It sure appears that way to me. A perceived overachieving team. Rising superstar. Late-season run to position themselves for HCA in the 1st Round. Incredibly, though, this year's Thunder have less than a handful players (games) lost due to injury.
I think they are better than last years Blazers. They've got one of the most unstoppable scorers in the game with Durant.
injury bug hasnt bit them this year. when it does... it will be interesting to see how they react. but they will lose 2 more games which mean we had a better record last year. with that said, if they get a center... look out. they have already passed us imo. the the difference about the thunder is.. they play good defense amd can score easily. thats our problem... we dont score for big chunks of games. our defense hasnt improved.... westbrook/durant over roy/la anyday of the week. harden is already a better player then rudy. batum/saflosha are solid defenders. oden is never healthy. thunder have passed us big time. durant over roy 100 times.
I think the opposite. The Blazers win margin last year was twice OKC's win margin this year, and they did it in 6 less possessions per game than OKC. I think this year's OKC is somewhere between Portland's 41-41 team and last year's team as far as where they are in the league - they are just very lucky to not have any injuries.
True on both points. But when it gets to the playoffs, everybody knows it's a superstar league and Durant has earned the respect of the officials. I see him benefiting more than Roy in the sense that he's already a volume shooter (more opportunities to get the call), where Roy picks his spots and enjoys being a facilitator more which limits his aggressiveness. I know Roy took it to another level last year in the playoffs, but Durant is already on that level just about every night in terms of scoring.
OKC definitely is going to make some noise in the future. They're short a center, but they've got money to spend this summer. If they can get a dominant big, they're definitely going to be the team that the Blazers are going to have to deal with in the West once the Lakers begin their decline. Nobody said that it was going to be a cakewalk for the Blazers to win a title.
And who exactly are they going to knock out of getting home court advantage? LA? Denver? Utah? Dallas? Um, nope.
It is all about matchups. Houston was a very bad matchup for us last year, they had good defenders in all the positions we were good at (2 good perimeter defenders to slow down Roy, a guy bigger than Oden and Scola who was very physical with Aldridge) while having the guy that could break our miserable perimeter defense by being faster than anyone else we had (Brooks). If we were lucky enough to go against San Antonio or NOH or Utah or even Denver, last year, there was a much bigger chance we would have gone on. Nothing to say about this year and Durant - if they get a good matchup - the will do well, if they do not - they are toast. Both of those teams (OKC this year, us last year) were not as good as the top teams in the conference - but the Blazers, last year, were just better than OKC is this year. The thing that might help OKC this year is that most of the good defensive teams in the league, this year, are in the east, not the west. OKC is a mediocre offensive team - if you play good defense against them - they are toast. Unfortunately, the West has only one good defensive team this year (LAL) other than OKC. Would not surprise me to see them advance only because of that - their Achilles heel is consistently scoring against good defensive teams. With Oden down we are no longer one, the Spurs are going downhill - so it's LAL and Utah that play top-10 defense in the west (along with OKC). Dallas might turn into one once they get Dampier back - having too decent defensive centers and tough-juice on the perimeter might elevate them in this category as well.
There is another factor though you missed. That is the ability to elevate your game to another level in the playoffs. There are certain players/teams in the league that have another gear come playoff time, and perform at a higher level. Then there are the teams out there that play as hard as they can to get to the playoffs, and cannot elevate their game to another level. Year ago when Pat Riley was coaching Miami, they would always play really hard all season long and have a great record, but when the playoffs hit, they would lose in the first round a lot of the time because they could not elevate their game, and yet their opponents, could.
Talent and production wise I think they are very very close. We still dealt with injuries last year, while they haven't had any...
I do not think we have enough data to really call the Blazers as one of those teams. It was the first playoffs they have been to since the Sheed days and they were one of the youngest teams in the league. I think that in this specific case - the matchup issue was THE biggest issue for the Blazers last year. That year's Rockets team had the right personal to guard, effectively the Blazer's big-3 core while having a big mismatch in the the guy controlling their own offense.
Both teams have good young talent. What I think seperates the teams is Durant. Roy is an all star but Durant is well on his way to becoming a superstar. Hopefully Oden becomes the Blazers unique talent that puts us into the next category. But right now I will say the unpopular thought . . . I would trade rosters with OKC right now.
IMO, as I've said before, it all depends on Oden. If he comes back healthy and just builds on what we were seeing in November, then he's the wildcard that makes the Blazers better than OKC. You just don't find dominant big men very easily. On the other hand, if Greg continues to have major injury problems....OKC looks pretty darned good.
+1 Greg is definitely the x-factor. I'm just hopeful that Greg vs. Durant doesn't end up becoming a veritable Bowie vs. Jordan scenario. I'm not sure our franchise could take another hit like that.
abm... it already it is. you have durant being considered for mvp. other then lebron... hes gonna be runner up. oden will never be close to mvp. hell roy will likely never sniff it. its already a disaster we passed him olen, it will become catastrophic.
This year's OKC team is about equivalent to last year's Portland team when Oden was out. With a healthy Oden, I definitely take last year's Portland team. Even without Oden, I give the edge to last year's Portland team. As andalusian (Pixies fan, clearly) notes, Portland had a much better point differential.
Jury's still out, IMO. Ask me again in two years. Shoot, as thin as Durant is, he could blow out a knee tomorrow. Then what would you say?
