By 2 points or less all vs teams in or fighting for playoffs. SA, Dallas, Memphis, Cleveland! Damn this team is getting scary. my gut says only a matter of time till they catch and pass us. their gonna be scary soon.
I dunno about that, and I keep having a scary feeling next year that they are picking up someone sick like Bosh and turning into a powerhouse. Ugh.
well thats cause they have a great gm who isnt in love with every player on roster. cough cough. but the only thing we can hope is big time players want no part of living in okc most of the year. i think hcp said its the worst city to visit in the nba or something like that. i mean if we have trouble getting free agents to portland... imagine okc. bosh will end up in a big market like amare. they also like jeff green a lot.
They're a good club. Not as good as us, but pretty good. Presti is almost as good as Pritchard as far as GM's go as well.
They are the Blazers of 2007-2008. Two more years and they will be one of our toughest competition. Memphis might be right there also. Luckly some teams are on the decline or on the verge of decline.
If OKC ever gets a good big man, they will be tough. As they are built right now, they will win plenty of regular season games because they can score. Without better interior defense and rebounding, they will not have much success in the post season. I have mixed feelings about them making the post season this year. It will give their young team much needed play-off experience, but I'd hate to see them end up in the lottery and grab a good big man. They don't even need someone who can score, just rebound and play defense. Of course, if they get someone like that who can also score, they would be damn scary. BNM
I basically see the Thunder being this year's version of last year's Blazers, their point differential alone suggests they'll have a winning season and probably finish with something like 48 wins. They're good and they're going to continue to be good for a long, long time.
They won't spend the money to become a powerhouse, and some of those players are not going to want to stay in OKC. They are playing above their heads a bit right now, but they should be good since they have had the following draft picks in the last three years: 2007(2) Durant, 2008(4) Westbrook, 2009(3) Harden.
^In 2007 they got Green as well as Durant, didn't they? That was an amazing draft. Similar to the LMA and Roy draft of 06 for us. I love their team because they have Westbrook (who I really wanted). I also thought Harden should be a top 3 pick and may end up being the best of this class. I was wrong that he will be the best of this class (Evans) but he will be good. Could you imagine someone like Bosh or Stoudemire on their team? Fun stuff, man. Not for the opposing team, though. As for passing us, it all depends on Oden. As does any title hope for us. He needs to be healthy.
When you have a superstar player in this league, your team will do well. Durant is a sure shot superstar.
MrJ is right. You forgot about Green, Sug. He is a stud too. Green\Durant is at least equal to Roy\Aldridge.
lol clever I think Green is a mini Dwight Howard. With a better shot, not as good at D, by far. But similar.
Heh. Green is a smaller, quicker version of Dwight Howard, with far worse rebounding and defense but a better shot. That is pretty similar! Similarly, Jerryd Bayless is kind of like a smaller, quicker version of Shaq, with far worse rebounding and interior scoring, but better slashing ability. I am actually a mini LeBron James, just smaller and with much worse basketball skills.
I kind of just think they are built similar lol if you look at both of them standing next to each other, they have similar arms, shoulders, size. Not sure why I didn't post that instead of NOT similar game styles lol
You just can't help yourself from saying things like this, can you? I'd say that KP's "bake it" approach has proven to be a pretty good one for the Blazers. He's trusted the talent that the Blazers have drafted and has given it time to develop. So far this season we've seen Webster and Bayless both show signs of maturing into guys who can make big contributions and who are likely to continue to improve. We've also seen signs of Oden beginning to come around to being the player that we all (I presume all of us anyway) hoped he'd be. We've seen that the "culture" KP goes on and on about pays dividends in a team that has the heart to play through adversities such as the injuries of this season. I don't think KP is "in love with every player on the roster." I do think, however, that he's wise enough to know that it takes a bit of time for a player to develop and he wants to see which players fit here in the long view. I also think he knows that the reality of the economics of an NBA franchise today demand that you have multiple small salary players on rookie scale contracts to offset the cost of the big-salary players. I think he's been wise not to jump into moves that would saddle the team with multiple max contract players that would make the team pay luxury tax and hamper future personnel moves. Yeah, I think OKC will be good for a long time to come. So? Did you think that only the Blazers would do things to put competitive teams on the court? The Blazers' have assembled a young and very talented team. Presuming Oden is eventually through with the major injury battles, I'll still take the Blazers' roster over the Thunder any day of the week. Bring on the competition. It's going to be fun.
they are sooo fucking young, maynor, harden, ibaka, and mullins first off the bench. 4 fucking rookies wtf. very scary
