Here at Sparty and Friends, we have reached NBA preview time (again). There will be one team per work day leading up to the season opener (Celts vs. Cavs, October 27th at 7:30pm on TNT). The teams are ordered by record starting with last place and going up through the non-playoff teams, followed by the playoff teams in order of elimination (or lack thereof in the Lakers’ case). We’ve already grabbed a Sac(To) lunch, went off to see the Wizards, turned to JP and the Clips, visited a Grizzly veteran, played some Timber sports, and found our inner Warrior.  Now, we roll with the Thunder…

The Thunder of a team of the future. The future is not now. The future is the future. Right now, the Thunder have a good base of young players. Kevin Durant has his sidekicks with Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook at his sides. James Harden is joining the group now as well. What does this do? It might keep the Durantula in his tiny market. Unlike the mismanagement of LeBron’s career by the Cavs, Thunder GM Sam Presti did the only thing that he could do to keep Durant on his team: surround him with other young, rising players that he could become friends with so that he doesn’t want to leave. When Durant comes up as a free agent, the Thunder should be almost breaking out, breaking out, or just broken out. That will leave Durant with the choice of deserting his friends and fans on a team of rising stars or staying. Knowing Durant’s personality, I’d say that he stays. Seems like Presti has a plan? Does he always? Jump to find out.

Let’s take a look at the stat sheet…

Last Year’s Record: 23-59 (Last in Northwest Division, 3rd to last Western Conference, 4th to last in the NBA)

Last Year’s Prediction (GITC): Prediction: 15-20 wins, 11-15 in the Western Conference

Coach: Scott Brooks

Expected Starting Lineup: Russel Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Nenad Kristic

Expected Bench Contributors: Shaun Livingston, James Harden, Nick Collison

So the roster doesn’t look too good. So what? These guys aren’t trying to win a ton of games. They’re trying to build. That said, there’s an obvious question. If they’re building, why didn’t they move Westbrook to shooting guard and draft RICKY FREAKING RUBIO instead of James Harden? Again, it looks like Presti might have had a plan. Everybody knew that the buyout was going to balloon if he dropped out of the top three. Picking third, Presti liked Harden a lot but also knew that the Spanish phenom would be great. Did he take one and keep the other out of the league instead of having one of the two and letting somebody else have the other? That might have been a good move. ‘m in the process of seeing if that might have crossed his mind. But all this leaves the question of why he didn’t want Rubio. I would speculate (as others have) that Presti believes that he has two point guards on his roster with a future.

Shaun Livingston was a young Magic Johnson until his knee, well, you know how that went down. Is he back? He’s expected to contribute this season. Can he be the player he was supposed to be? Probably not. But do I think that he could be an All Star at some point? I wouldn’t put it past him. We’ll see how that works out. Speaking of things to watch this season: KD’s scoring average. It will hit 30 and might hit 35 this season. Don’t test him. He might be the most natural born scorer of all time. Right now that argument included Iverson, Maravich, and McGrady, but Durant will show that he deserves to be in on that too.

Video of the Day time! These are the highlights from Shaun Livingston’s return at the end of last season. Can he pull the comeback? Maybe.

Best Comment From Last Season’s Preview of This Team time! This one goes out to SAE for this gem during a conversation as to what the Thunder’s mascot should be…

How about a big piece of crap impaled on the Seattle Space Needle?

That’s right, we aren’t getting through this preview without mentioning that the team was blatantly stolen from its rightful place.

The team should be virtually the same as last season…

Prediction: 23-28 wins, 10-14 in the Western Conference

Guyinthecorner is an author here at spartyandfriends.com. He writes the NBA section, X-Games section, and contributes to College Basketball and MLB. He doesn’t watch hockey except when the circumstances are dire. He’s not sure how to rate Michael Phelps on the scale of athletes not only because he doesn’t directly compete against people, but because he is a fish. He doesn’t understand the hate for the 2002 National Champion Maryland Terrapins and wishes everybody would just shut up by now. He is known for having statistical formulas and might be Bill James or Joe Lunardi depending on who you ask. His identity is as hidden as many times over as the number of internet memes he employs in his comments. Some have called him “The Riddler.” He can be reached at gitc@spartyandfriends.com. “GITC” is an acronym for guyinthecorner in case you aren’t that perceptive.

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