Ladies and gentleman, the Oklahoma City Thunder have arrived. After starting their inaugural season in OKC with a 3-29 record and finishing 23-59, Year 2 saw a marked improvement, as Kevin Durant led the NBA in scoring and the Thunder won 50 games on their way to a playoff berth.

The transition from small-time to showtime has been one of the quickest turnaround the NBA has seen, and keep in mind the Thunder didn’t make any major roster changes. Coach Scott Brooks just let his young players mature and learn from their early struggles. Read More »

In its most simple form, an “Energy Guy” on the basketball court is charged with changing the complexion of a game without having to dominate the ball.

For Serge Ibaka, the rising 2nd-year big man of the Oklahoma City Thunder, that means blocking seven shots in Game 2 of OKC’s first-round playoff series against the Lakers. Or forcing Tim Duncan into crucial missed shots and turnovers down the stretch of a March game against San Antonio. Read More »

This is Kevin Durant‘s moment. As the eyes of basketball nation are fixed on New York City right now for the World Basketball Festival, Durant is the focal point of Team USA and the unquestioned star of this massive event. In our special all-WBF issue of Bounce Magazine, Durant talks about his meteoric rise to stardom. Read More »

With yesterday’s firing of Mike Brown, who just last season was named the 2008-09 NBA Coach of the Year, it made me begin to think that winning the award could be more of a curse than a blessing. And after looking at the last five winners, you begin to see – as they say in the Twitterverse – a “trending topic.” Ever since the 2005-06 season, all the previous winners (except this year’s) were fired within the next two seasons. Check it out. Read More »

We’ve been high on the Thunder all season, but even we were impressed to see just how fast the young guns in Oklahoma City have put the pieces together. Coach Scott Brooks, GM Sam Presti and everyone in the organization have managed intelligently – and drafted high-character guys – to build a team that will challenge in the Western Conference for years to come. And after last night’s 101-96 statement win against the defending champs, they look poised to make some noise right now. Kevin Durant is going to consistently drop near 30 points a game, Jeff Green is far better than he’s given credit for and rookie Serge Ibaka is emerging as a defensive force in the post. But the key to the Thunder’s success is their second-year point guard, Russell Westbrook. Read More »

The timing was just too perfect to be a coincidence. On the same night when they’d have to compete with the NFL Draft for ratings, the NBA just happened to roll out a schedule with Kobe and LeBron both in playoff action — the first time that had happened this postseason. Too bad the superstars failed to deliver their end of the c-o-n-spiracy, dropping road games to respective 8-seeds OKC and Chicago to make each series interesting again … You can’t watch a Thunder home game without hearing “college-type atmosphere” in the first 10 minutes. Read More »

You knew it was going to happen sooner or later. No matter how old Tim Duncan gets, no matter how many steps he’s supposedly lost, no matter who else is supposed to be the go-to guy on his team, TD is going to take over games in the playoffs. In last night’s Game 2 against Dallas, kind of a must-win for San Antonio after they’d dropped the series opener, Duncan scored 10 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter — including eight in a row during a key stretch when the Mavs still had a chance — to steal Dallas’ homecourt advantage and take their heart at the same time … Read More »

OK, so maybe not every NBA award this season will be predictable. While non-surprising winners Dwight Howard and Scott Brooks have already copped Defensive Player and Coach of the Year, respectively, it looks like the Most Improved Player trophy will go to somebody who wasn’t obvious.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Aaron Brooks will be named M.I.P. in a press conference tomorrow. The newspaper cites a “person with knowledge of the voting.” Read More »

Unlike this year’s NBA playoff bracket, where both 8-seeds are legitimately feisty and each conference has up to four teams that could realistically make the Finals, the NBA awards season is turning out to be pretty predictable.

Wire-to-wire favorite Dwight Howard won Defensive Player of the Year in a landslide, LeBron James is expected to similarly dominate MVP voting, Tyreke Evans is pretty much a lock for Rookie of the Year — and today Oklahoma City’s Scott Brooks was named Coach of the Year. Read More »

Even more than MVP, the Coach of the Year award needs a criteria makeover. Because while it’s kind of ridiculous in retrospect that Shaq only has one MVP when he was the most dominant game-changing basketball player in the NBA for several years, it’s patently ridiculous that Jerry Sloan was never deemed the best coach in the League over any of his two decades-plus run in Utah while continually placing his team in the title contending picture. Read More »