Game 1 Pregame Primer: Thunder (0-0) @ Hornets (0-1)

Contact us to sponsor Daily Thunder’s game day coverage.

NBA.com preview

Tip-off:

6PM @ Spectrum Center, Fox Sports Oklahoma ?

Projected starting lineups:

3 Big Things:

• First Game of the Season, Version 2.0 – It’s quite ironic, and a little sad, honestly, that life as we knew it as fans ended in OKC last season and the first real threat to this new season indirectly involved the Oklahoma City Thunder again. When everyone on the Houston Rockets decided to forget that we were in the middle of a pandemic, it postponed what would’ve been Game 1 of the season for both teams. That “first day of school” sense of excitement now has to transfer over to tonight’s game.
• Terry Rozier – If I were to give you ten guesses as to who the second leading scorer in the league was, I’d almost bet my Christmas bonus no one would guess it was Scary Terry. I doubt this continues, but some players tend to perform better when they have someone knipping at their heels for their spot. LaMelo Ball will eventually take over one of the guard spots in Charlotte. Whether that is Rozier’s or Devonte Graham’s remains to be seen. Rozier saw one of the worst defensive backcourts in the league in his first game. But now, he’ll have to contend with the perimeter monster known as Luguentz Dort. I doubt he remains in the top 2 in scoring average after this game.
• SGA/Horford 2-man Game – One of the things I’m most excited to see in this game is the 2-man game between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Al Horford. With Cody Zeller being out 4-6 weeks with a broken hand, the only bigs on the Hornets roster are traditional paint-plodding bigs. With SGA’s craftiness and Horford’s ability to stretch the floor, this should be a big part of their offensive game plan tonight.

Follow along on Twitter with our beat writer, Brandon Rahbar and Ian Kayanja, who’s running the Daily Thunder handle tonight.