OKC Thunder solid play has quietly flown under radar at quarter mark – progress report

Some final tidbit thoughts I have at the quarter mark of the OKC Thunder season.

Aesthetics:

Let’s keep this short. I love the ‘City’ edition jerseys. Turquoise and orange might be the most unintuitive color combination to work on a basketball jersey.

But having the orange sleeves on the white jerseys just don’t go for me. They take the attention away from the players’ face and body by virtue of being bright but weirdly indistinct.

Courtside arrangements:

More from Thunderous Intentions

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

Last one from me. I’ve never understood why the NBA insists on having cameramen camped out along the baseline. I get it, the league literally lives on the quality of its coverage. But, it’s 2018. Aren’t there better ways to do this?

Every time a player stumbles into the tangle of legs along the baseline is an unnecessary exposure to injury risk. The sport is dangerous enough; surely we can do more to protect our players.

In Closing:

All in all, it has been a very solid season so far. The four straight losses from opening night got everyone a bit nervous, but things have settled down nicely, especially on defense.

The offense has been predictably one-dimensional, but not exactly in a bad way, given the iso prowess of the stars. Meanwhile, seeing younger players like Abrines, Ferguson and Diallo’s rise has given hope for the future.

If we’re honest, the team’s record is probably a bit flattering, because the Thunder just haven’t been playing many quality teams. But I’m excited about the sharpening of fundamentals on both offense and defense. Let’s hope our halfway progress report will be just as upbeat.