WTLC Daily Loud Links: January 9, 2014

The Thunder head to Denver tonight to take on the Nuggets. We know that this is always a match-up that has flair, but unfortunately the Chief of Flair, Russell Westbrook, will not be on hand to torment the Nuggets fans and their mascot Rocky. Maybe Hasheem Thabeet will step up and block some of Rocky's half-court shots.

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At Daily Thunder, they try to put some context on Kevin Durant's performance in the past few weeks:

Durant’s doing all that in a little over 38 minutes a game. To be perfectly clear, those numbers — which we’ll just start calling the Beverleys — are gaudy.

Berry Tramel notes some interesting irony in the midst of OKC's struggles without Russell Westbrook:

That’s the mark of an inconsistent team. The Nuggets. The Mavericks. The T-Wolves.

The Thunder did not have such wild swings in play with Westbrook, which is ironic, since he personally delivers some of the wildest swings of play among NBA stars.

Kevin Love calls out some of his teammates, and I can't help but think that OKC's come-from-behind win over them might be contributing to their frustration.

"We can’t have two guys sitting at the end of the bench, who play good minutes, just sitting there and not getting up at timeouts," Love said. "We all need to be in this together. That kind of pisses me off. We’re supposed to be a team."

SB Nation's Paul Flannery takes a journey to Indiana to get a sense of the team they are building. Aside from the fact that it's a great read, there are also a lot of comparisons you could draw between Indiana and OKC.

Speaking of the Pacers, at 8 Points, 9 Seconds they examine Roy Hibbert's role in the evolution of how players protect the paint. There are a lot of similarities

James Harden busted out one of his trademark Eurosteps against the Lakers. To be sure Harden has made this one of his signature moves, but the Thunder have shown that they can adapt and adopt. Have you seen Durant's Eurostep lately? He can start on one side of the lane and end up on the other, and then go back again.

Finally, Gregg Popovich is still the best.