Unfortunately for the Oklahoma City Thunder, the basketball gods have decided to strike them in the worst possible way this season.
It all started when rookie Mitch McGary suffered a broken left foot during the preseason. Soon followed a devastating injury to Kevin Durant, who similarly suffered a broken right foot during the preseason, forcing him to miss the next 6-8 weeks. Then came news that Reggie Jackson sprained his ankle and Jeremy Lamb tweaked his back during practice. Both have missed the team’s first two games of the season and are without a timetable for a return. It didn’t stop there, as newly signed Anthony Morrow sprained his MCL and is slated to miss 4-6 weeks from the injury. Reserve forward Grant Jerrett is also out due to an ankle injury.
Whew. That is a long list of injured players.
All the injuries meant it was time for Russell Westbrook to carry a very, very heavy load and try to weather the storm until his running mate returns. Albeit in a loss, the point guard did just that in the first game of the season against the Portland Trail Blazers when he went off for 38 points, six assists and three steals. On Thursday night against the Los Angeles Clippers, however, more disaster struck when Westbrook suffered a broken hand while going up for a rebound in the second quarter of the contest:
Sam Amick of USA Today provides the most up-to-date information on the situation here:
Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook broke his right hand Thursday, coach Scott Brooks said after the loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
Westbrook, hurt during the middle of the second quarter of the 93-90 loss, has a small fracture in his second metacarpal. No timetable on a return was available Thursday night.
“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Brooks said. “We have to figure it out together.”
No timetable yet for how long Westbrook will be out for, but presumably, he will be gone for at least a month.
UPDATE: Westbrook will miss 4-6 weeks, according to Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman:
The early indication is that Russell Westbrook could miss four to six weeks after fracturing the second metacarpal in his right hand Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers.
It could keep the Thunder’s electric point guard sidelined through mid-December and add him to an already ridiculously long list of injured Oklahoma City players who are expected to miss the season’s first month.
Quite frankly, this is absolute brutality.
The Thunder are now left with Sebastian Telfair – who filled in respectably with 11 points and seven assists after Westbrook went down – as the only active point guard on the roster. The team has never gone through a situation like this in the Durant era where they were absolutely decimated by injuries.
With both stars out for an extended period of time, Oklahoma City will now turn to Serge Ibaka and Perry Jones to carry the load. Jones somehow turned in a shocking Durant-like performance against the Clippers with 32 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field, seven rebounds, three assists and a block. That was against a pretty good defender in Matt Barnes, too. It’s unclear if Jones is capable of more games like this on a consistent basis, but there isn’t much of a choice but to watch and find out at this point.
As for the title aspirations they had heading into this season? This bunch will be lucky to make the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference. It’s unclear when Durant and Westbrook will return, but a month’s worth of losses is going to be mighty tough to overcome, even if they go on a ridiculous run when they do return.
OTHER NEWS AND ITEMS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE:
- When Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard got into on opening night, we could tell some of the things that were being said simply by reading their lips. Well, there is now a clip available via Instagram that caught what Bryant said exactly to Howard, and it’s pretty ugly. Have a listen:
Sounded like “Soft motherheffer” and “Witch as Jigga” to me. We’ll see if the league does anything about this. It was in the heat of the moment and never would have been heard without this particular clip, so you’d like to think there will be no consequences. But then again, a leaked recording got an owner kicked out of the league, so we’ll see. On a side note, Jeremy Lin didn’t seem to enjoy listening to what was being said at all.
If that’s not enough “beef” for you, check out this little back and forth between Kenneth Faried and Josh Smith, who played against each other on opening night, from Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: “Josh Smith, we let him keep shooting,” Faried said on the team’s website after the game. “And he ended up with 25, but he still kept shooting. He shot them out of the game.” Smith, who started off hitting six of his first 10 shots but made just three of his final 12, heard of Faried’s comments Thursday afternoon from a friend, and fired back in kind before the Pistons played the Minnesota Timberwolves. “I don’t respond to nobody with dreadlocks who plays basketball,” Smith said, referring to Faried’s hairdo. “He’s a clown, quote me on that.”… “He knows it’s coming, he knows, next time we play,” Smith said. “In order to make those comments like that, you gotta be able to back it up and we’ll see next time.” “I’ll have some words while I’m busting his (behind). I back it up when I talk. It’s gonna be a pretty good matchup.”… “He fears me,” Smith said. “He’s scared of me, so, of course, he’ll talk about me in the paper. He won’t do it to me in my face. If you have to hide behind a microphone or smartphone, so be it. I don’t mind.”
The Cleveland Cavaliers are closing in on a deal to keep Anderson Varejao, according to Marc Stein of ESPN: “The Cleveland Cavaliers are nearing agreement on a contract extension with long-serving big man Anderson Varejao, league sources told ESPN.com on Thursday. Sources said the Cavaliers and Varejao — one of LeBron James’ most beloved teammates — are closing in on a new three-year deal worth an estimated $30 million that would kick in starting with the 2015-16 season. Varejao has spent his entire NBA career with the Cavaliers after Cleveland acquired his rights on draft night in 2004. The Cavaliers and Varejao, sources said, have been eager to finalize terms on a new pact before the start of the new season. Cleveland opens its campaign Thursday by hosting the New York Knicks.”
- What is the deal with Nene Hilario and his need to try to headbutt people? Oh, and Amare Stoudemire did this with Taylor Swift. Stoudemire was subsequently benched in the next game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. I’m not actually saying one has to do with the other, but I’m just saying.
When you’re under a microscope as an NBA player, you have to watch what you say. That’s not so much the case when you’re just another face in the crowd. Before Damian Lillard made it big, he tweeted some ill-advised things to LeBron James during one particular playoff series. Kevin Draper of Deadspin discovered a post containing those tweets and posted them here. Word got back to Lillard, who expressed regret for those tweets, from Joe Freeman of The Oregonian: “One of my coaches used to always tell me that when you make mistakes, you’ve got to face the music,” Lillard said on Thursday, when asked about the tweets. “In college, me and some of my college teammates were messing around. I was the obvious Miami Heat fan and they wanted Dallas to win and I made some comments about LeBron that was uncalled for. And that just goes to show that a lot of kids now on the social network, a lot of the stuff that you put out there, you never know when it can come back. So my advice to them is to be careful with that. “It was just irresponsible. It’s something that I’m not proud of. But I can also say that I’ve grown up since then. And I was just a young kid doing crazy stuff with my teammates.”
- Bad news hit the New York Knicks when it was announced the Jose Calderon would be out for an extended period of time, from Ian Begley of ESPN NY: “Knicks say an MRI to Jose Calderon’s right calf today confirmed a strain. He is expected to miss 2-3 weeks.”
James Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.