Thunder in the News honors Oklahoma City’s return to .500 by highlighting both positive and negative posts about the OKC Thunder.
The first 14 games of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s season has been a whirlwind of emotions for everybody involved. A quick start was marred by a four-game losing streak – now the Thunder have their first winning streak of the season. Opinions on OKC vary greatly, with some media members still seeing the potential while others are quick to make season-long assumptions. I’ll explain in a bit. But first…
Grading the Thunder’s domination of the Bulls
I got the wonderful opportunity to grade Oklahoma City’s performance last night. While the Thunder won convincingly, it wasn’t that great of a performance. Besides the bench, the offense struggled to gain any traction. The good news is the defense locked up a an absolutely dreadful Chicago team. Check out my grades for a more in-depth look at last night’s dub.
"Another game against the Bulls, another easy victory for the Oklahoma City Thunder."
One bench player deserves an increase in minutes
This Bleacher Report piece really warmed my heart. Zach Buckley took a look at five players around the league who deserves more minutes. The first person on his list? Alex Abrines. The Spaniard Sniper has made improvements across the board – he’s stronger, quicker and plays more aggressive than last season. With his shooting ability it’s only a matter of time until we see his minutes start to increase.
"Abrines has the Association’s 18th-highest plus/minus (plus-75), and he’s played the fewest minutes of anyone inside the top 20. He has the Thunder’s best on-court net rating among the regulars (plus-13.4) and their lowest off-court mark (plus-1.3)."
Grading the offseason trades after sixteen games
And now to the negative opinions I mentioned earlier. What if I told you a respected basketball mind claims the Pacers beat the Thunder in the Paul George trade? Or that the Carmelo acquisition is a solid D on Oklahoma City’s side? While OKC may not ultimately be the team we expected, this is an incredible case of recency bias. Us fans should take this as a lesson for ourselves too. We need to relax…we’re not even 1/5 of the way done with the regular season.
"Because of those struggles, they own a 6-7 record, and if the playoffs started today, they wouldn’t be in them — much less the contender many projected them to be."
Hope you enjoyed today’s issue of Thunder in the News! We’ve got all the Oklahoma City content your heart desires on our home page – check it out for the most up-to-date information about your favorite team.