Thunder in the News: Regular season basketball is here
By Tony Heim
We haven’t reached the start of the OKC Thunder regular season, but there’s still plenty of reasons to celebrate.
WE’VE MADE IT!!! Well kinda. The 2017-2018 edition of the National Basketball Association begins tonight with two fantastic matchups: Boston @ Cleveland and Houston @ Golden State. As you probably know, we have two more days until the Oklahoma City season gets underway. That’s not going to stop us from ignoring the four teams playing tonight.
Final training camp roundup
Shoutout Nick Gallo for his usual great coverage of Thunder training camp. Gallo’s last preseason practice recap was made special by none other than Billy Donovan.
"“My concern coming into training camp was this stretch here because I think you want to maximize the week that you have to try to improve from some of the information you have in your preseason games,” Head Coach Billy Donovan said."
If you pay attention to everything Billy D says you understand how smart he is. Donovan is tactical with every decision – I trust him to commandeer this 82-game season to the best of its ability.
The Oklahoma City culture finally gets some love
Something that we all known for year’s is finally being brought to light. Tim Cato from SB Nation did a deep-dive on the Thunder culture, specifically how they’ve created such a strong team dynamic in such a short time. Steven Adams is scattered throughout, but this is the penultimate passage from the feature.
"Felton has only been in Oklahoma City since July, but he swears that he’s already prepared to retire here."
Gideon Lim’s final Film Festival of the offseason
And we end this celebratory post with the final edition of my favorite series of the offseason. Thunderous Intentions writer Gideon Lim spent his summer breaking down the tape of the most important OKC players this season. The last one, his tenth, focuses in on the League MVP. After going back and forth for hours, he finally decided to highlight the reason why Russell Westbrook won the MVP: his play in the clutch.
"This season, with two fellow All-Stars on board, it might just be safer to bet that Russell Westbrook and the OKC Thunder will find a way to defy logic again."
That’s it for the first Thunder in the News of the 2017-2018 regular season. Only one more day separates us from the start of Oklahoma City’s season – make sure Thunderous Intentions is your go-to source for Thunder news, analysis and everything else your heart desires.