Am I the only person out there who doesn’t enjoy watching the Thunder? This self-realization is a bit odd as I’ve typically always been fond of young, league darling-type teams. But this Thunder squad just doesn’t do it for me. I’ve never cared much for former-Longhorn Kevin Durant and I absolutely cannot bear to watch Russell Westbrook. In fact, I’d venture to say that Westbrook has the ugliest game of any ‘elite’ point guard I’ve ever seen. This isn’t to say he isn’t good–I know that’s a discussion in and of itself and I don’t care enough to opine–but his game is just not pleasing to the eye in the way of most great point men. I don’t quite know how to explain this but I just know beauty when I see it. For a point guard, it’s something to do with the crossover coming at angles. Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams, all the guys I salivate to watch go side to side while the ball sticks to their fingers. Westbrook seems to be in the Lebron James/Shaq class of full-on power over angular finesse.
We should thank providence daily that Lebron James did not choose Chicago or that team might have won the next eight titles in succession. Letting Thibs slip through our claws is one of the great embarrassments in recent history: that Bulls defense is something else to watch. One can also see why Morey coveted so greatly young center Omer Asik.
Am I the only one who didn’t fall over himself about Bulls forward Taj Gibson’s posterization of Dwyane Wade? It was a nice dunk but a near 7 footer throwing down over an undersized shooting guard is not something about which I would typically write home to my mother.