OK - My 2 cents..

Little background on me: I am from Moore, OK and have lived between there and Midwest City my whole life. Never really cared about either of OU or OSU (even though I got accepted to both) so I defected and went to Bama (Roll Tide Role). So the Thunder are really my first hometown team that I can really be proud of. Brandon Roy used to be my favorite player and since his story has risen to the top of the "saddest NBA stories EVER" list, it has been hard to follow the Blazers. I have officially been an all out thunderhead for two years now. I live in Dallas now and STILL bought Thunder season Tickets. That’s right, I did it!

My thoughts on the upcoming season will be written in bullet form as to promote some kind of conversation here on WTLC. Thoughts around the league:

• Stern is a tool. Kind of like a monkey wrench or a screw driver, but and a good one at that. All he does is monkey around and screw teams like Nawleans. Poor CP3 is kind of stuck there.

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The new rules to improve the game just gave Dirk the leading number of FT attempts next year. He is the only person who can still kick his defender and get the foul. Poor DRose,Dwade, and Honeybager RW0.

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Howard will be in the purple and gold before the trade deadline is over. When is that by the way? Perk will begin to hate him almost immediately

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• If Pau Gasol is traded Perk will still hate him too.

• I still love Brandon Roy. He had to do what is right for him. @I understand.@

My Thoughts on the Thunder this year:

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Russel will not sign an extension until July 1st 2012. There I said it and it’s off my chest. Let's not worry about this until then.

• Russel will still continue to be aggressive and he will shoot better and 34% from 3pt range.

• James Harden will not start. Get over it. It is a short a season and Brooks would be smart to pull him off the bench. Harden likes to foul a lot so this will keep him in the game.

• Thabo will average just fewer than 19 mins per game. Mostly from the SG but from time to time he'll play at the SF. Cook should be the top man off the bench to relieve KD.

• We will see an increased role from Cole this year. Mostly because Nazr was signed to help him learn the game not really play that much. Expect this time to increase as the season goes on.

• Mr. Jackson will only get spot duties on the back-to-backs. Don’t be surprised to see him lighting up the courts in Tulsa either. It’s a system thing and I think Presti wants to use the 66ers like a farm team. Almost like Baseball. (Go Rangers BTW)

• Expect to see more plays with Perk and Russ on a give n go. Perk has a good dish pass and with Russ's speed we should see that almost regularly like the James to Nick backdoor play.

• KD will still have problems with getting open this year but he will play in the post more this year. So hopefully there will be no more 33ft last second shots.

Those are my thoughts so far. expect my two cents every week after Christmas.