The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Oklahoma City Thunder

I wrote the first The Good The Bad and The Ugly without particularly thinking about it, but I think I’ve got it now. These are my way of saying what I’m excited to watch on these teams. I love watching Kyle Lowry, and enjoy the heck out of Tyler Hansbrough, but I loathe watching Rudy Gay. And like all things Basketball I love talking about them. So if you disagree and I assume everyone does you can e-mail me at seamusfennelL@gmail.com or tweet at me at Kevin_seamus. And without further ado…

Let’s Thunder up! Amiright? Sidenote: Zach Lowe’s brilliant must-read treatise on the ranking of the NBA mascots for Grantland.com mentioned that OKC was almost named the Rough Riders. This leaves me sad. I want to root for the Oklahoma City Rough Riders. Plus they could bring in the Teddy Roosevelt mascot from the Washington Nationals and he could ride up the wrong hill (history jokes!).

The Good:

Kevin Durant. Without a doubt he is the 2nd best NBA player, I wish he was better than the Lebron or more I wish that I could make an argument that he’s better than Lebron, but it wouldn’t be true. That doesn’t stop KD from being the 2nd best player in the NBA. Some fun stats: 28.3 PER, a member of the 50/40/90 club (field goal %, 3 point %, and free throw %) a .647 true shooting percentage, draws fouls at 16.9 % rate, and even had 152 assists that led to 3 pointers. That’s a whole lot of amazing right there. He even holds opposing players to  a 13.4 PER, but that’s mostly due to the fact that he usually guards the least talented offensive player for the other team. I love Kevin Durant and really everyone should.

Nick Collison. Or as I like to call him “The Other Remaining SuperSonic“. Really though some one should take a picture of Nick Collison and Kevin Durant in their Seattle uniforms and photoshop them on a “Last Unicorn” cover. Collison is also a player I’ve always liked from afar, many times putting him into the ESPN Trade Machine in my fantastical trades where somehow the Sixers would get both him and Kevin Durant. He doesn’t have a great PER (13.6), but has an above average true shooting percentage at .624, and almost never turns the ball over. The problem is that he’s not a straight up defender the way I guess they think Kendrick Perkins is, but I think this year is a year where Collison will finally play more than Perkins.

The Bad:

Russell Westbrook. The real bad part about Westbrook is that he’s going to be out for the first 4-6 weeks while recovering from surgery on his lateral meniscus. I had that surgery a month after him so obviously I know exactly what he‘s going through since we‘re on about the same level athletically (this message brought to you by sarcasm). But the point remains that this surgery hurts and the return time could easily be pushed later than 6 weeks (see Rose, Derrick in 2012 though his was ACL). He’s got some really nice stats like his PER (23.6), but he’s also got some not so nice stats like a .323 3pt % while he took 300 of them last year, and his effective field goal percentage on jumpers is worse than Rudy Gay’s (.434 > .413)and his effective field goal percentage inside is 3rd worst on his team (behind the two players I plan to write for The Ugly)  at .59 percent.  Plus I may be the only person alive who says it but I sincerely thought the Thunder should have traded Westbrook and kept Harden, but that’s a much longer argument to be made at a different time.

Thabo Sefolosha. Thabo starts for the Thunder for 2 reasons: to play defense, and to shoot threes. He holds opposing 2 guards to a 14.7 PER, and hits from almost 42 percent of threes. That’s exactly his game and he does it well. Which is great, because he doesn’t really do much else. He draws fouls at a poor rate (6.2%), doesn’t pass well (3.1 passing rating according to 82games.com), and doesn’t rebound.  

Jeremy Lamb. The Thunder are expecting Lamb to fill in for Kevin Martin who was filling in for James Harden. The problem is that Jeremy Lamb is a huge question mark. He spent most of last year in the D League (where he was quite good), and the stats he did accrue in A League don’t really show the kind of player he might be. He shot 30 percent from 3 but only shot 39 of them, Had a 3.3 offensive rebound percentage but he pulled down 5 offensive rebounds. So he’s a big question mark that is expected to do a LOT for the Thunder offense.

The Ugly:

Kendrick Perkins. Ugh. Lee. That’s how you can describe Kendrick Perkins stats as he continues to make lots of money by being intimidating on the court and everyone’s big brother off the court. You certainly can’t argue that his stats add up to his ridiculous contract, with a 8.2. PER and a true shooting percentage of .479 . He shot almost 50 percent jump shots  but had an effective field goal percentage on jumpers of .354 percent, and had the 2nd worst effective field goal percentage on inside shots on his team. He’s a decent rim protector with 51 close blocks, but that’s about it.

Derek Fisher. If you’re wondering why he’s still playing basketball at the professional level, you are not the only one. Fisher like Perkins is pretty much paid to be a leader in the locker room, except with Westbrook out he’ll be expected to be the back-up point guard, and if Reggie Jackson struggles the clunch time point guard as well. Fisher ended up with an even worse PER that Perkins last yar with 7 and a true shooting percentage that’s just a thousandth lower than Perkins at .478. He shot 98 percent jumperrs and had an effective field goal percentage  of .441, all of this points to a player who is very much on the downward slope of his career particularly since everyone thought he would just retire after being released by the Mavericks last year. But no, the former head of the NBA players union is always resilient and just the veteran to be savvy enough for one more playoff run.


For good measure that people can get at me. E-mail: seamusfennelL@gmail.com Twitter: Kevin_Seamus