Jan 16th Games

To each his own opinion. I definitely disagree with you on the bolded. The Thunder are far too young and inconsistent to be reliable. Here are the ages of their rotation players: 21/23/21/20/25/26/29/20/22. Nick Collison at 29 and Nenad Krystic at 26 are old men on that squad. If they were in the Eastern Conference, the playoffs would be a given.

Keep in mind KD is a young 21 years-old and is still learning how to lead a team. Right now, I would prefer to call him a budding franchise player. Give him 2 more years, he'll be challenging for MVP and the Thunder will be a perennial playoff team with championship aspirations.

Since you mention Melo, he had guys like Andre Miller and Marcus Camby as a rookie and beyond. If the Thunder had a younger Camby in the middle, they would easily make the playoffs this season and be a legit 2nd round threat.

 

Reminds me when Stephen Jackson got traded to Golden St. with Al Harrington. That really turned that team around that year.

 

You could say that Rafer was the barometer of how we played a couple years ago we as well. When he shot better than 40% from the field, we rarely lost.