Ric Bucher Likes OKC Over Blazers In A Few Years

The Blazers are better. Roy is better. Durant has led them to 16 wins. Roy has led us to 44 wins. Roy could score 25 ppg if he wanted. In fact, he'll probably do it next year.

Book it, motherfuckers!

 

Durant is a nearly 7 foot SF with no good bigs on his team. Also add the fact that since the team misses a lot of shots, there's more rebounds to go around too. Then 6.5 isnt really good at all. The 2.5 assists is probably there by default because hes a good shooter getting double teams, NOT because he actuallly creates for other teams.

 

so you're basically saying that you don't really know what your talking about you just assume that durant gets his numbers certain ways because that's what you want to think?

 

While I agree Roy is better, that argument is a bit lame. You are comparing a 2 year player to a 4 year player and a team with less talent to one with a lot more talent at this time. Of course the latter team is going to have a lot more wins.

 

Roy is in his 3rd season. He was drafted in 2006. Durant was drafted in 2007. Roy has been in the league one season longer and played 1.38x as many minutes (7512 vs. 5435) as Durant. Yes, Roy is older (and has better teammates), but it's not like he has twice as much NBA experience as Durant.

BNM

 

Roy is significantly older, though, and thus closer to his prime. Roy is in his age 24 season, Durant is in his age 20 season. Athletes are generally thought to reach their primes around age 26 or 27. So Roy may still have some modest upside left, but Durant probably has a lot more.

Roy is clearly better right now but he should be, in some sense. He's closer to a finished product.

 

I don't dispute that. I was just correcting the incorrect statement that Roy is a 4th year player and the resulting implication that he has 2x the NBA experience of the 2nd year Durant.

BNM

 

Yeah, that was clearly wrong. Roy is more experienced, when you consider college years, but only one year more of NBA experience.

I'm very happy with the jumps Roy has made from year to year. This year, he's moved very close to superstar (arguably there, but hard to nail down what "superstar" means). Any further improvement and we're talking about an MVP caliber player.

He's vastly exceeded my expectations and I'm very glad about that.

 

My mistake, 3rd year, but my main premise is still true.

 

If the NBA was a One on One league, Roy vs Durant would be very important. Luckily, the NBA is 5 on 5. Once you get to the level of a Roy or Durant it is awfully hard to determine who is "better". Stats are all that great because those are influenced by pace, system and teamates. Team records are very useful either for the same reason.

I think you can only really look at the two teams as a whole. In that regard, OKC currently lacks bench play and any kind of inside presence. If both teams made no roster changes in the coming years, Portland would dominate the match-up. OKC does have a ton of draft picks and cap space. Unfortunately for them, the draft is ass this year and the free agent crop is pretty bad as well. Big men are at premium, so it is pretty doubtful they could get anyone better then a Diagou or a Frye. They most likely will not be able to upgrade their bigs this summer so that is out. Green is a decent player, but he isn't a power forward.

I would contend that their future is not all that bright, unless you consider struggling for a playoff spot year after year good. In which case OKC is golden.

 

They have what, 5 first round picks in the next 2 drafts (or is it 6 in 3 - I am drawing a blank), plus a GM who grew up in the Spurs organization. (just like KP!) Barring some serious miscalculations, they are going to get significantly better over the next 3 seasons.

 

of course, all those players are going to be too "inexperienced" like the blazers currently are and won't be a threat to do anything in the league for several more years until they have become "experienced" enough so i'm not sure why you or anyone else is worried about them.

 

A little hypocritical given I'm sure you've rooted for the Blazers' youth at some point this year. It's not out of the question to say they could have those "inexperienced" players make at least a decent impact like our's did.

 

if you've read basically anything i've posted you would know that those aren't my thoughts(experience really is practically meaningless, especially playoff experience which is more of something that comes from being a good team rather than being a requirement of one) but the thoughts of the majority around here and around the nba.

 

while I have applauded Presti's judgement in the past couple drafts and of course he did come up in the Spurs organization, he doesn't enjoy the same sort of owner bankrolling an international scouting network like KP does. This next draft is thought to be both weak in top talent and not very deep, so I don't think I'd expect that much of a talent bump from this next draft for them. They do have 3 first round picks this year, but besides their own the other two are from the Spurs and Denver... they may have trouble finding someone that they want to be on the hook with guaranteed contracts for the next 3 years at those spots.

It won't take serious miscalculations to wiff on draft pick talent when there is little talent available. They need quality size badly and there seems to be precious little of that to select from. Maybe Presti takes foreign players just so he can stash them overseas and doesn't have to use his cap space on them...

STOMP

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?id=4052136

Here's the article. Need Insider/it'll be in the Magazine..



Looks like he scrapped the idea of OKC > Portland after we whooped their ass.

 

http://sportstwo.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1976818&postcount=314

Can't call DaRizzle a *edited* without being censored immediately, but call someone a "jackoff" and then have the censors post later in the same thread and it's totally cool.

 

Can someone copy and paste that article plz?

 

Better yet. Can somebody call Ric after the game last night, and see if he has changed his mind again?