https://youtu.be/ttfMvz3XRrE
When you sit down and think about it, I mean really think about it, not just moderately ponder, but really use all of your brainpower to analyze the whole situation, it’s kinda wild how the Thunder went from having a whole bunch of surefire HOF studs to having nothing but random raw players and hella picks. Was this how people envisioned the first era of Thunder basketball ending? With Al Hoford as the team’s best player who also happens to be perma-benched because he’s too good?
We’re going to see if Thunder fans are actually good and will stick with their team come hell or high wayer, or if they were just behaving as most fanbases do and merely more enthusiastically supporting a team that is fun to watch. I’m guessing the second, but they can prove me wrong by being just as hyped for Theo Maledon and Aleksej Pokusevski as they were for Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
And now that I said that, I’m realizing that the Maledon/Pokusevski combo is pretty much the next Westbrook/Durant combo for the Thunder. The playstyle similarities are there, the general body type similarities are there, the only thing that’s missing is the draft-selection pedigree and the winning. That’s it. And the athleticism. Other than that? It’s like looking in a mirror that turns American NBA players into foreign NBA players.
Out of curiosity, I went and checked to see how long it took Westbrook to score 25 points in an NBA game, like Maledon did tonight. And what I found may shock you: that Westbrook has yet to score 25 points in a game. Over a thousand games, regular season and playoffs, and not a single 25-burger. A couple 23-burgers, and a 24-burger a couple years ago, but 25 is just not happening for him. Weird. And don’t bother checking for yourself; these facts have already been fully verified by me, and also by all those political fact-checking websites.