King of the Point Guard Era

Chapter 108
The Oklahoma City Thunder, formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics, was sold to Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett in the 2006-07 season.Owner Clay Bennett has publicly stated that he will move the team to his hometown of Oklahoma City after negotiations with the city of Seattle broke down. In 2008, after a brief legal battle, team owner Bennett and the city of Seattle reached an agreement to leave the team's original name and colors to Seattle so that they could one day be used by a new team in the city, while at the same time creating a new team for Oklahoma City. Homer City brought a team of its own, named the Thunder.

This Thunder is not recognized by many historical figures of the former Sonics. Gary Payton even publicly said that my jersey will not be retired for that team in that city. My career belongs to Seattle, but so does Bennett. A stubborn person, if you don't retire, you won't retire. Originally, he just wanted to have a new team in his hometown, but now he has completed this idea.

Tonight's Ford Center Arena is full of seats. The collision between the two most talented youth teams in the league has brought 20000 players into this arena. The citizens of Oklahoma have long been missing a player from the four top leagues. The team was very excited after ushering in the new Thunder, and now the team is getting better and better, so that the Thunder get extra support in Oklahoma.The atmosphere at the Thunder's home court was very strong, and every player's appearance was enthusiastically called. When Westbrook and Durant played the finale, the atmosphere reached its peak.

This game is commented by ESPN. They are also composed of ace guest Bill Walton and former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy. A superstar who overcame his stutter to become a game commentator after retiring.

The latter was Yao Ming's head coach in the NBA from 04 to 07, and Chinese fans were also the most controversial about him.After gaining weight in his hands, Yao Ming became a big killer inside and became a superstar with an average of 25+10 per game. However, it was precisely because of his weight gain plan that Yao Ming had too many injuries, and even Now at the age of 31, it is time to retire, and as the head coach, he has also been criticized for his rigid and stubborn employment.

But if you think that these two people are a very boring combination, then you are wrong. The two of them in the commentary booth are a pair of live treasures, not rigid at all.

"Jeff, what do you think of He of the Kings? You have experience coaching Chinese people. I think he matches my style of play very well. If Cousins ​​is replaced by me back then, I can hit the championship this year. It's gone." Naturally, Walton knew that Van Gundy had coached Yao Ming, so he was the first to open the conversation.

"Sorry, if you replace Cousins, then I think it is difficult for the Kings to make the playoffs in this Western Conference, because the season has reached this point, and you should be sitting on the bench in a suit. No qualifications for towels." Van Gundy's remarks are not without logic, Walton was a famous glass man before, and he only participated in 40% of the games in the [-] seasons of his career, but Even so, he has won honors that most players have never won in their lifetime.

Walton smiled slightly: "Jeff, you are so humorous, I have won the regular season MVP."

"Oh? The regular season MVP with the fewest appearances in history with 58 games? In my memory, there is no regular season MVP except you who played less than 82 games in the 70 regular season."

"Hey, the game has started, and the Thunder's audience is very active!" Wharton is still very good at changing the topic. As soon as he saw the Thunder players appearing, he immediately moved away from the "sad" topic.

Because the Kings still continue the previous starting lineup, this lineup has basically stabilized after 20 games in the season. This lineup is the combination with the highest scoring efficiency in the entire Kings 5-man team, suitable for the opening game.The Thunder put up point guard Westbrook, shooting guard Thabo Sefolosha, small forward Durant, power forward Jeff Green, and center Nenad Kostic.

The Thunder jumped to the ball first and started the first attack. After a few dribbles, Westbrook didn't stick the ball and directly passed it to Durant on the three-point line. Then Durant directly opened his hands and shot, completely ignoring Iraq in front of him Godala made a direct hit and scored, which caused the noise in the Ford Center arena. To be exact, since the game started, the crazy noise has not stopped.

He Yixiang feels that Durant is more powerful than when he met in the World Championships. At the World Championships, he was an incomprehensible existence, directly blowing up the strikers in China. However, this time he encountered this again in the NBA. Guy, He Yixiang once again felt the powerlessness of the defense. A 211cm guy with a 228 wingspan shot directly in Iguodala's face. There was nothing wrong with him. He said that many center forwards could do it, but he couldn't. No big man has such a soft shooting touch like him, and his 35% three-point shooting rate can be said to be the most accurate among big men in the NBA except Nowitzki, let alone you dare not shoot too aggressively , As soon as you pounce on him, he will go straight to the inside. His ball handling skills and movement speed are no worse than those of a defender.

"It's really helpless. We didn't have such a player at that time. I guess we could only open our hands and look up to God when we met him." Wharton let out a long sigh after seeing this three-pointer, "Times change too fast ah!"

"The king's striker is not tall enough. Of course, there are not many in the league who are tall enough. When they encounter Durant shooting, they can only pray that Durant doesn't feel good."

Here the king launched a counterattack, Cousins ​​asked for the ball from a low post, He Yixiang commanded his teammates to move, and then pulled it away to Cousins ​​who was under the basket, Sefolosha went to double-team, they dared not let Cousins ​​take it easy In the first play, the basketball was scored, and Casspi shot a three-pointer. Unfortunately, the away basket rejected the three-pointer in this quarter, and the basketball bounced far away from the hoop.

Durant directly grabbed the long rebound and dribbled the ball from the backcourt to start a fast break. On the way, he changed hands behind the back and passed Casspi directly. He made three big strides from the three-point line and made a dunk from the free throw line. .As the host of Oklahoma, he gave this group of guests from Sacramento a resounding disarm from the very beginning.This is last year's second MVP and scoring champion, and also the first in this year's scoring list. "OKC! MVP!" The Thunder's performance at the start directly brought the atmosphere of the already hot arena to a higher level.

(End of this chapter)