As Free Agency winds down to a close, the amount of Thunder news has slowed down to a trickle. Because of this, articles need to be made in order to fill in the time between now and the Pre-Season. Here, I take a look aback at the past two years, and some of the worst mishaps I've made while blogging.
5. Thinking of taking Solomon Alabi in the first round.
After writing that article, I was seriously considering wanting to take Solomon Alabi in the first round. And what happened? Well, Solomon Alabi fell deep into the second round of the draft, and was passed up by the Thunder on several occasions. The Thunder ended up trading for his teammate, Ryan Reid. They had similar Summer League numbers (click here and here), with Reid playing on the more talented team and having better percentages. Looking back, I'm glad we didn't take Alabi....especially in the first round.
4. The NBA as locked out its' referees, and I'm ecstatic!
Well, not really. When the event happened, I thought the locking out of referees would lead to a breaking of the old boy network. That is, younger referees from places like the D-League would bring in fresh blood and start making the proper calls. Like no ticky-tack fouls, and less charges. This would lead to everyone realizing that the younger refs were better, and that the actual refs needed to change their ways. In the end, the NBA would have a much purer game. Right? Wrong. What actually happened was the inexperienced refs either didn't want to buck the norm or made ridiculously bad calls. As a result, when the normal refs came back at the start of the season, everyone was relieved. Yes, sometimes I live in too idealized of a world.
Below: The Top 3.
3. The NBA no longer uses hard brackets?
As I was watching a late season Thunder game, Brian Davis started talking about the playoffs. He talked about how if the Thunder advanced out of the first round, they would have to play the remaining highest seeded team, because the NBA no longer used hard brackets. I did a double-take. Really? I looked it up online. I remember the Warriors playing the fourth seeded Jazz when they advanced as an 8 seed, but I couldn't remember a time where it came into play after that. Maybe the NBA changed the rules? I couldn't find anything about a rule change, so I decided to just trust the judgement of Brian Davis, and post a non-hard bracket prediction of the NBA playoffs in the above article. The result? TOTAL FAIL. Brian Davis was completely wrong. The NBA has never used non-hard brackets. And I came out looking like a fool. Ugh.
2. The Thunder Won't Make the Playoffs.
At the beginning of the last season, I made a bold declaration, stating that neither the Grizzlies or the Thunder would make the playoffs. Not only that, but neither would stand a chance of making the playoffs. Why? Well, in a nutshell, I stated that since neither had made a tremendous roster change, not much would change for the upcoming season. The result? Complete failure. The Thunder did, in fact, make the playoffs, with much room to spare. The Grizzlies didn't make the playoffs, but they did get 40 wins, finishing just a game short of .500. Without Allen Iverson. Yep, I was off there.
And the #1 Zorgon Mishap....
1. Firing P.J. Carlesimo was a bad idea.
No matter how well the Thunder do under the Brooks era, I'll always have a soft spot for P.J. Carlesimo. He was, after all, coach of the team that made me fall in love with basketball, the 1998-1999 Golden State Warriors. And he is always the source of awesome photos, as evidenced by this photo essay I put together when he was fired. But firing P.J. Carlesimo was a good idea. At the time, I thought the firing was premature, as we were only 13 games into the season, and P.J. was working with a woefully under-talented team. But, as I learned later, Scott Brooks would turn out to be the much better coach. He would actually put talent above experience (ahem, Earl Watson over Russell Westbrook), and he would be willing to play a smaller lineup so the 6'10" Kevin Durant wouldn't be stuck at SG. The rest is history, as he somewhat recovered the ship in that season, and led the team to a miraculous playoff run on the next. Scott Brooks, I was wrong about you.
So what do you think was my worst mishap? Vote in the Poll!
Have any bad mishaps of your own to share? Drop a comment!
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