The team that held onto it's assets at this year's trade deadline even though they won't win a title in the next decade?

Buzzkillington

Imagine a team with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on it. Thanks Larry.

Harden and Westbrook are more important to their teams than Leonard (Spurs are 5-1 without Leonard). Harden has been more efficient and his team has won more than Westbrook's has, but I think Harden's surrounding cast is much more conducive to better offensive efficiency over Westbrook's teammates...

The Spurs don't win a title without Leonard, but they're still a playoff team.  Harden doesn't quite have Westbrook's numbers overall and gets to play in a system and with players that make his higher efficiency almost a given over Westbrook's....

I don't see any player in the league doing as much for his team at the level that Westbrook has done it.

Those are some solid picks...I'm not sure how Utah reacts in the playoffs, they're built for playoff basketball but most of their team hasn't played in any playoff games...Heyward is really underrated but they'll need a healthy George Hill to advance that far because opposing PGs will feast on his backups...

Apparently that was Westbrook's fault...

Currently tied for 6th...

Yeah Hill was the one piece they needed.  Playoff experience, he knows how to run a controlled offense.  They're really good.  I'm just sitting here like "someone better start paying close attention to them.  Gobert is really good too.

Ox is right

OKC has just got to find one star forward to plug in there and you likely have a championship caliber team again.

They damn near did it with that turncoat Durant last year.  Same thing applies for Houston. Don't even mention the departed Dwight Howard. His game was departed long, long ago. 

I have seen precious little of either team with no cable, but I did see Utah once and they looked real good. Used to see SA all the time, but that was when there was a good local team around here that challenged the Spurs but would come up just short.

Of course, that is ancient history now. Shit, even the Lakers were still worth looking at then.

Zach Lowe is smart:

3. The Russell Westbrook plus-minus tension

The Thunder outscore opponents by 2.9 points per 100 possessions with Westbrook on the floor -- kind of a middling number, actually -- and collapse into nothingness when he rests. Opponents have blitzed the Thunder by more than 11 points per 100 possessions with Westbrook sitting, a margin that would rank way, way, way below Brooklyn's league-worst overall mark.

That gap creates my favorite tense subplot of every Thunder game: How close can the Thunder hang while Westbrook reloads? There is an urgency for opponents, too: How much can ground can we make up?

We've experienced this sensation with other superstars. If the Warriors of the past two seasons won the minutes Stephen Curry rested, their opponents were toast. It still happens with LeBron now.

But Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love at least provide the possibility of manufacturing enough points to stay afloat without the King. They are legitimate offensive fulcrums, capable of producing 6-0 mini-runs that feel so important in retrospect when we tally the final score.

The Thunder have no such No. 1 option type. They cannot score, at all, without the mad Westbrook dashes that suck panicked defenders into the lane -- and generate open looks for Oklahoma City's supporting cast. The Thunder are deeper now with Taj Gibson, Doug McDermott, and a healthy Victor Oladipo, but that hasn't translated yet to much non-Russ punch.

FUCKING HORFORD.


YOu get shit luck on the air ball, no big deal........impossible rebound.


If you are going to foul him.......put him on the ground.



This dude is such a bitch.

SIXERS!!!!