Oklahoma Thunderballs

As the Oklahoma City Thunder fans filtered out of the Chesapeake arena Wednesday night, the time to reflect on the past season was suddenly here. As the season’s stories start to fade, a new chapter in Thunder basketball ball has begun, and impending concerns come into focus. No approaching issue is more pressing than the expiring contract of shooting guard Kevin Martin. Oklahoma City acquired Martin and his expiring contract in the preseason trade involving James Harden. After negotiations broke down and the need to avoid substantial luxury tax penalties became the predominant concern, the Thunder struck a deal with the Houston Rockets, exchanging James Harden, Daequan Cook, Cole Aldrich, and Lazar Hayward for Kevin Martin, rookie Jeremy Lamb, and two first-round draft picks. Martin received $12.9 million during the 2012-13 season, and now at the season’s end, he will be an unrestricted free agent. Martin expressed his desire to remain in Oklahoma City, praising his teammates and the fans, but understanding the complications of the Thunder's financial situation. He stated that he will see what free agency brings. Free agency could bring offers around $8 - $9 million. An earlier published article ranking the value of upcoming free agents valued Martin at $5.5 million. Oklahoma City may not be able to match any of those offers. To continue with Oklahoma City, Kevin Martin would possibly have to take a 75% pay cut. Here is the sad truth facing Oklahoma City. A little more than $66 million is already committed to 10 players for next season. That figure doesn’t include: Kevin Martin, DeAndre Liggins, Daniel Orton, Derek Fisher, or Ronnie Brewer. Last season’s luxury tax ceiling was around $70 million. If that holds true for this next season, there will not be much of a gap. If the Thunder is looking to add a couple of players during the draft, all five of those players without a contract could be lost. The Thunder reached a franchise high of 60 wins this season. Martin was a big part of that success, averaging 14 points per game during the regular season. Oklahoma City’s General Manager, Sam Presti, expressed satisfaction in Kevin Martin’s performance and said that the Thunder would love to keep him. The feeling is mutual. Martin called this past season a, "What if" season, referring to Westbrook's injury. How did Martin ultimately feel about his first season in a Thunder jersey? "It ended too soon. That’s what I’ll say about the whole experience." Martin said in his exit interview. "From the outside looking in, I knew it was a great place, but when I was traded here, it turned out to be a special place." Time will tell if Martin wants to continue to play in a place that we all know is special and at what price.

dailythunder.com You’ll never believe this, but in Sam Presti’s final season media availability the biggest topic of conversation centered around Kendrick Perkins. And if I understood Presti right through his fancy words, lofty sentence structure and winding explanations, it doesn’t sound like the Thunder are considering using the amnesty clause on Perk. “Obviously I know that’s a topic that’s been talked about, and for us, the amnesty application is not something we really have ever considered as an organization,” Presti said. “I understand that it’s something that’s been talked about quite a bit, but organizationally that’s not something we’ve considered. “We just haven’t considered using the provision,” he said. “I wouldn’t necessarily attribute that to any player on our team. Every team looks at the amnesty provision different depending on their circumstances, but it’s not really something that we’ve explored.” Now, does that mean to this point they haven’t ever thought about using the amnesty? Or does it mean that philosophically as a franchise, they haven’t ever thought about using the amnesty? I suppose that’s still up for interpretation. I took Presti’s comments to say that unless circumstances change, specifically in the Thunder’s salary structure, meaning either getting under the cap or over the tax, they aren’t using the amnesty. Which makes sense, which is how this organization operates. I’ve already seen some using the anti-amnesty talk to somehow illustrate how Clay Bennett and the Thunder’s ownership group are “cheap.” To amnesty Perk means the Thunder would have to pay out his salary, making up the difference of any new contract he gets, meaning the Thunder would be writing a likely check in the $12-15 million range while still having to sign, and pay, a replacement. OKC’s ownership and front office aren’t “cheap.” They’re realists. They understand the circumstance of a small market team in the NBA and the challenges that presents. Throw money at every problem and what you do is damage the overall health and well-being of the organization. It hurts the opportunity to maybe sign a free agent later, or broker a trade, or re-sign Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in years to come. It’s not just about the present money. It’s about the future as well. Some get sick of Presti’s company line of “sustained success” because they want titles and banners and rings and trophies NOW. Trust me, the Thunder want those things too. But they also want to be in a position to compete for them as well next season, and the season after that and 10 more seasons after that. If you don’t like the philosophy of attempting to sustain success over a long period of time in a small market by making every transaction and move with an eye on the future as well as the present, pick a new team to root for. Be a Lakers fan, or a Heat fan. This is the situation the Thunder are in, and this is how they operate. You should really be used to it and understand it by now. And just some evidence against the Thunder’s ownership being “cheap” — the attempted to re-sign James Harden. He said no to a four-year, $55 million extension that would’ve placed the Thunder deep into luxury tax territory. Currently, the Thunder are over the cap and flirting with the tax. They have two max players, and a third guy making nearly $50 million over four years. Would cheap owners do that? What shaped the Thunder’s postseason, and their subsequent failure — and I can’t believe I have to keep repeating this — was the injury to Russell Westbrook. Everything, and I mean everything, is different with a healthy Westbrook. Not just in what likely would’ve happened on the floor

Presti Proud of Thunder’s 2012-13 Season

The Thunder are sadly out of the playoffs, but like Kevin Durant's commercial says, basketball never stops. We have some great gear that we're going to be giving away over the next few weeks as the playoffs continue, so stay tuned as we look to put some great prizes in your hands. CONTEST #1 PREDICT THE FINAL SCORE OF WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS GAME #1 In the comments below, guess what you think the final score will be between the Spurs and Grizzlies in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. The game starts at 2:30CDT tomorrow, May 19th. The person who guesses the closest will receive a copy of: Let's see those predictions!

Good Saturday. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. 160 days. That Russell Westbrook, he’s pretty good. Here are his top 10 plays of the 2012-13 season. My five favorite things about them: 1. That strut after the dunk against Charlotte. 2. Him leaving Ibaka hanging on a high-five and instead choosing to flex after the dunk against the Warriors. 3. The dunk against Dallas in general, because he goes with one hand, gathers it, and then crushes the rim. 4. On the behind-the-back-crossover play against the Mavs, the person that goes “WOOOOOOOO!” right as he starts making the move. 5. The look after the long snap to Martin for a dunk. Russ is like, “Yeah, I know.”

Scott Halleran/NBAE/Getty Images Most interesting thing from today: Reggie Jackson said he was up until 3 a.m. last night dribbling a basketball. Said it’s something he always does. It was kind of his jumping off point to talk about how much he loves the game and how much he’s always looking to improve. Jackson said he hopes to be part of OKC’s summer league team, because he’s itching to play. Jackson has quickly become one of the more exciting and intriguing things about this Thunder team. His emergence in place of Russell Westbrook was incredibly impressive as he showed real signs and potential of blossoming into the Thunder’s bench stud of the future. The question is if Scott Brooks is willing to free his mind and not think of Jackson as exclusively a point guard. Jackson is a great combo player and needs to play alongside Russell Westbrook. And in a lot of ways, he needs to be the Thunder’s new sixth man. “If that’s the number that’s called, I’m doing my best to be ready for whatever situation I’m thrown into next year,” Jackson said. It was obvious in the postseason how good Jackson already is, and how good he can still be. He’s the type of player that can get to the rim almost at will, and he’s a splendid finisher. Where he needs to improve is with his jumper, specifically in the pull-up game. If that comes, along with a little playmaking, the Thunder have a serious bench piece and a potential secret weapon to use next to Westbrook. For now, Jackson isn’t focused on any of that. He’s not thinking about role or playing time. He said he still feels like he should be getting ready to play Game 6 tonight, but as he transitions into the summer and starts focusing on improving his game, you can be sure he’s going to tirelessly work at it. And because of it, he’s given Thunder fans something else to be really excited about. “I’m ready to flash forward to camp right now,” he said. Me too, Reggie. Me too. The rest of the exit interviews: REGGIE JACKSON HASHEEM THABEET JEREMY LAMB DANIEL ORTON RONNIE BREWER PERRY JONES III DEANDRE LIGGINS SERGE IBAKA

The Memphis Grizzlies defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2nd round of the 2013 NBA Playoffs, 4-1. In a series that was hair-splittingly close until it wasn't, we are left to enter the long off-season with a series of what-if's on our minds. Before we get to those questions, we take a final look at how each player performed in these 5 grit-grind-games. Individual Game Grades Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, Game 4, Game 5 Rockets Round 1 Series Grades *** (All statistics are series averages) KEVIN DURANT 28.8 PPG, 10.4 REB, 6.6 AST, 1.2 ST, 1.2 BL, 4.4 TO Grade Comments Zorgon I've said my piece about Durant in another article, and it pretty much echoes what J.A. say below. Kevin Durant blew a lot of opportunities in the fourth quarter after some amazing games because he was asked to do too much. Still, he did the best job that he could. However, this series did do an effective job of proving that Kevin Durant would make an excellent point guard. His court vision is almost as good as James Harden's, and his ballhandling and passing have definitely improved over the years. So I'll give him a B+ for showing off new skills, but I can't go any higher than that because of his bad clutch performance. Is this unfair? Totally. Sherman It is all but impossible to give Kevin Durant any sort of meaningful grade for this series. If you look at his game-by-game statistics, you see a steady decline in efficiency and production. After game 1, an ending that featured Durant hitting a dagger and reminding everyone how great he can be, the wear and tear of dealing with a Grizzly defense that was exclusively designed to shut down KD and no other for upwards of 45 minutes a game (including all 48 in Game 5) took its toll. Durant may not have played great in games 2-5, but I honestly don't know how he could have played any better. REGGIE JACKSON 13.8 PPG, 6.2 REB, 3.8 AST, 0.4 ST, 0.4 BL, 1.8 TO Grade Comments Zorgon C+ Reggie Jackson didn't exactly have a break out performance in this series. He's shown us all that he's an effective combo guard that's adept at creating his own shot within the mid-range, which is something that we already knew. But I can't help feeling like he didn't take enough of a role handling the ball in this series. Not being able to knock down threes or guard Mike Conley is forgiveable, but he really needed to take a bigger role with the offense and setting up other players. It would have given KD more time to relax, given the Thunder better shots, and gotten him away from that cursed three point line. He's an effective player and I look forward to seeing what he has next season, but as for now, I feel like he could have been so much more. Sherman For Reggie Jackson, this series will be remembered for two reasons: 1) he made us forget about Eric Maynor forever; and 2) he may have just written his ticket right out of OKC because there's little chance he's going to spend his career as a backup. Jackson's game is still by and large limited to drives to the rim and 10 foot jump shots, but he proved throughout the series that he is now very comfortable attacking a top-flight defense. While he did make some potentially costly mistakes (fouling the 3-point shooter at the end of Game 1), Jackson never made those mistakes a habit, but improved as the series went along. Next year, put him in the backcourt along side Westbrook and you've got a scary looking duo that can attack on both offense and defense. SERGE IBAKA 12.6 PPG, 8.4 REB, 0.4 AST, 3.2 BL, 0.8 TO Grade Comments Zorgon I'm neither here nor there on Serge Ibaka. For a while, it looked like he was going to have a really terrible series, missing the routine mid-range jumpers that he so often makes. But he recovered to his normal mode of production, and did a hell of a job on defense. I know a lot of us were expecting more from him, but the harsh reality is that Serge I

NBAE/Getty Images When the Thunder’s season ended in Oklahoma City on Wednesday night, fans chanted “O-K-C! O-K-C!” as players walked off the floor. But as one clever person tweeted at me, he thought they were chanting “Am-ne-sty! Am-ne-sty!” The Thunder’s big offseason question, other than what happens with Kevin Martin, is if they should use their amnesty provision on Kendrick Perkins. Perk was asked yesterday about his future with the Thunder and he said it this way: “I’m pretty sure I’ll be back next year.” And I agree with him. Here’s why, and it has less to do with Perk as a player and more about the simple economics: It doesn’t make sense. When has the Thunder done anything that didn’t at least make some rational sense? (Don’t say say drafting Byron Mullens and don’t say signing Perk to an extension sight-unseen.) But it doesn’t make sense because of the money, and because it doesn’t really fix anything. (A refresh for those that don’t know what exactly the amnesty clause is than that thing your boyfriend is always yelling at the TV when Perk sets an illegal screen. It’s a one-time get-out-of-jail-not-free-at-all device that allows a team to cut a player, while still having to pay out his remaining contract. The reason you do it though is because the player’s contract comes off your cap number, thus freeing you to sign someone else or avoid the luxury tax. For a player to be eligible, he has to have been on your roster when the new CBA was signed.) I already linked it in today’s Bolts but a reader sent an email to Berry Tramel giving a pretty ideal explanation as to why it doesn’t make a lot of sense. To the blockquote: But the Thunder would not create any room under the cap by waiving Perkins. And Perkins is far from a questionable character (he’s welcome at my dinner table anytime). And while overcompensated for his skill at this point, he’s nowhere near the stage of a Baron Davis or Darko Milicic. So that leaves the question of tax savings. Let’s assume (though we can never know, can we?) that the Thunder don’t do anything wild between now and after the draft. They could find themselves mildly in tax territory just by drafting with the picks they will have. Even if they wound up, say, $4 million over the tax line (a very high estimate), that would be a tax of $6 million. Does it make sense to spend $9 million (in Year 1 and over $18 million overall) to save $6 million? I’d have a hard time justifying that. Only they wouldn’t really save that. It stands to reason that OKC would need to sign someone to replace him. The Thunder could always adopt a smaller starting lineup next season by moving Ibaka to the 5 (center) and KD to the 4 (power forward), but that’s going to require either a new coach or a major philosophical programming change in Scott Brooks. So who’s going to be available this summer in terms of a true center? Let’s logically eliminate Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum and Nik Pekovic. That leaves folks like Zaza Pachulia. Old friend Byron Mullins. Chris Kaman. Timofey Mozgov (an admittedly intriguing idea a year ago). Tiago Splitter. That’s about it before you start moving from questionable ideas to very questionable ideas. Do any of those ideas move the needle at all? And if you do that, now you’re spending $13-$15 million on the center position next season with little to no improvement over what you would have had. So that’s really well put. One little addendum though: If you amnesty a player, he goes on waivers. If someone were stupid enough to fully claim him, then that team would be on the hook for that $18 million Perk is owed, and the Thunder would no longer be. The likely thing is someone puts in a partial claim, basically a bid. Say it was for $4 million for one year. The Thunder would still be on the hook for about $15 million. Basically, the Thunder would have to o

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images For the first time, the Oklahoma City Thunder have ended a season by taking a step back instead of a leap forward. And that, for now, is OK. It’s not OK that Russell Westbrook got hurt. It’s not OK that the Thunder were unable to come up with a competent plan (on the fly) without him. It wasn’t OK to watch Kevin Durant struggle to 5-of-21 shooting and miss free throws in a closeout game — that felt worse than watching an endless YouTube video of defenseless puppies being kicked with steel-toed boots. It’s not OK that Derek Fisher went from white-hot to ice-cold, that Kendrick Perkins was only able to summon his trademark defense for a few possessions per game, that Serge Ibaka stayed in a slump for far too long, that Nick Collison couldn’t buy a favorable call or that we have no idea if Jeremy Lamb or Perry Jones are going to be useful. What makes it OK is that the Thunder will still have all they need to be a legitimate contender next season, no matter what happens during the offseason: Durant, Westbrook and work ethic. Lame platitudes? Overly optimistic? Not really. Even without one of those three components against Memphis, OKC had a chance to win every one of the four games it lost, only to be doomed by preventable mistakes and untimely missed buckets. The Thunder never gave up, fighting until KD’s potentially game-tying shot bounced off the rim in the waning moments, and that kind of mentality doesn’t evaporate in one summer. The preventable mistakes portion of the Grizzlies series will grate for five months — or maybe 11, until the Thunder have a chance to prove they can overcome them in a new round of postseason basketball. But though 2012-13 will go down in Thunder history as a lost season because of the Westbrook injury, absolutely nothing has happened to change the fact the Thunder will be a contender for another 10-15 years as long as Westbrook and Durant are playing in downtown Oklahoma City. Offseason questions This offseason will be the most interesting in the Thunder’s short history … since the last one, anyway, with Ibaka and James Harden in their extension-eligible summers. But with Kevin Martin’s impending free agency, a critical summer for Lamb and Jones, the (probably faint, knowing the Thunder brain trust) possibility that Kendrick Perkins will be amnestied, two first-round draft picks (and thus some room for draft day maneuvering as well) and the first remote chance (probably about 2 percent) that the Thunder make an offseason coaching change, a lot can happen between now and October. Martin said all the right things about possibly willing to take a discount to return to Oklahoma City, which would be the only way he actually does return. But, then again, so did Harden, and we know how that turned out. Lamb and Jones didn’t have the opportunity to show if they have a chance to be impact players on this level, but how hard they work this summer, and the results of that hard work, will be telling — just look at Reggie Jackson’s superb summer in 2012, and the definitive statement during the playoffs that he’s a player worth having around. I would be very surprised, but not shocked, if Perk and Brooks are anywhere but in OKC next season, but that would be a huge departure from the Thunder ethos so far. But the answers to those questions, to me, seem less relevant than answers to questions facing other players and teams in the Western Conference. I fully expect the Thunder to be a top-two seed in the West almost no matter what happens in Oklahoma City, barring another devastating injury at the worst possible time. Does Dallas or Houston make good use of all that cap space? In a related question, what happens to Chris Paul this summer? Dwight Howard? Will Kobe Bryant be able to return the court in any form resembling the still-deadly player he was for much of this season? Will Mem

2012-13 Exit Interviews - Day Two