Chapter 42 Thunder and Three Less
Kevin Durant is the absolute leader of the Thunder, he was selected by the SuperSonics in the second round in the first round in 2007, Durant is 206 cm tall and weighs 106 kg, he has skillful ball handling skills that are very inconsistent with his height, and can even use Crossover to deceive defenders, his breakthrough has a lot of lethality, height and arm length plus excellent bounce, when Durant jumps up and splits with one hand, even a physical man like Howard is difficult to resist, his shooting is very accurate, The height of the jump is high enough, no one can block his shot, his shooting has no dead corners, anywhere after the half court is his attack area, his passing awareness is also very good, he has the ability to revitalize the team's offense, on the defensive end, he can usually use his long arms of 228 cm to interfere with the opponent's shots, and can also pick up rebounds on the inside line of the long man, in addition to the basketball factor, Durant also has a calm and strong heart, He hit the key shot many times in the last minute of the game, and what is even more terrifying is that he is only 22 years old, and he still has a lot of potential and a lot of future, all in all, he was born to be a player for basketball, and if there are no injuries, he will create his own era with the Thunder.
The 2007-2008 season was Durant's rookie season, and the Thunder worked hard to develop Durant throughout the season, despite the team's bottom score, Durant averaged 20.3 points and 2.4 assists per game, shooting 87.3% from the free throw line, ranking first among rookies in three statistics, and second with 78 steals. Not only is he ahead of other rookies in his year in points, but Durant is also the first player since James to average more than 20 points per game in his rookie season. In addition, Durant is also the first player since the 2004-05 season to lead the team in scoring in his rookie season, scoring a career-high 42 points in the team's game against the Golden State Warriors on April 16, 2008, and being named the NBA's official Western Conference Rookie of the Month five times (November, December, January, March and April), Durant has scored at least 20 points in 47 games, scoring more than 30 points in seven games, and Durant has scored 23 points in the All-Star Rookie Challenge. On May 2, 2008, the NBA officially announced the best rookie of the season, and Durant was elected with an absolute advantage of 545 points!
These data are the honors achieved by Durant in his rookie season, in the first year of entering the NBA, Durant showed super scoring ability and dominance on the court, so this year, this year, Durant is only the first year of NBA players, Nike is impatient to give Durant a 7-year $60 million endorsement contract, which is the second highest rookie shoe endorsement contract in NBA history.
In the 2008-2009 season, Durant's performance was on the next level, averaging 25.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.3 steals per game, shooting 47.6% from the field and 42.2% from three-point range. Assists increased by 0.4, steals increased by 0.4, and more importantly, his shooting percentage increased by 4.6 percentage points and his three-point percentage increased by 13.4 percentage points! All of this is just in the added 4.4 minutes of playing time!
In the 2008-2009 Phoenix All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge, Durant scored 46 points on 17-of-25 shooting and led the sophomore team to a big victory.
Despite the addition of Russell Westbrook this season, the Thunder still have a very poor record and did not make the playoffs.
In the 2009-2010 season, Durant's performance went to a new level again! In 82 games, he averaged 30.1 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 steals and 1 block per game, and his shooting percentage was the same as last season's 47.6%! His playing time was only 0.5 minutes longer than last season, with a 4.8-point increase, a nearly 1-point rebound increase, and a 3.7% increase in free throw shooting! This season, Durant was selected for the NBA All-NBA First Team, surpassing Rick Barry to become the youngest scoring champion in NBA history, only 21 years and 197 days, in the selection of regular season MVP, Durant is second only to LeBron James, ranking second, from this season, Durant has stepped into the hall of superstars from ordinary stars, not only Durant himself is full of honors, the most important thing is that the team has also achieved 50 wins, Durant has created 29 consecutive games to get 25+, becoming 25+ in historyMr. Second, in the playoffs, although the Thunder and the Lake** were eliminated in six games, no one can deny that Durant's Thunder team has a bright future!
Last offseason, Durant successfully signed a five-year, $85 million contract extension with the Thunder, and it can be expected that in the next five years, Durant will wear the Thunder jersey to fight on the court.
Westbrook and Harden have continued to improve this season, helping Durant more and more on the offensive end, and Durant has increased his role on the defensive end, averaging 28.9 points per game while grabbing 10.3 rebounds.
Russell Westbrook, the second leader of the Thunder, 22 years old, plays the No. 1 position, was selected by the Thunder with the 4th pick in the first round in 2004, Westbrook is a point guard with amazing physical fitness, and likes to have physical contact with defenders to win free throws, his strength is amazingly fast, there are few players in the league who can keep up with Westbrook's first step, his breakthrough is not the Iverson-style style that makes defenders dizzy, It is a very violent straight line breakthrough, a simple rhythm change control, so that the defender pauses slightly, Westbrook can rely on a strong explosive force to drive straight into the basket and then dunk to score, this offensive method seems simple, but in fact the lethality is huge, many big players on the inside have acted as the background of Westbrook's top ten goals!
Westbrook's pull-up jump shot is also a must, with the shadow of Francis back then, the super body control ability allows Westbrook, who has been hovering in the air, to have plenty of time to shoot with a bow and arrow, but Westbrook's shortcomings are also obvious, he doesn't like to pass, the three-point shot is unstable, he comes and goes, the defense, especially when the opponent does not have the ball and cuts, and the most important thing is that if you talk about it from the perspective of a point guard, he has a very poor control of the rhythm of the court, and often has a hot brain and a moonlight. Wysbrook's six relatives don't recognize, and the gorgeous transformation is not passable, one hit four, of course, it will be inefficient, but this is Westbrook's own attributes, and when the game hits a critical moment, no one can stop Westbrook's transformation, even the team's boss Durant and head coach Brooks.
In his first season, Westbrook averaged 15.3 points, 5.3 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 1.3 steals in 32.5 minutes per game, shooting 39.8% from the field and 27.1% from three-point range. And his statistics are only 16.8 points, 3.9 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 0.8 steals per game, Westbrook's most glorious game this season is undoubtedly on March 3, 2009, the Thunder home game against the Mavericks, Westbrook in front of triple-double master Jason Kidd, scored the first triple-double of his career, 17 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
In the second season, Westbrook averaged 16.1 points, 8 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game, shooting 41.8% from the field, but only 22.1% from three-point range, and this season, Westbrook's statistics rose again to 21.9 points, 8.2 assists and 4.6 rebounds, 1.9 steals, 44.2% shooting, and 33.0% from three-point range, becoming Durant's most powerful assistant.
James Harden, the third leader of the Thunder team, is 21 years old this year, and was selected by the Thunder in the third place in the first round in 2009.
Harden has a very high basketball IQ, he is the kind of player who plays by the brain rather than the body in the real sense, his three-point shot is very accurate, and his rookie season reached 37.5%, in the breakthrough Harden has the same sharp European step as his childhood idol Ginobili, and the step-back shot after continuous shaking is Harden's signature move, not only that, Harden is also very good at finding physical contact and using free throws to score points, Harden's passing is above the league standard, and his defense is NBA average, Basically, there are no gambling steals, but stuck defensive positions, and the only thing Harden lacks is that he can't play back singles in the low post, and if Harden perfects this skill, with his big ass and nearly 100 kilograms, it will be a very powerful killer move.
In his first season as a rookie, Harden averaged 9.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 22.9 minutes per game, and was selected to the All-Rookie Second Team This season, Harden averaged 12.2 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game, and was called the absolute core strength on the bench.
The player who replaced Harden was Sabo Saflosha, born in Switzerland in 1984, nicknamed the Swiss Army Knife, in the 2006 NBA draft, Safrosha was selected by the Philadelphia 76ers with the 13th pick in the first round, and was then traded to the Bulls, and in 2009, the Thunder traded Wilcox from the Bulls for Saflosha, and signed a four-year, $13.8 million contract. Saflosha basically has no effective offensive means on the offensive end, relying on the vacancy of cutting in without the ball and the opponent's double package between Durant and Westbrook, but Saflosha can press Harden on the bench to rely on his strong defense, on the court, he is really like a plaster, sticking to the opponent's attack arrow, like Battier, his data is not very conspicuous, but he can imperceptibly affect the opponent's shooting accuracy, Saflosha's mind is very cool, Largely infallible on the defensive end, and rarely deceived by the opponent's multitude of feints, Saflosha was named to the league's All-Defensive Second Team last year.
Morris Peterson, a 33-year-old shooting guard who has been in the league for 11 years, has only played five games for the Thunder this year, averaging only five minutes per game, but his contract is as high as $6.64 million, which is a very big temptation for teams that want to free up salary space, so Peterson is worth a lot more than what he is worth on the court.
Daquine Cook, 23, the 21st best rookie in the first round in 2007, was a college teammate of Auden the Great, a strong man with outstanding three-point shooting ability, and won the three-point shooting championship in 2009. Last year, he averaged 5 points and 1.8 rebounds per game.