Monday, February 8, 2016

OKC and the Modern NBA

At RealGM, a look at how the Thunder got caught in the transition from a big man's league to a small man's league.

4 comments:

  1. How do you think Shaq in his prime would fare in today's league? Draymond would kill him from the perimeter and pick and roll, but Shaq would absolutely kill him in the post. I remember you saying that "a dominant two-way big man will always be the apex predator in the NBA". I was wondering if your views have changed or not.

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    1. Young Shaq would have dominated any era of basketball. It's easy to forget considering how he ballooned as he got older but he came into the league as an absolute freak athlete. He was probably the best pure combination of size and speed since Wilt. What would have been different is the length of his prime - he would have aged out quicker if he couldn't stay in shape because teams would have just pick-and-rolled him to death and used a quasi-zone to slow him down on defense.

      I think what the pace-and-space revolution has done is expose the weaknesses of big men. That's what you will notice about the OKC big men - they all have holes in his game. A big man with a complete game will always be the apex predator of the league - see Karl Towns - it's just that those guys are VERY rare and more flawed big men will be exposed by smaller players with more complete games.

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    2. I see. I am defnitely looking forward for the first stretch 5s like Towns, Porzingis, and Turner to hit their primes. Towns is already performing consistently at at high level, but I'm really excited how Porzingod turns out once he puts on some muscle. He can do all the things Towns does but he's 7'3!!

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