Tuesday Bolts – 11.8.16
Brett Dawson: “Adams returned in the second quarter of Monday’s 97-85 win against the Miami
Heat with his right thumb wrapped, and seeing him was significant for McAllister, Charles Timothy and their friends. Like the Thunder center, they’re New Zealand natives. They were in Oklahoma City on Monday as part of a four-week vacation in America — their first visit to the U.S. — that will include a string of NBA games. Already the group had seen games in Cleveland, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. They’ll see more when they reach Los Angeles after stops in Denver and Las Vegas.”
Erik Horne: “Through seven games, the Thunder is off to a franchise-best 6-1 start. Imagine that. No Kevin Durant. No Serge Ibaka. Even no Dion Waiters, who was in the building at Chesapeake Energy Arena on Monday to witness the Thunder pull away for a 97-85 victory against Miami. No problem. Russell Westbrook fueled a 20-0 run in the third quarter to lead the Thunder to its best seven-game start to the season since going 5-2 in 2013-14.”
Dion Waiters on free agency: “At the end of the day, I wish they would have done whatever they were gonna do earlier. That’s my biggest thing right there. You pretty much knew. If they would have just done it earlier, I would have respected it because we had offers. A lot. I didn’t know what was going on. I was kinda in the dark. I was actually working out when that happened (when the Thunder rescinded Waiters’ offer sheet). … But I love the fans. I love the people. They’ll always be in my heart. Some of the best fans ever, especially all year long just supporting us when I was there.”
Matt Moore of CBSSports.com has OKC fifth: “They jump 10 because they are tied for the best record in the West, even after the massacre at Oracle. That was a back-to-back loss vs. a top team, the very definition of a schedule loss. Meanwhile they have a quality win vs. the Clippers, and guys like Victor Oladipo are settling in. I’m not sold on them, but by golly, I respect the resume.”
Stein has OKC fifth: “After averaging 38.7 points, 12.0 rebounds and 11.7 assists in the Thunder’s 3-0 start to snag Western Conference Player of the Week honors, Russell Westbrook saw his Week 2 numbers recede to something closer to mortal levels: 27.7 points, 6.0 boards and 7.7 assists. But fear not. An eventful Week 3 looms for Angry Russ and OKC, with DeMar DeRozan and the Raptors visiting Wednesday in a showdown of the league’s top scorers, followed by Westbrook’s 28th birthday on the eve of Devin Booker’s visit Sunday.”
A whole lot of words about the Thunder, and how they’re playing.
Jack Hamilton of Slate: “One of the great contradictions of NBA fandom is that we want to believe that team ball is more worthy than hero ball, but we’re thrilled when the latter wins out. The NBA, after all, is an exceptionally personality-driven world. Its players are more exposed, physically and otherwise, than the stars of any other sports league, and a single great player really can alter the axis of the sport entirely. Look no further than last June, when the Warriors won 73 games and lost in one of the most memorable NBA Finals of all time to a lesser team that just happened to have the world’s best player, a guy who did incomprehensible things in the face of a squad that wasn’t supposed to lose, penning one of sports’ all-time great personal redemption stories in the process.”
