Is there anything better than waking up on a Saturday morning, pouring yourself a nice cup of (trendy beverage that I know nothing about here) and opening your paper to the knowledge that this evening you’ve got the pleasure of watch a small market team that runs at the 2nd fastest pace in the NBA, with one of the fastest point guards in recent memory leading the way? That coach they’ve got has responded pretty well considering those whispers that he should be on the hot seat back in October! And golly, did you see that game the other night? I’m hoping they aren’t tired, running as fast as they do and having the game go right down to the final ticks of the clock against a team as good as the Jazz! What? What Warriors game? Oh… oh no. I’ve been talking about the Oklahoma City Thunder!

Let’s talk Kings basketball!

When: Saturday, February 23rd, 5:00 PM PST

Where: Chesapeake Energy Arena, Oklahoma City, OK

TV: NBCSCA

Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM

For Your Consideration

Managing the Monarchy: So there are some things I won’t be talking today outside of the next sentence, because they truly, and utterly are a waste of time discussing: coaches conversations with players on sidelines, what star players for opposing teams said about said conversations between coaches and players, why you think the film Green Book deserves the Academy Award for Best Picture. I know you coached youth league and/or wrote a script in the 90’s that was high-key about race relations so you know how difficult either or both of those things can be, but if we’re going to start talking about awkward interactions and Oscar deserving films, then goddamn it, we’re going to be spending the next few previews discussing the gimp-suited alien in the lighthouse scene from the film Annihilation. Save those discussions for you weaker-willed, less savvy neighbors: you’re an impeccable conversationalist and searching for a higher form of tête-à-tête.

What we can talk about however is the revelation after that wonderfully fought Warriors game, is the fact that Dave Joerger indicated that the starting lineup that we saw, with Bogi starting at SF and Harrison Barnes at PF, will be the the starting lineup for the foreseeable future. Tim Maxwell wrote a wonderful piece on it here but what I really wanted to say about it was only that I really respect Joerger for continuing to tinker with this team, even in the face of a playoff race and an entire section of California rooting for the Kings to just hurry up and get there already. In the video that the Kings put out of Harrison Barnes flying into Sacramento, Joerger is heard saying something along the lines “I’ve been trying to trade for you for like eight years”: the guy was clearly excited to have Harrison Barnes on this team, and I think this move is a continuation of that excitement. We know Joerger is famous for things like giving Frank Mason III a ten game window to see how he operates, then giving Yogi Ferrell his own 10 game window to work with the team. Joerger doing this with the lineup that has been most successful since the arrival of Barnes is a coach with a new weapon trying to see where that weapon will be most efficient. Joerger is giving the best players the most minutes, without sacrificing playing time for Marvin Bagley III or the race for the eighth seed. He’s earned a bit of patience on this move, and I’m more than willing to give it to him.

Shifting gears a little hear to tonight’s game itself: we’ve got to talk about a couple of things to get you prepared for when the random family member who dropped by unannounced asks you all those mundane questions about the Thunder, so, lets get through this quick so I can drop a killer pun at the end. The Thunder are currently the 3rd best team in the Western Conference and no, I wasn’t joking when I said they run at the 2nd fastest pace in the NBA. They’ve recently overtaken the Kings for that spot who now sit, according to my public school math education, at 3rd place in the NBA. The Thunder score the 3rd most points per game in the NBA at 116 on the dot, they allow teams to score 110.8 a game, which puts them at 13th best in the league. This season the Thunder are lead in scoring by Paul George at 28.1 points per game and lead in basically everything else by Russell Westbrook who is currently averaging a triple double at 22 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Couple of fun things to throw at Random Cousin #1 who continues to break your concentration by eating pretzels way too loud and asking if you’d heard that Random Cousin #4’s kid stole an auger from their high school janitorial shed: Oklahoma City is 3rd in the NBA in total rebounds per game (2nd in offensive rebounds), they’re 13th in the NBA in blocks and most importantly to my agenda, they’re the best team in the league in steals, averaging over 10 a game. In fact, the Thunder occupy the first and third spots in the league in total steals per game with Paul George having swiped 129 passes, and Russell Westbrook having stolen 110 away. Speaking of swiping, there’s a King in the Top 5 in that particular category, De’Aaron Fox, who is 5th in the league in total steals with 98. I guess it’s not true what they say about no royalty amongst thieves!

Prediction

While the Kings don’t have Iman Shumpert here to torch the Thunder again for 17 in the first quarter; turns out, they don’t need him. Coming off of a frustrating game on Thursday, Buddy Hield comes out and drops 20 in the first half. De’Aaron Fox continues to be the surgeon’s blade to Russell Westbrook’s sledgehammer and Harrison Barnes locks up Paul George so bad that George blows out another of his own shoes just to get himself some breathing room away from The Black Hawk.

Kings: 121, Thunder: 114