Thought Durant would have bigger impact

H

hornpharmd

5,000+ Posts
Guy was phenomenol in college. Sure he has a ton to learn and room to develop. His upside is enormous. His team is one of the worst and it will take time to turn this thing around. However we saw Lebron come in at Cleveland and Carmelo come in at Denver and make immediate impacts.

Why has Durant's arrival at Seattle/now Oklahoma City been so dismal? The team is 1-12 this year and their coach is already fired.

sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3718961


Durant started off well last year but did run out of gas down the stretch of the long NBA season. His body just wasn't ready for the NBA and it showed. So far this year his FG% and 3pt% are up from last year. His point total is slightly higher. His rebounds and assist #s seem very low to me. Especially the rebounds. For a guy who is 6-9 but has the wingspan of a 7 footer I would have though he would average 7-8 rebounds a game easy.

Am I being too hard on the guy or should expect to have seen more devlopment from him in year 2? Especially defensively where his #s are almost nonexistent. Hopefully he'll eventually get some better players around him to help him out too.
 
I think you're wrong about him running out of gas. He didn't even hit full stride until the end of the season, when he had a couple of incredible games in the last month of the season.

The rebounding issue relates to why the coach was fired. They've been playing KD at the 2 for most of the games, and he's generally not in a spot to pick up boards on either end of the floor. I'd be more concerned about the assist/turnover numbers, but then again, he has no one else to give him a break on the team offensively.

OKC is just a horrible team, end of story. They'll need at least three more impact players before they even have a shot at a playoff 8-seed one year.
 
I could never figure out why the played Durant at the 2. Who not move him to the 3? He's a very solid rebounder.
 
Cute / It is such a horrible lot in life to play professional basketball in front of sold out home crowds every night.
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PJ is a horrible coach. These guys have no desire to play for him......and this has been his MO everywhere he has coached. Ultimately, some of that is on the players....but ultimately the head coach has to provide some leadership, instruction, and professionalism on the team.....especially when they are so young.

KD has zero talent around him AND he has a ways to go regarding playing an entire game. His defense is suspect at best. It has be frustrating for him because this team has no point guard and no big man to take pressure off KD on the perimeter......and it appears to be getting to him a bit........of the 5 games that I have attended most of his "work" on getting open tends to be clapping his hands for the ball.

Things can't get any worse for this team.......as a matter of fact it got better as soon as they unloaded PJ. I would love to see them pick up Avery Johnson to work with the young guys and instill some pride, hustle, and professionalism.
 
They play Durant at the 2 because they have nobody else who can play there bar Wilkinson, and if they want Green on the court too then they he has to play the 3. They need to get rid of alot of their so-so players (Wilkinson, Collison, Sene) and try to make some free agent pick ups and build around Westbrook and KD.

But yes, they are just a bad, bad team.
 
Sure he has a bad team around him. But when Lebron came in he had a bad team and he made things happen. Just seems like the team is worse now than they were 2 years ago. I guess it isn't his fault but he hasn't made things any better.
 
KD simply can't create the way LeBron can. Against NBA defenses, he would be much better with a guy around him that can create matchup problems. I think he is more Pippen than Jordan, which is not a criticism.
 
I think he needs to reinvent himself as a 4 man like Dirk. He has trouble creating his shot against 2's and 3's in the NBA right now.
 
I was watching their pre game and it said that KD was 12th in the NBA in scoring this year and shooting a very respectable 46%. Last year, he came on very strong towards the end and got his shooting % up in the last few months too. It was really just his poor % that was really what looked bad. He needs to get more rebounds, you can do that out of the 2 position in the NBA. He needs to get about 2-3 more per game. His team does suck, it loooks like Green is giong to be a middle of the road player at best. They'll be getting another top 5 pick next year.
 
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