****Official 2012/2013 Oklahoma City Thunder Basketball Thread****

[Anonymous.]

Speculation is the point of playoff hype. What is the fun in not trying to predict what will happen? Have you ever heard of March Madness?

[Mississippi Blues]

Speculation is the point of playoff hype. What is the fun in not trying to predict what will happen? Have you ever heard of March Madness?

Yes I've heard of March Madness, I'm not an idiot. Speculation is fun & all, but is it really necessary to say the Thunder - Nuggets will be the WCF matchup? Yes it looks that way, but it gets old hearing everyone say what will happen before anything has even started to play out. I also find it fun to sit back & watch the playoffs play out, not just speculate on who may play who. I suppose we find different things fun, huh?

Whatever floats your boat though. I won't gripe anymore about speculation.

[dankrutka]

Even before Gaillinari or Ty Lawson's injury problems I wouldn't have pencilled the Nugs into the WCFs. With their injury problems I'd give the edge to the Clippers, Grizzlies, or Spurs.

[Anonymous.]

Even before Gaillinari or Ty Lawson's injury problems I wouldn't have pencilled the Nugs into the WCFs. With their injury problems I'd give the edge to the Clippers or Grizzlies.

wat.


First off, Lawson is back from injury as of last night.

Secondly, the teams you are talking about are not even in the same bracket.

[G.Walker]

This is the perfect setup for the Thunder, Lakers (1st Round), Clippers (2nd Round), Denver (WCF). With all the key injuries from Kobe, Gallinari, Faried, we should have no excuse not to make it to Finals again, plus we will have home court through out the West playoffs. Now if we can get the Knicks to be the Heat, we just might be able to win our first championship! Thunder Up!

[Anonymous.]

This is the perfect setup for the Thunder, Lakers (1st Round), Clippers (2nd Round), Denver (WCF). With all the key injuries from Kobe, Gallinari, Faried, we should have no excuse not to make it to Finals again, plus we will have home court through out the West playoffs. Now if we can get the Knicks to be the Heat, we just might be able to win our first championship! Thunder Up!

You are inside my head right now. GET OUT!

[adaniel]

FUN FACTS!

Only one team with the best record in the last nine seasons went on to win the title. Best record holder right now: Miami Heat.

All 5 teams with a average winning margin of 9.5 or more since 1980 (the three point era) have gone on to win the title. OKC's average winning margin: 9.4.

[dankrutka]

wat.


First off, Lawson is back from injury as of last night.

Secondly, the teams you are talking about are not even in the same bracket.

First, there's a difference from "being back from injury" and being 100% and ready for a playoff run. Ty Lawson is probably the most important player to their team. The fact that he's limping into the playoffs is a red flag.

Second, the regular season is still ongoing and the Nuggets, Clippers, and Grizzlies are all within a game. The "bracket" isn't even set yet so I'm not sure how you can say they're not in the same one. We don't know who will be the 3, 4, or 5 seed.

[dankrutka]

This is the perfect setup for the Thunder, Lakers (1st Round), Clippers (2nd Round), Denver (WCF). With all the key injuries from Kobe, Gallinari, Faried, we should have no excuse not to make it to Finals again, plus we will have home court through out the West playoffs. Now if we can get the Knicks to be the Heat, we just might be able to win our first championship! Thunder Up!

There's some tough series in there. Let's not count our chickens before they hatch.

And I'd put the odds on the Knicks beating this Heat team (if they play) at about 1 in 6 or 7. Just don't see it happening.

[Praedura]

With tonight's win:

60 (plus) win season

#1 Seed in the West (guaranteed)

[dankrutka]

Well, the Rockets and Lakers play on Wednesday. The loser plays the Thunder in the 1st round. It's looking like we may get to see James Harden in OKC for the playoffs afterall.

[ljbab728]

The Spurs lost again tonight, which isn't suprising since they were resting players. It will be interesting to see how much time the Thunder starters play in the last game.

[Teo9969]

Well, the Rockets and Lakers play on Wednesday. The loser plays the Thunder in the 1st round. It's looking like we may get to see James Harden in OKC for the playoffs afterall.

That assumes Utah loses. If Lakers Lose and Utah wins @ Memphis, then Utah is the #8 season.

[OKCisOK4me]

Since they're #1 guaranteed now, I'd aim for letting our back-ups get some valued time, after, say....halftime. No reason to play our starters in the second half.

[dankrutka]

That assumes Utah loses. If Lakers Lose and Utah wins @ Memphis, then Utah is the #8 season.

Yeah. Don't know how I forgot about Utah. So, in summary there are 3 options that can play out Wednesday night (in order of likelihood IMO):

Lakers win over Rockets (Jazz outcome is irrelevant) = Lakers #7 and Rockets #8 (Thunder play Rockets)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz loss = Rockets #7 and Lakers #8 (Thunder play Lakers)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz win = Rockets #7 and Jazz #8 (Thunder play Jazz)

[OKCisOK4me]

Yeah. Don't know how I forgot about Utah. So, in summary there are 3 options that can play out Wednesday night (in order of likelihood IMO):

Lakers win over Rockets (Jazz outcome is irrelevant) = Lakers #7 and Rockets #8 (Thunder play Rockets)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz loss = Rockets #7 and Lakers #8 (Thunder play Lakers)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz win = Rockets #7 and Jazz #8 (Thunder play Jazz)

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

[BoulderSooner]

Yeah. Don't know how I forgot about Utah. So, in summary there are 3 options that can play out Wednesday night (in order of likelihood IMO):

Lakers win over Rockets (Jazz outcome is irrelevant) = Lakers #7 and Rockets #8 (Thunder play Rockets)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz loss = Rockets #7 and Lakers #8 (Thunder play Lakers)
Rockets win over Lakers and Jazz win = Rockets #7 and Jazz #8 (Thunder play Jazz)

a rockets win and a golden st loss puts the rockets at 6 and GS at 7

[Just the facts]

So even though Durant has several hundred more points than Carmello Anthony, Carmello wins the scoing title. That makes sense [\sarc]. The NBA needs to change how they determine the scoring champ.

[BoulderSooner]

So even though Durant has several hundred more points than Carmello Anthony, Carmello wins the scoing title. That makes sense [\sarc]. The NBA needs to change how they determine the scoring champ.

lol ... doing it the same way every league has for all time will probably continue to work for the NBA

[Just the facts]

lol ... doing it the same way every league has for all time will probably continue to work for the NBA

Maybe, I just think 'scoring champ' should go to the person who scored the most points.

[G.Walker]

I like the current system, it shows consistency over time, and shows how dominant the player is for the whole season. I would rather have a player that would give me 30pts a night on a consistent basis, rather than score 50pts one night, and then 10pts the next 3 nights. Durant could have easily one the soring title, but he has changed his game to become not just a scorer, that is why his assists, steals, and blocks are all up this year, he is becoming an all around player, and not just a pure scorer like Carmelo.

[Just the facts]

I like the current system, it shows consistency over time, and shows how dominant the player is for the whole season.

That is just it though - the current system does the exact opposite by favoring players who play less games.

This is how it is now.

Player X
Game 1: 30 pts
Game 2: 27 pts

Player Y
Game 1: 29 pts
Game 2: DNP

Player Y wins scoring title. If a player doesn't play one game he should get 0 points for that game, not pretend the game didn't exist.

Durant will play in 82 games. CA only played in 67. That looks to me like CA didn't score in 15 games.

[Praedura]

The team had a slew of blowouts this season where KD and Russell sat out the entire fourth quarter.

If the Thunder had been a little bit weaker, Kevin would have had to play more minutes and very likely would have won the scoring title.

A lot of that dominance in games came from KD stepping up other aspects of his game - passing, playmaking, defending (particularly blocking shots), rebounding...
So his reward for helping to create a better team is losing the scoring title.

But actually, I think Kevin is okay with that. At this point, I think he's more focused on winning championships than racking up more scoring titles.

[G.Walker]

That is just it though - the current system does the exact opposite by favoring players who play less games.

This is how it is now.

Player X
Game 1: 30 pts
Game 2: 27 pts

Player Y
Game 1: 29 pts
Game 2: DNP

Player Y wins scoring title. If a player doesn't play one game he should get 0 points for that game, not pretend the game didn't exist.

Durant will play in 82 games. CA only played in 67. That looks to me like CA didn't score in 15 games.

You do have a point, I get what you are saying. Because how can Rondo still lead leauge in assists per game at 11.1, and he only played 38 games this year. So basically, let's say one player only played one game and scored 50pts, then gets hurt and not play rest of the year, but he is considered scoring champ because his average would be 50.0 for the year, crazy.

[Just the facts]

They do have cut-offs for each categroy but I would just prefer they did season totals.

Category Minimums
SCORING: 70 games or 1,400 points
REBOUNDS: 70 games or 800 rebounds
FIELD GOAL %: 300 field goals made
FREE THROW %: 125 free throws made
3PT %: 55 three-point field goals made
ASSISTS: 70 games or 400 assists
STEALS: 70 games or 125 steals
BLOCKED SHOTS: 70 games or 100 blocked shots
MINUTES: 70 games or 2,000 minutes
ASST/TO RATIO: 200 assists
STLS/TO RATIO: 82 steals


So yes, it is crazy the Rondo is the assist leader and he hasn't played in nearly 3 months (last game was 1/25).