In a season that has been full of heart ache, the past week has been wonderful for Thunder fans. The week, which featured nothing but home games, was easily the best basketball the team has played since arriving in Oklahoma City. It began with a 107-100 victory over the Golden State Warriors, then ended with a 107-99 win over the New York Knicks (who were riding high after knocking off the defending champion Celtics).
Of course, it was the middle game which was really the game of the year…
Quote of the Week: Denver head coach George Karl
I want to get out of town before the sheriff catches us for stealing.
This Week’s Reason to Love the Thunder Despite the Awful Product on the Floor: Late Game Drama
It was the perfect ending. The silver lining to a season of misery. Trailing Denver by two with five seconds to go, the Thunder inbounded the ball to Kevin Durant who unleashed one of those deep, wild, well defended three point shots that causes fans to shout, “Don’t take that!” Except, it went in. In fact, it swished through the net perfectly. The Ford Center crowd went ballistic while picturing the first winning streak in Thunder franchise history and ignoring the 2.7 seconds that remained on the clock.
A couple of years ago, an ESPN columnist analyzed the statistics on last second shots and determined that Carmelo Anthony was actually the player most likely to hit a game winner at the buzzer. Friday night, the Thunder learned that the hard way. Despite excellent defense by Desmond Mason, Anthony was able to catch the inbound pass from Kenyon Martin, elevate, and hit an improbable three pointer that went through the net with only one-tenth of a second remaining.
Obviously, the outcome was not ideal, but a classic game was played in front of the Ford Center crowd. And, while I don’t want to suggest that it was karma for crushing our spirit, Anthony did suffer an injury in his next game. Perhaps Carmelo should think about that.
Goat of the Week: Unclaimed
When a team begins the week 3-29 and ends the week 5-30, there are nothing but “attaboys” to hand out. Since we aren’t in the practice of pointing out good things, we’ll just leave it at that.
Roster Change Proposal of the Week: Sign Shaun Livingston
As of today, the Thunder’s emergency point guard is Kyle Weaver. And if the team ever succeeds in trading Earl Watson, Weaver would be the primary back up to Russell Westbrook. Nothing against Weaver, but if he is running the offense, the Thunder will be spending a lot of time playing defense. The guy just really sucks at dribbling the ball–and some people think that point guards should be able to do that pretty well.
Earlier this week, the Miami Heat chose to release Shaun Livingston, a 6′7″ point guard attempting to make a comeback from a devestating knee injury, rather than guarantee his contract for the rest of the season. With the impressive play of Mario Chalmers, though, Livingston was getting no playing time and Miami didn’t want to pay luxury tax for Livingston’s contract.
Coming to the NBA straight out of high school in 2004, Livingston was the fifth player selected overall in the draft where the Clippers anticipated he would be their point guard of the future. He showed flashes of brilliance over his first couple of seasons, but also spent a lot of time on the injury list. After blowing out his knee in 2007, he missed the entire 2007-2008 season. Then, after signing Baron Davis from the Warriors, the Clippers decided not to re-sign Livingston.
He then chose to make his comeback with the Heat, but they, unlike the Thunder, are attempting to make a playoff run in the present. So, if you get where I’m going with this, the Thunder would have nothing to lose by giving the former phenom a shot. If he pans out, the Thunder could have a rotation player capable of spelling Westbrook or playing side-by-side with him and not giving up any length. Worst case scenario, they have a better emergency point guard than Kyle Weaver.
(Edit: In between the time this was completed and before it went live, the Thunder traded Johan Petro, the French seven footer who seems to have been in Scott Brooks’ doghouse, to Denver for Chucky Atkins and a first round pick in the 2009 draft. This is a likely signal that Earl Watson will soon be out the door since Atkins plays the same role cheaper. Plus, Atkins deal expires after this season, while Watson’s is for another season. I still think Livingston is a good idea. Hopefully he’s still available after Watson is traded.)
(Edit2: Now I have learned that the Heat pulled a fast one and gave Livingston to Memphis [for a protected second round pick--Miami only receives the pick if Memphis finishes with one of the five best records of the 2012 season]. So ignore everything you read in that final section.)
(Edit3: Nevermind. Memphis waived him after the trade. Confused? Me, too. It has something to do with Miami luxury tax avoidance.)
Hmmn. Was this written before yesterday? Looks like we were destroyed by a terrible team and traded for the back up point guard.
The Timberwolves game would count as this week, not last week…and, um, yeah, I finished it before I knew about the Atkins trade.
I would bet the Thunder partied all the way to Minnesota and then froze their a** off when they got off the plane! With the exception of Mason and Westbrook, the rest of them looked like they wanted to go crawl into the hotel bed with a extra blankie or two. Phewy! That was awful basketball…. Krystic looked understandably lost, but I had such high hopes for his debut. Looks like Swift’s starting job will hold out as long as his protoplasm does. (don’t bet long!)
Krstic did look bad, but it’s one game on a night the whole team looked awful. If he’s still playing like that in a few weeks, it will be time to panic.
I witnessed both of the home victories in the “last week”. So the Thunder is 2-0 when I am in attendance -those were the only two games I have witnessed in person. They are 3-31 without my presence.
I believe they need to fly me to all away games and make sure I am courtside for all home games if they wish to have any more success this season.
Good thing they got Atkins to agree to the trade BEFORE the game last night, he might have had second thoughts. I bet at 34, he is too old to keep up with JR Smith and Chris Andersen on the Denver club scene! He might enjoy a nice afternoon at the art museum with Desmond? It was weird that the guy on the team with the most ink was the redheaded white dude too, looks like he might remedy that (in body surface percentage, not total volume–hard to beat Swift’s 7-feet of canvas with a 5-10 guards body!)