2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder

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In retrospect, the 2013-14 season of the Oklahoma City Thunder came down to Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. The San Antonio Spurs quickly gained the 2-0 advantage after the first two games in Texas, but the return of Serge Ibaka allowed the Thunder defense to even up the series before heading back to San Antonio for the pivotal fifth game. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich substituted shooter Matt Bonner into the starting lineup in place of center Tiago Splitter, and it was the overall depth of the Spurs and the 55-26 disparity in bench scoring that cost the Thunder the game. A five-point loss in overtime of Game 6 sealed their season, and general manager Sam Presti’s approach to building the 2014-15 team began with addressing the roster’s depth and bench issues in the offseason.

Episode 041 - Big Man Week

Chris and Paul try their first Skype conversation and finish up the third week of their 2014-15 NBA Preview by discussing the bigs they wrote about (Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol, Carmelo Anthony), their teams entering the season, and the bigs who didn't make the cut (Dirk Nowitzki, DeMarcus Cousins, and Al Horford), plus some predictions for the NBA's Defensive Player and Coach of the Year Awards.

2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Defensive Player and Coach of the Year Predictions

We're officially past the half-way point of our 2014-15 NBA Season Preview, after the conclusion of our Big Man Week. The season is almost underway. Thank you for sticking with us here on the blog and consuming our content.

In this third week of our preview series, Chris and I wanted to pay homage to the dominant bigs in the league by profiling their games and the context within their franchises. Chris covered the new-age big men in today's NBA; starting with Monday's examination of Anthony "The Unibrow" Davis and his unfair treatment by the NBA's marketing and television departments, transitioning to Serge Ibaka's unmistakable influence on a top-tier defense in Oklahoma City, and today with a look at Carmelo Anthony's evolution into being eligible for this list and his embracing of his inner-(stretch) big man. I stuck to the more traditional mold of bigs when choosing Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge, which gave me an insight into team-building and how to potentially retain the greatest player in a franchise's history (hint: become good). Apologies to Dirk Nowitzki, DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, Al Horford, et al, but, just like last week when we tackled two-guards, five choices aren't nearly enough. 

As we've done at the end of every one of our themed-weeks so far this preseason, we've provided some predictions for the NBA end of year awards, with the Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year Awards most closely associated with, and largely dependent-upon, the impact of the big men. The last non-center or power forward to win the Defensive MVP was in 2003-04 - back when Metta World Peace was called Ron Artest - and the Coach of the Year trophy is usually influenced by team defense, which is usually influenced by bigs. It's no coincidence that every coach on our COY-ballots feature strong players in the front-court. 

Chris and I have tried to break up some of the monotony with these lists and "ballots" that hold absolutely no influence on the actual results at the end of the 2014-15 season. We usually save our thoughts and reasoning behind the picks for the podcast, but this weeks' podcast will be delayed a day, so we supplied some notes and different looks at our predictions. There's probably no chance that a rookie, for instance, will factor into the discussion for Defensive Player of the Year this season but awards voting is usually so boring and narrative-driven that we had to attempt to have fun with it.

2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Serge Ibaka

Credit:  Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images

Last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder were matched up against the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals.  It was exactly the matchup we expected all season long.  The Spurs, however, did fall into some luck.  While OKC was enduring one of the most physical series of last year's playoffs against Memphis, the Spurs were matched up against the worst defense of all the playoff teams in the Dallas Mavericks.  Sure that series went 7 games, but I won’t accept the argument that the Thunder didn’t exert more energy, physically and mentally, to advance to the second round than the Spurs did.