forward, but now he's kinda below average. In the pack of his career, he shot 3s sometimes. He's fallen below the radar as of late, and this journeyman will most likely have a quiet retirement.

Benchwarmer- Robert Horry
Put this guy as the 12th man and bring him in for the last few seconds of the game. He's a respectable player, but he's only in the NBA because
A. He's a big man who can Shoot 3s
B. He's Mr.Clutch
C. He's on the Spurs, also known as the NBA retirement club. (Indeed, they have the most players on this list at 5).

Honourable Mention- Theo Ratliff
The last time I saw this guy playing basketball, Allen Iverson was playing Kobe Bryant in the NBA finals. What was he doing back then, you ask? He was taking up space on the 76ers roster, of course. Ever since then, I've only seen him on the injury list of Team X, taking up 20 zillion dollars in salary cap space. If he could walk without crutches, he could've probably been a valuable shot-blocker on the team.

Small Forwards-
Starter- Grant Hill

Some might make an argument for Bruce Bowen (Spurs fans), but to me it's pretty obvious that Grant Hill is the better player. He may fly above the rim like he used to, but the dude has turned into such a fantastic team and defensive player that it almost doesn't matter. Always finding the open man and never missing a defensive assignment. And, if you want him to score, he can do that occasionally too.

Backup- Bruce Bowen
A great guy off the court. A serial killer on the court. In two sentences, that's Bruce Bowen. If you see interviews with him or if you happened to see him on the street, you'd think that he's a pretty nice guy. If you see him play at opposing NBA arenas, you'd think that he was Timothy McVeigh. He plays an increbily dirty, ruthless style of defense that always drives the opposing team and the referees crazy. An asset to our team, but not an asset to our PR.

Benchwarmer- Eric Piatkowski
If you're a newer NBA fan, you're probably thinking, "Who the hell is Eric Piatkowski?" If you're an older NBA fan, you're probably thinking, "Why the hell is Eric Piatkowski still in the NBA?" If you're Doctor Who, you're probably not thinking about the NBA at all. Reguardless, he is easily the weakest link on the roster,and would probably be cut to make room for another guard.

Honourable Mentions-
There are no other Over-35 Small Forwards in the NBA.

Shooting Guards-
Starter- Michael Finley

Eddie Jones would have been here not too long ago, but he has taken a big dip recently in his production, while Michael Finley has stayed largely the same. Not at his former All-Star High-Flying level, but still a darn-good scorer. And, if you look up and down this lineup, a darn-good scorer is exactly what this team needs.

Backup- Eddie Jones
He's Michael Finley, but a little bit worse. He did badly in Dallas last year, but his overall talent is probably better than his stats are showing.

Benchwarmer- Brent Barry
He almost plays the same role here as he does on the Spurs. Come off the bench occasionally, hit some 3s.

Honourable Mention- Lindsey Hunter
The eternal Piston used to be a pretty decent player, but his minutes are slowly disintegrating. Played in only 28 games last season with an average of 9 minutes, so he easily misses this list.

Point Guards-
Starter- Jason Kidd

This team is stacked with Point Guards. It's really easy to argue that any of them deserve 2nd place, but Jason Kidd is the easy pick for first. Arguably the only All-Star on this list, and is still treated as such by his team.

Backup- Bobby Jackson
Okay, this decision might spark come controversy (as if there's some big controversy over these lists). But this team needs scoring, and that's what Showtime brings to the table.

Benchwarmer- Darrell Armstrong
An unselfish and extremely defensively tough Point Guard. In his late 30s he still manages to be a high-energy player, and looks like he has 4 lungs (Bob Cousy only had 3). You gotta respect that in a guy.

Honourable Mention #1- Sam Cassell
Probably the best guy to be left out of this team. Performed exceptionally, even last year somewhat. But, that's only on paper. If you watch this guy on the floor, he's extremely selfish and likes to force shots. Kind of like pretending he's a young Allen Iverson. Proof here. I just don't think he would help the team out much. But if you go by sheer talent, he's probably 2nd best. Lastly, any blurb about Sam Cassell wouldn't be complete without giving him props for taking the title of the NBAs ugliest man from Jeff Hornacek. Next up? Greg Oden.

Honourable Mention #2- Damon Stoudamire
Production has been way down over the last couple years, as he was left to rot in Memphis. He signed on to the Spurs as a last grab for glory, I guess. He can still help them out a bit though.

Honourable Mention #3- Eric Snow
That's right, Eric Snow is still in the NBA, hanging around on the Cavaliers. Back in the day, he wasn't much better than Piatkowski.

So, how would the team do?

Well, first off, it's obvious that the team doesn't have a lot of sheer talent. But what it doesn't have in talent it makes up for in sheer depth and defense. They have so many former stars that one of them is bound to step up and have a great day.

Still, scoring is a big problem. O'Neal and P.J. Brown are defenders, while Grant Hill and Jason Kidd are mainly passers. This leaves all of the scoring on Finley, which is a bad sign post 2003. Still, Jackson, Thomas, and Jones could come off of the bench for scoring support without giving up too much D.

This team would be formidable, but by no means excellent. I'd wager about 45-50 wins, with a 1st round upset and maybe, just maybe, a Conference Championship.

How many wins do you think they'd get? How would they do in the playoffs? Vote in the poll and/or post a comment below.

HUGE Logo Leak!!!!

2008-08-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Via the OKCNBAfans.com forums:

Apparently some worker snuck his tiny digital camera into the unpacking facility for "Thunder" gear, and it confirms our fears.

The name is Thunder, and the logo is butt-ugly. It looks incredibly generic. I mean, some might say photoshop, but it'd be impossible to photoshop through plastic. Some might say "unofficial" but the NBA logo is also on the basketball.

So, there's only two explanations from here on out:

1. The logo is legit.

2. The logo was made illegally by a local entreapaneur who is trying to cash in on the new team phenomenon.

1 looks very likely, but I'm hoping for 2. And if not that, PLEASE let this be a secondary logo.

A tip of the hat to The Lost Ogle.

Blue Blitz: News and Editorials on the Oklahoma City Thunder

New New Site!

We Have Moved!

Game 10 Recap: Philadelphia 110, Oklahoma City 85

Game 9 Recap: New York 116, Oklahoma City 106

Game 9 Pregame: Thunder at Knicks

Game 8 Recap: Orlando 109, Oklahoma City 92

Game 8 Pregame: Magic at Thunder

Game 7 Recap: Indiana 107 Oklahoma City 99

Game 7 Pregame: Thunder at Pacers

Game 6 Recap: Atlanta 89, Oklahoma City 85

Game 6 Pregame: Hawks at Thunder

Game 5 Recap: Utah 104, Oklahoma City 97

Game 5 Pregame: Thunder at Jazz

Game 4 Recap: Boston 96, Oklahoma City 83

Game 4 Pregame: Celtics at Thunder

Thunder cuts ties with Lucas, sign Hill

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Game 3 Recap: Oklahoma City 88, Minnesota 85

Game 3 Pregame: Timberwolves at Thunder

Game 2 Recap: Houston 89, Oklahoma City 77

Game 2 Pre-Game: Thunder at Rockets

Game 1 Recap: Milwaukee 98, Oklahoma City 87

Thunder Day has Arrived: Game 1: Thunder vs. Bucks

NBA Blogger Previews: Southeast Division

Lakers Preparation

Preseason Pre-Game 7: Thunder vs Lakers

Pre-Season Game 6 Recap: Suns 102 Thunder 93

Preseason Pregame 6: Thunder at Suns

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LA Ball Talk Blog Rankings Voting Starts Today!

Open Practice/Blogroll Update

NBA Blogger Previews: The Oklahoma City Thunder

The Chris Paul PBA Celebrity Invitational presented by the brands of Ebonite International

Season Predictions

NBA Blogger Previews: Central Division

Pre-Season Game 5 Recap: Clippers 90, Oklahoma City 88

Preseason Pregame 5: Clippers at Thunder

Pre-Season Game 4 Recap: Thunder 110 Rockets 104

Blue Blitz on SI.com

Preseason Preview 4: Thunder vs. Rockets

NBA Blogger Previews: Southwest Division

Pre-Season Game 3 Recap: Warriors 122, Thunder 102

Pre-Season Game 3 - Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder Live Blog

Pregame in a Paragraph: Thunder at Warriors

Blogroll Updates

Pre-Season Game 2 Recap: Kings 94, Thunder 85

Preseason Preview 2: Thunder at Kings

Pre-Season Game 1 Recap: Timberwolves 88, Thunder 82

Preseason Pregame 1: Thunder vs. Timberwolves

NBA Blogger Previews: Atlantic Division

Thunder the mascot has been fired!!!!

Getting to Know You....P.J. Carlesimo

Off-Topic, But I Feel it Must Be Mentioned....

Thunder Uniforms Unveiled

Thunder Games to be Broadcast on Fox Sports Net

Uniforms Were Leaked....Maybe

Kevin Durant's Q&A with Sporting News Today

I guess this comes with being a big league city

Now introducing.... me!

Uniforms to be Revealed Monday

KREF Prevents Rowland from Pursuing Job with Team

Wrong Brian Davis! Also: New Thunder Blog

Breaking News: Brian Davis and Grant Long Named Thunder Play-By-Play and Colour TV Commentators

Are Bad Logos Contagious?

It's Never Too Early...

Introducing....Blue Blitz!!!!

How to Squander Your Fans

Thunder vs. Thunder

Zorgon on KFOR!

An Encounter with P.J. Carlesimo, BBJ, and more

Lego My Logo 2

Lego My Logo

The Logo Leak Was True, NOOOO!!!!

Judgement Day is Upon Us!

Our Inside Scoop: Aftermath

Top NBA Players 35 and Older

HUGE Logo Leak!!!!