I haven't really kept up with the Thunder this year. Are you saying that Maynor is their starting PG and Westbrook is now backing up Thabo?! That seems kind of nuts to me.
I want to see Nate make sure that whoever is defending Durant comletely messes with Durant's head (whatever it takes) for the first few minutes to keep him off his game. If we come out like the last few games defensively he's going to fire away, get in a groove and it'll be a long night.
My fear is the refs will be a factor. I can see Batum getting in early foul trouble trying to be aggressive, and the refs sending KD to line over and over allowing him to get into a groove.
The trick is guarding him without fouling him and getting him to the line. Often as not he seems to get his stroke by basically taking practice shots at the foul line when his jumper isn't falling. So Nic and whomever else has to cover him is going to have to crowd him, but not fall for that up and under move he does with his arms when he's facing somebody up, and they need to make sure their help D is there to cut off his driving lane. In all honesty, I think he's going to have a little bit of a chip on his shoulder tonight after the way they played the Clips, he could go off for forty.
Take as you will. Won't argue the point. Like I said, I was just reporting the explosion, simple as that. I'm obviously not a "hater" as I don't even know the individual personally and don't follow him, so I have no reason to have an opinion on his game more than I would John Wall or Tyreke Evans or any other young up-and-coming player in the league. My point simply was that we haven't seen emotion from this individual. We haven't seen him getting arrested, fighting guys in the parking lot, calling guys a cancer, telling the media "we played well, just cut the check". His persona that he's been trying to convey to the public has been reserved and "nice". How many explosions have we seen from him? This has tended to translate to his killer instinct and lack of emotion in the final two minutes of crucial games. Call it what you want, but still everyone knows beating Turkey and Akyol, Guler, Ermis, Onan, Erden, Asik, Turkasuck, etc. even on their home court is like the Lakers beating Mt Vernon high school in Mt Vernon. Yes it was a home game, but about an 8-10 NBA player mismatch. Not taking it away from them, just like I'm not taking away the ABC Quarterback challenge that an NFL guy might win some appearance, or the Win it in a Minute championship that some player might win on NBA week during their special appearance, those trophies mean something to them, just not much more than a FIBA medal and not on the same hemosphere as an NCAA or NBA championship.
http://www.covers.com/pageLoader/pageLoader.aspx?page=/data/nba/matchups/g5_referees_4.html Capers, Lindsay, and Phillips will be calling it.
To be fair, you're editorializing by calling it an "explosion". That, and what I construed to be a bit of sour grapes ('media darling'), made the thread to be about anything but "facts". I won't comment on your reiteration of what you posted previously about FIBA's "little plastic trophy", because I already gave my opinion about that once and don't feel like doing so again.
Well you know if Durant needs a "Team" atmosphere where you are family, I know someplace that fits the bill...
You said "Not quite the nice guy any longer," which is an opinion on the matter, not a dry recitation of the facts. Nothing in the story you provided suggested that Durant is not a nice guy. I have no idea whether he actually is a nice guy or not, but that story surely didn't show that he isn't. As for "what has he won," basketball is a team sport. Championships are team accomplishments, not individual accomplishments. It says nothing about Durant's value as a player that he doesn't have a championship in college or pro ball.
Fuck the media. They build you up, only to bring you down. http://sports.yahoo.com/video/playe...KRdCG8vLYF#nba/Y_Sports_NBA_Coverage/22806760
I thought the image shown in the link would be far more gory then it turned out to be. Thanks for over-selling the article.
Fair enough. That's constructive criticism and I can accept that. I suppose it is like having airplanes fly into building and saying at the terrorists are not playing fair any longer. There is opinion that statement that they were playing fair in the first place, or that flying planes into buildings is somehow not playing fair. So my point of reference there in "nice guy" was in terms of the character he portrays when he gets in front of a camera. In dozens of post-game interviews, when he gets into character, he gets into a Roy-like, or even an old Tiger Woods-like character of an unemotional, soft-spoken player. He went away from that character when his emotions got the best of him and boiled over. So I'm not talking about the actual player as he would be outside of his basketball character he portays in front of a camera, none of us will ever know the true individual, so I disregard the "real person" when discussing that aspect on a message board.
oh trust me the only thing I run at home is firefox lol. But these damned state people wont let me upgrade my work PC with anything decent
Gotcha. Not rewriting everything, but he was very upset with the team and himself for their performance. Sounds like a good development for OKC, to be honest.
