Tuesday Bolts – 8.11.09
Jenni Carlson writing about… something.
It’s some kind of thing about Twitter and Nick Collison and Seattle andOklahoma City and other stuff: “Collison is a cerebral dude with a dry sense of humor, and on Twitter, that personality comes through. It is evident. It is real. We don’t always get to see that from professional athletes. Twitter might reveal a side of some athletes that we’d rather not see, but in Collison’s case, I don’t like him less for raving about Seattle’s ambiance and complaining about Oklahoma City’s heat.”
UPDATE: I asked Nick about it and he said, “Thought it was strange. Don’t think tweets about weather should be percieved as “taking shots at OKC” … slow time of year I guess.”
The Hawks are working on signing Joe Smith: “While big men have been flying off the free-agent shelves all summer, the Hawks have had no luck in luring talent outside of the organization. The Hawks have been pursuing veteran power forward Joe Smith since last month but haven’t been able to secure a commitment from the former No. 1 overall pick.”
Shoals wasn’t happy with Mike Baldwin’s article on attendance stuff yesterday: “If you want to wade through an overly-long, vaguely jingoistic piece on why the Thunder are actually doing well in attendance figures, The Oklahoman is the place to be. The basics: the Thunder are doing great in the numbers like season tickets sold, percentage of seats sold, overall attendance and ticket revenue.”
HoopsWorld looks at six teams on the way down and one of them happens to be a team that is linked to OKC next year: “The Suns are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they have a front office that’s been working very hard to try and build a championship contender. On the other hand, they have an owner who’s looking to aggressively cut costs. It’s almost impossible to do both of those things at the same time, and right now it’s the cost-cutting owner who’s having his way. Even as GM Steve Kerr assured HOOPSWORLD that the team would not be looking to trade Shaquille O’Neal, preferring instead to see how good the team could be with a healthy Amar’e Stoudemire alongside Shaq for an entire season, his boss was busily preparing to shed Shaq’s contract in a move that did little more than cut costs.”
An early FANTASY mock draft: “The hype machine is in full effect on Kevin Durant and he’s going to go anywhere from No. 3 to No. 10 in this year’s drafts, and I am in full support of taking him wherever you deem necessary.”
FoxSports.com has Kevin Durant as the NBA’s sixth best shooter: “Spindly” is probably the best way to describe Durant’s frame before he reaches legal drinking age next month, so it’s fair to say he didn’t overpower anyone on his way to the basket last season. Yet he averaged 25.3 points (sixth in the league) thanks mainly to a silky touch and repertoire of shots that few of his elders can match. With a quick trigger and high release (he’s 6-foot-9 with long arms), Durant can shoot over smaller defenders with ease, while big men are uncomfortable chasing him around the 3-point arc. As he improves his already solid pull-up game and gains strength, the best way to describe Durant may soon be “scoring champ.”
James Johnson breakdanced (or brokedanced?) at the rookie photo shoot and it appears James Harden was involved somehow with it:
NBA.com’s first rookie rankings are out and Harden is No. 4: “One thing is clear after the Thunder’s Summer League stints in Orlando and Las Vegas: Harden will compete for the starting two-guard spot. Thunder head coach Scott Brooks said recently that Harden will have to fight for minutes, but you have to think Harden will be able to steal the minutes from last year’s starters (Kyle Weaver and Thabo Sefolosha).”
Video of Harden at the photo shoot and he also talks a little about being a part of the Thunder:
