Thunder

[Gold*]

Irony is dying here.

Trae Young isn’t a winner. That said, the Hawks won’t trade him for years. There aren’t many contenders that would want him.

Westbrook doesn’t start since the Harden trade. I’d love for him to come back to OKC, but I don’t think he’d accept the role he’d need to play. He still can’t shoot threes.

 

[astonmartin708]

Robert Williams might be someone the Thunder could target. He was really good defensively on the Celtics last year, but moved to the Blazers who suck and have DeAndre Ayton sitting in front of him on the depth chart.

 

[TU_BLA]

Robert Williams might be someone the Thunder could target. He was really good defensively on the Celtics last year, but moved to the Blazers who suck and have DeAndre Ayton sitting in front of him on the depth chart.

Robert Williams is a rim protecting monster and a rebound eater. I was sad when the Celtics traded him but they had to make some space for Porzingis who has been way better defensively than advertised. I think he'd be a good fit in OKC with that group but just don't expect much from him offensively outside of grabbing some offensive rebounds and getting some put-backs.

 

[TulsaRulzOSUdrools]

The coverage is of the thunder is absolutely terrible. Considering we cover every fart of the get back coach at OU, I think the thunder is worthy of better coverage.

I still think it is because the Tulsa World suffers from high school mindset

 

[TU_BLA]

Starting on 3/24 the Thunder have a brutal 13 game closing schedule. They have 6 tough road games, 4 tough home games, and 3 patsies to play. Will be interesting to see if they lose much ground to Minnesota & Denver.

Suns, KIngs, Bucks, Mavericks at home.
Bucks, Pelicans, Knicks, 76ers, Celtics, & Pacers on the road.
Rockets, @Hornets, and San Antonio are the easier games they have.

The Celtics and Knicks will be the toughest road games. Depends on how the Celtics play the string out since they've pretty much clinched home court throughout the playoffs already. The Knicks are solid. The Sixers prospects will all depend on how healthy Embiid is going in. Without him they're a terrible team, with him they're good. The Bucks might be dangerous if everyone is playing but they've gone into load management mode at this point. I still think OKC is my favorite in the west with KATs injury and the Suns seeming inability to have all their players show up and perform in the same game. Admittedly don't know much about the Kings. Denver is scary b/c they have a true unicorn of a player in Jokavic. Dallas should be better but I think Doncic and Irving are not good fits together (Irving is not a great fit with anyone it seems as evidence by his many stops and the fact that he seems to be the one that gets moved). The other scary team in the west who hasn't put it together yet is the Clippers. Super talented.

 

[TU_BLA]

I don't think you are quite getting my point. That schedule is way tougher than Denver & Minnesota's closing schedule. This is related to how they will finish related to how Denver and Minnesota will finish, nothing else.

Yeah Irving has a personality problem as well as a problem physically meshing with other players. Can't wait to see where he gets sent next. Probably a losing team. At this point the teams that are above .500 probably have seen enough data on him. They are all about to be tired of putting themselves in the place of the last team that tried and failed with him. It will have to be the more desperate teams taking a turn with him next.

I understood the original post. But determining how "tough" the finishing stretch based on W/L alone can be misleading and not quite tell the whole story and I tried to offer a little more insight to how those teams are playing right now or what injuries they might be dealing with or what their mindset might be in an upcoming game.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Nice win at Toronto last night, but that next 5 game trip back east is going to be tough.

At the very least, it seems like Hayward is starting to figure things out.