The world of basketball

Chapter 156 The New Thunder

Ohlahoma isn't a huge city, but the Thunder have been a strong team ever since they drafted Durant with the No. [-] pick.This team is not called the Thunder but also the Supersonics, and the team that made the city is not in Ohla Homa but in Seattle.

Then they selected Jeff Green and Westbrook, which were the original Thunder's three young men.

Then they selected James Harden and lost their brother-in-law Green, plus Ibaka and they selected Reggie Jackson, Waiters, etc., which formed their initial strong team.

Since ancient times, there have been many parallel imports at the second place. This sentence has a certain truth, because many players may not adapt to the intensity and trend of the NBA, may be due to injuries, or may be due to other strange reasons. The all-powerful side in this league has been eliminated by the team. The list is very long, and the author does not want to list them here, because it is a bit disrespectful.

And Durant is now considered to be the strongest No. [-] pick in NBA history. He should have become the No. [-] pick, but the No. [-] pick that year, Oden the Great, was too incomprehensible.

To what extent is it incomprehensible?It was when one arm was injured and put on a plaster cast, and he abused Heford and Joakim Noah with one hand. He possessed historical-level physical talent and awareness on both the offensive and defensive ends. Not only that, but his basic skills Very solid and delicate to the touch.

The Blazers' management once said that even if the draft was repeated, they would still use their No. [-] pick to select Oden instead of Durant.

So we often feel sorry for Oden, and we can't help but imagine how great it would be if Oden was healthy and placed in this league.

As um, Dad, the growth of Durant, the No. [-] pick in history, has not been smooth sailing, at least not in his first season.

Although Durant won the best new school in his rookie season, Durant was very strong that season.Of course, the very iron here is relative to Durant himself.The average field goal percentage of 40.3% and the three-point field goal percentage of 28.8% per game do not seem to be particularly exaggerated, but for Durant, who has high hopes, this shooting percentage is indeed dismal.

Fortunately, the Thunder, or the Sonics, have been very patient with Durant. They have not changed Durant's style of play. They insisted that Durant play outside instead of letting him play inside. .You must know that Durant's height is not just like his official [-] meters, but it seems to be a little taller than Cousins, who is officially [-] in height.

I just said that luck is not only lucky for Durant, but also lucky for the Thunder team, because next season Durant will officially enter the league's best discussion range.

that's all.Durant has grown up gradually.Before that, he was just a scorer who could shoot from the outside. Later, he enriched his scoring methods, such as back-up turnaround jumper, dribble emergency stop and pull-up, big stride to the basket, etc., Durant back then Part of his template is considered to be McGrady, and he seems to have learned a lot of McGrady's outside singles methods.

Similarly, Durant's shooting percentage outside the three-point line, mid-range shooting percentage, shooting percentage at the basket, etc. have all increased significantly. He has completely become an unsolvable single player, a super scorer He is even considered to be a super scorer with comparable scoring ability to Jordan.

There are also Westbrook and Harden.

Westbrook was selected with the No. 08 pick in the first round in [-]. The No. [-] pick that year was Derrick Rose.

At that time, everyone thought that it was better than Ross because of the few things, because it was indeed the case.

The two have a lot in common, such as super explosive power, super strength, super speed, and super impact at the basket.Neither of them is very good at shooting, and they are not very good at controlling the rhythm, but they can do everything with their incredible physical fitness.

But Rose has some things that Westbrook doesn't have, such as the iconic change of direction without slowing down, such as the delicate offensive touch at the basket.

Even from the perspective of the strongest physical talent that Westbrook is best at, it seems that Westbrook is not as good as Rose.

But one thing that Westbrook is better than Rose is his physical recovery ability. Rose has suffered a lot of serious injuries, but especially his knees, but after the injury, Rose seems to be in physical condition and can no longer reach the peak, but Westbrook is injured. After that, it was like returning to the factory for repair, but it became stronger and stronger.

Then they chose James Harden. The Thunder chose James Harden because they wanted him to be the Thunder, that is, Nobili to play the role of a super low person.And it turns out that Harden has also accomplished this task very well.He has a very high ball quotient, has the ability to control the ball, has a very strong scoring ability, and has very rich offensive skills as a second position, especially his unique skill of drawing fouls, and his defensive ability was not bad at the time. .

In the year when the Thunder defeated the Spurs and reached the finals, a famous forum app.Oh, of course, there was no such thing as an app at the time. A very famous forum website called Zhihu had a question about how to evaluate Kemba Walker, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Jeremy Lin, Fareed, etc., etc., A star with potential.

The well-known basketball commentator Zhang Zhizhi's evaluation of James Harden is that he is a player who can take over the scepter of Kobe and Wade and become the strongest No. [-] player in the NBA.

If we look at this issue three years ago, of course, our issue was three years ago, three years after it was raised.This answer is undoubtedly very accurate, but looking at it now, James Harden has grown into a stronger and more dominant player than this answer. He is no longer a traditional No. [-]. He is already a A very strong combo guard.

Since the Thunder management gave up renewing Harden's contract for millions of dollars that year, the story of the Thunder's three young men came to an abrupt end.

Since 2016, when the Warriors fell behind 1:3, the Thunder turned against the wind and entered the finals.Later, after Durant announced that he would join the Golden State Warriors, the story of the Thunder and the Younger also ceased to exist.

The rest is the story of Westbrook alone defending the last glory of basketball in this city alone, and the story of Westbrook averaging a triple-double for two consecutive seasons.

After that, Paul George came and announced that the Thunder had entered a new era, but their record in the first season was not very good, and they were finally swept out by the Jazz in the first round. In the series, it can be said that Westbrook was blown up.

There's a whole new word meeting that came into being.

However, what is gratifying is that Paul George announced at a party to renew his contract with the Thunder and Westbrook joined hands to defend the glory of the Thunder.

But the Thunder's record in the following season was not too good. Even speaking, they didn't even make the playoffs. In that season, neither Westbrook nor Paul George seemed to be very good at playing.

Then came this season.

(End of this chapter)