Training Camp Breakdown: Thabo Sefolosha

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As the days to Training Camp continue to roll down, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Thabo Sefolosha is getting ready to get back to work with his team. The Swiss native took time off this summer rather than playing with the Swiss National team. Thabo instead worked on a children’s basketball program(it’s in French, so hopefully your browser has a translator) in Switzerland, and has otherwise taken it easy.

The son of two artists, Thabo’s defense in the NBA has been an art exposition 82 nights a year. He has been touted as one of the league’s top defenders, even being named to the NBA All-Defensive 2nd team last year. Thabo Sefolosha has been integral in Scott Brooks’ defense first game plan.

Thabo, though, hasn’t always been the defensive minded stud that he has been in the NBA. When he played in France, he was actually known for his scoring prowess. That, unfortunately, has not translated very well here in the United States, as he averaged only 6.0 points per game on 44.0% shooting. Those aren’t the typical numbers of an offensive superstar here in the NBA.

He is, however, a perfect role player for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dwyane Wade, guard for the Miami Heat, was held to his 5th lowest average point total by the Thunder (23.0 points per game… yeah, it’s still a lot, but come on, it’s D-Wade). He also held Ray Allen to his 2nd lowest average point total (12.0 points per game against the Thunder). Thabo is going to go out and pester his man all night, and force every star to earn every single point. Sef is going to continue giving the Thunder a great defensive outing.

Thabo will head into training camp with a lot to work on. He will continue to improve his defense, and look for him to be named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team. At 6’7″, Thabo has a lot of upside at the guard position. He brings a lot of height to a team that plays rather undersized, but quick, especially at forward. He will have a great defensive season.

The true question is, how will he fair offensively? His shot will be something he will likely focus on this Training Camp, and with the offense looking at the possibility to run the ball up and down the court on the fast break rather than set up at half court, Thabo’s quickness will net him a few more points per game. Hopefully he will find his jump shot like he had back and France, and will continue to add to this team’s stellar starting line-up.

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Thabo will pester the best guards in the league this year.

Look for the Swiss native to have a more involved year as compared to last year, and look for him to piss off every guard he can as well with his sticky defense.

-j

Training Camp Breakdown: Jeff Green

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Jeff Green is the most versatile player the Thunder have.

With the days until training camp dipping into the teens, Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jeff Green is probably looking forward to hitting the hardwood with his teammates once again. Green, entering his 4th year, is looking to continue his success as supporting cast for now gold medalist Kevin Durant.

Like most of my articles are, this one is biased. Jeff Green is by far my favorite player. Sure, every guy on that roster is fantastic, especially the other 4 starters, but I’ve been a huge Jeff Green fan since the Thunder moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City. But let me try to approach this in a fair manner.

Jeff Green spent most of his early summer trying out for Team USA, along with fellow Thunder players Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. Though he didn’t make the team, favored against for his size as he was beat out by the Lakers’ Lamar Odom, and the Wolves’ Kevin Love, he got a lot of good work in and is ready to display his hard work in a Thunder uniform.

The thing about Jeff Green that impresses me the most is the transition he made from small forward to power forward. Green was a power forward in his days at Georgetown, but due to his size entered the draft as a small forward. After being selected by the Celtics and traded to the Sonics, he \had to make the switch back down low to make room for KD. Without trade demands or complaints, Jeff Green happily stepped up and has thrived in his new role. However, standing at only 6’9″, Jeff Green has had to take on some big, physical players, such as Los Angeles Lakers forward Pau Gasol.

Jeff Green will be a solid performer for the Thunder. He will likely increase his shooting percentage, like he has done each year of his career, and look for him to grab a handful of rebounds per game (he averaged 6 per contest last season), as well as adding a steal or two and maybe a block.

Look at Jeff Green’s statistics, though. Other than his scoring, posting 15.1 points per game (55th best in the league, impressive considering he’s on a team with 2 top 50 scorers, Russ and KD), Jeff’s numbers won’t blow you away. Why did he deserve the 37.1 minutes per game, starting every one? His hard work and his intelligence.

Jeff Green is undoubtedly a smart basketball player. Coach John Thompson III, who coached Jeff Green for his 3 years at Georgetown said of Green, “You’ll stop and think when I say this, but it’s true: Jeff Green is the smartest player I’ve ever coached.” He takes care of the ball, takes open shots, and he blocks out well. He does a lot of things right that don’t necessarily make their way to the stat sheet or the box score. He defends extremely well for his size, doing little things correct in order to help his team win. And then his fouls. Jeff Green committed only 2.7 fouls per game; adjusted for 48 minutes, that’s only 3.5 fouls per game, 5th highest in the NBA among power forwards. It’s no doubt that a lot of fouls are going to be called down low, but Jeff Green does a good job of getting himself in proper defensive position to make a play and not get fouls called on him left and right.

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Despite his size disadvantage, Jeff Green plays smart defense on the low block.

Green is also valuable for his hard work. He plays almost the whole game, he goes hard every play, and makes up for his lack of size down low with effort. He will earn his points down low.

Another upside that Green has is his athleticism. His balance between being a smaller power forward is his ability to work the ball inside as well as outside, and on the fast break, which presumably, considering how well it worked against the Lakers, will be a constant facet of the Oklahoma City offense this year.

One of the biggest complaints about Green, on the other hand, was his shooting. He shot 45.3% from the field last year, with a true shooting percentage* of 53%. Neither of those numbers are particularly impressive, and it’s true that Jeff Green could work on his shot. However, keep two things in mind. First, Jeff has had to make a transition to power forward, and has been using training camp to work on his inside game rather than his shooting. His shooting percentage has, however, risen every year as I mentioned earlier. Once he and the coaching staff are truly confident in his inside game, then he will probably get back to his shot. Whether that is this year or somewhere down the road, still look for Jeff Green’s shooting percentage to go up.

The second biggest complaint is the amount of 3-pointers Green takes. He has a shooter’s mentality. He might take a few more than he should, but try to understand where Green is coming from. He spent a lot of time at small forward in his pre-NBA basketball days. The more you time you spend at a position, the more familiar with it you are. It’s like in baseball if a third baseman switches to shortstop. Sure, it’s the same concept of fielding, but it’s different. You get used to your spot on the floor. Jeff still feels comfortable on the outside, and when you’re comfortable and open, you’ll take those shots. He gets a lot of opportunities since he can pop out on behind the arc quickly, and most power forwards in the league can’t defend his quickness.

Look for Jeff to come out strong on the 6th of October against the Bobcats showcasing his versatility and athleticism, whether it be in his shot or his inside game. He will work hard this training camp on one of those and come out strong with it.

He’s going to get his numbers again this year. Don’t overlook Jeff Green. He, Russ, and KD are the core three of this franchise right now.

Only 43 more days until we tip-off another season.

-j

Friday Video of the Week

Warning: If you are a Lakers fan, do not watch this video. Actually, go away, I’m still mad at you.

If you fit one or more of these categories, and have not seen the Thundermentary videos from the end of last season, watch this. This will get your blood flowing for the 2010 season.

If you get goosebumps every time you think of a new Thunder season starting.
If the number sequence 0, 2, 35, 22, 12 has a special significance to you.
If you were one of the thousands of fans who rocked (or are still rocking) the Thunder window flag.
If you have a Thunder phone cover.
If you have a Thunder sticker on your car.
If you own one or more Thunder shirts/jerseys.
If you have been to one or more Thunder games and have supported the Thunder.
If you are from Oklahoma.
If AC/DC has a new significance to you. (Yeah, yeah, yeah Thunderstruck)
If you consider yourself “Thunderstruck.”
If you own a Thunder colored bowtie. (I do. You should definitely get this)
If you have your calendar marked for the 82 Thunder games this year. (Sorry, can’t count our guaranteed playoff games just yet)
If last April left a bad taste in your mouth.
If you still hate the Lakers.

Thundermentary: The Final Episode

Every Friday I’m going to feature a video, and after that I will feature a song that has the word Thunder in it at least one time.

This week’s song, “Thunderstruck” by Warrbuckss & Nada Problem

Stay tuned for a continuation of the Training Camp Breakdown. Tomorrow: Jeff Green.

-j

Training Camp Breakdown: Russell Westbrook

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Russell Westbrook, entering his 3rd season in the NBA, is continuing to assert himself as on of the league’s top point guards.

With the days to training camp winding down, a few questions are raised as to how the preseason schedule will treat the Oklahoma City Thunder and further develop the young players into the type of guys we want on our team. Training camp for the Thunder starts September 28th and Preseason starts October 6th.

The Starting 5 will, presumably, not change heading into the 2010 NBA Preseason. We will still see Russell Westbrook running the offense at the point, Thabo Sefolosha at the 2-guard, Kevin Durant at small forward, my boy Jeff Green at power forward, and Nenad Krstic at center.

Russell Westbrook is the focus today.

Russell Wesbrook has been in Istanbul, Turkey, backing up Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose for Team USA. Rose and Westbrook have both given a lot to Team USA, and have proven a dynamic 1-2 punch at the point. Westbrook is averaging 7.5 points, dishing out 2.67 assists, and shooting 56.2% from the field in 17.67 minutes per game for Team USA. These aren’t the numbers we expect from Russ, who had an explosive second half of the season last year and made the sports writers of the nation turn their heads during the playoffs. However, the international game is a bit different, and it certainly doesn’t help when you’re not starting while playing for the most balanced and talented team in the world right now.

Don’t expect much to really change for Westbrook this year, he’s likely going to put up similar numbers as he did during his rookie and sophomore seasons. But don’t worry, these are great numbers, and are helping him really establish himself as an elite point guard.

Russ’s strengths come from his quickness, ball handling ability, and stamina.

Westbrook extremely quick, and with that quickness he can do several things. On defense he can use it to pester point guards all the way up the court, jump into the passing lanes for steals, come out of nowhere to tip the ball away on a lazy pass, or to get back up the court to defend on a fast break. On offense, Russell Westbrook is a lane slasher. He will be one of the first ones up the court on the fast break, and in sets expect him to try and beat his man off the dribble and drive the lane. Not only this, but he finds ways to get all the way to the basket from the point and tear down rebounds, averaging 4.9 rebounds per game: 9th among guards in the NBA, and the only guard in the top 10 under 6’4″.

Russ has an innate ability to handle the ball well, and has great court vision. Westbrook led the team in assists with 8.0 per game an 2.43 Assists per turnover a game. At point guard, not to mention when you have a guy like Kevin Durant on your team, assists are the most important stat by far. Not only do assists show that a point guard is finding his teammates in places on the floor where they can hit shots, it shows a lot of maturity as well.

Russ’s stamina is something that likely goes unnoticed. But if you watch carefully, you can see just how much he works and how little time he sits. 34.3 minutes per game may not seem like a lot, especially when it’s only the third on the team, but considering how far he travels as compared to the leading two, Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, it’s absolutely incredible. An NBA court is 94 feet long, so each court is 46 feet long. While KD and Jeff get to jog most of that distance, unless the other team pushes the fast break, Russ is left with the task of a full court press, which means he’s either running along side the opposing point guard, or is constantly down, shuffling with his man. For those of you who have played basketball, you know, and for those of you that haven’t, you need to understand, neither of those are easy tasks, especially considering you’re doing it every 40 seconds or so.

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When you stick with a guy for 94 feet and then have to do this, it takes a lot out of you.

Now, when you look at Russell’s stats, there are some columns that might make you question his abilities. If you’ve seen him shoot the ball, there are a few shots that might make you question his shots. Before you judge, let me explain.

First, yes, he was at the bottom of the league in shooting percentage. Shooting percentage is a stat that will typically increase year after year, and at 21 and entering his 3rd season in the NBA (if he had stayed at UCLA and graduated, he’d just now be entering the NBA) Russ has a lot of time to expand his shooting. And he’s not a traditional shooting point guard. As a said earlier, he’s a slasher. His aggression is going to earn him a lot of contact underneath, and a lot of blocked shots, but, just stick with me here, it’s going to create a lot of opportunities for other players as the defense starts to shrink to cut down his slashing lanes. He will work on his shot a lot in training camp, and I guarantee Coach Krzyzewski is helping him with his jump shots as well. Look for that 41.8% mark to increase this year.

Second, yes the turnovers do seem a bit daunting, especially when you look at how much Westbrook handles the ball. Yes, Russ had 3.3 turnovers per game, but guess which elite point guard had more? How about Phoenix’s Steve Nash? Nash gave the ball away 3.6 times per game, so Westbrook is clearly in good company. And Russ will definitely continue to mature and will make better decisions with the ball this year. Not to mention how far Russell Westbrook has come from his college days at UCLA.

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Westbrook has come a long way to get to where he is, and will continue to establish himself as an elite point guard.

And finally, Westbrook’s free throw percentage. One of the most common complaints I hear about NBA players is, “How can they miss free throws? They get paid millions of dollars to take those easy shots. They have to make them.” Honestly, yes, I do agree, but at the same time, free throws aren’t what they were in high school or middle school. I couldn’t make one of my free throws in front of 20,000 people, much less 78% of them. Russ has struggled with this over the past 2 years, and is struggling with it in Turkey. He will definitely need to work on them, as, from what we saw in Game 4 of the First Round of the NBA playoffs against the Lakers, free-throws really do win games (Westbrook was 5-6 that game).

So Russell will need to work on his free throws, his shooting from the floor, and making better decisions with the ball.

You can catch Russell Westbrook playing with Team USA in the FIBA World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, on ESPN on Thursday at 10:00 AM (CDT) when the US takes on Russia.

Check out more Russell Westbrook stats on his ESPN player card here.

Thunder Training Camp: September 28th
Thunder Preseason opener: October 6th
And only 49 days until the season opener on the 27th of October.

Keep Thundering Up,

-j

New Name, Same Old ThunderDome

The arena formerly known as the Ford Center is likely getting a new name.

The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Oklahoma Ford Dealers met last month to renegotiate the contract over the naming rights to the Thunder’s home, which is site of the Thunder’s 41 home games this year. The Thunder, however, could not reach a deal they liked and are pursuing other options. The name deal that currently exists with the Oklahoma Ford Dealers was $8.1 million over the course of 15 years, but had a clause allowing an NBA franchise, should one move to Oklahoma City permanently, to renegotiate for more money. A prophecy amidst legal jargon, perhaps?

The City of Oklahoma City, who owns the venue, gets a cut of the earnings from this deal, and the Thunder front office gets the rest. The team, obviously in the business of making money, wants the most lucrative deal they can find.

Last year was extremely kind to the Thunder, who posted a huge turnaround year with 50 wins, greatly overshadowing their dismal mark of 23 from the year before. After a playoff run, despite the 4th place finish in the most highly contested division in all of the NBA last year, the Thunder are poised and ready for their 3rd year in the heartland which will hopefully be their most successful yet. The hometown crowd was definitely a factor, from the 31 home sellouts during the season, to the record 118dB the team’s beloved fans belted out during the playoffs. And, obviously, when you have a little bit of success, you want the best. The Thunder decided that the best inevitably could not come from the Oklahoma Ford Dealers.

This deal will not interfere with the millions of dollars sitting poised for the renovations to the ThunderDome. It may speed up the process, but the gravy-money that the Thunder gets will probably go into the operations budget, and may result in more fan give-aways or something really awesome that will make the games even more enjoyable… as if Thunder basketball wasn’t enough of a draw itself.

So what are the possibilities for names? The ThunderDome is something I’ve lovingly called the Ford Center since 2008, and I know I’ve heard a lot of others use it. But that name could stand as a nickname, such as Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at the University of Florida being known as “The Swamp,” or “Happy Valley” up at Penn State, or the dozen others that pop-up in the NCAA franchise when you look up “Hardest Places to Play” in franchise mode. So, I think it best to run through a few of the prominent Oklahoma companies/donors and see what we can find.

To start off with, you must look at the big three from the OKC, the energy giants whose campuses dominate a large part of Northwest OKC, whose new designs plan to dominate the skies of OKC by 2013, or the new guys who are turning the Kerr-McGee building, which we knew it as for so long, into their own. Chesapeke, Devon, and SandRidge. These three energy giants have been one-upping each other for a while, but their impact on OKC is very profound and positive. Creating lots of jobs and stimulating the economy, they keep Oklahoma City running almost. You would have to have lived under a rock for the past few years or been from somewhere not named Oklahoma to not know that all three of these companies have a vested interest in the Oklahoma City Thunder, as evidence by the tons of dollars that they throw at the Thunder to get their names on the big display ring that goes around the arena, or the new jumbo-tron hanging brightly and powerfully over center-court. I would throw down a lot of money to say one of these three will ultimately get the naming rights to the ThunderDome.

Now, shifting from mega-companies, I’d like to focus attention on the two families whose large estates have their last names plastered on large, imposing stadiums already, have started to join forces in places, such as the Oklahoma Heritage Museum, or just give lots of money wherever they see fit: the Gaylord and Pickens families. Usually, being from Oklahoma you’re either Boomer Sooner of Orange Power, and those two names definitely ring a bell for either one. Their names are on the site for Bedlam, no matter the year, and the Gaylord and Pickens donations to OU and OSU, respectively, can be felt all over the two campuses. It would be no surprise if they teamed up to slap their name on the arena, although the name might be a little much to choke down, which is where the ThunderDome would really come in handy.

5 left.

A rather ironic donor, who, up to this point hasn’t had a whole lot to do with the Thunder, would be Sonic. Sonic’s headquarters is, much like the energy giants, less than a mile from the ThunderDome, and is an Oklahoma enterprise, founded in Shawnee, OK. But, like I said, they haven’t had a whole lot to do with the Thunder, and I’m not sure if they’ll start now. Having Sonic on our arena would be a slap in the face to the city of Seattle, though. And I’m tired of them, and the rest of the country, complaining. Although, the Thunder really shut a lot of the critics up with last season’s success.

Other Oklahoma enterprises? Well, there’s Bank of Oklahoma, though they do have the BOK Center in Tulsa, and I doubt that they’d shell out another few million for our arena. AT&T, though not technically Oklahoman, this is an AT&T dominated area, though they, much like BOK, have their name on the ballpark, so maybe not. Tulsa does have the Conoco-Phillips headquarters, so maybe them? Or maybe OneOK? The opportunites are endless, but I’m still leaning towards one of the energy giants.

What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment, I’m sure you guys have a lot of ideas on the new name for the Ford Center. Maybe Chevy, just to stick it to Ford? You tell me.

-j

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