Big stories from the Thunder's Sunday scrimmage

The Thunder played a scrimmage on Sunday, and only 2,000 lucky people in Newcastle got to watch. Luckily, some of those people were members of the media, and they were able to give us cool bits of info on what happened. Here's the most interesting stuff.

• Andre Roberson played with the starting unit. Roberson can pretty much be locked in as the leading candidate for the shooting guard spot right now.
• Steven Adams sat out with the same sore back issue that he's had for the past couple of days. Last we heard, Adams was having his back re-evaluated on Saturday. According to the Thunder's original report, the issue is not serious.
• Steven Adams would have started. Looks like he can be classified as the leading candidate for the starting center position.
• Nick Collison started in place of Steven Adams, rather than Enes Kanter. In my opinion, that says two things. One, Enes Kanter is definitely going to be in a bench scoring leader type of role, used during particular times of the game. Two, Collison is seen as more of a situational player that can be plugged into different lineups.
• Dion Waiters had 12 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists in just 30 minutes of action. That's totally bananas. In a post-game interview, coach Billy Donovan praised Waiters' natural passing ability. Donovan also praised Waiters' newfound offensive efficiency. Waiters never had a game like this last season, so this news is nothing short of incredible.

Kevin Durant returns to floor in Thunder scrimmage

KD shot over 50%, but he also airballed two threes.
• Dion Waiters shouted "AND ONE" during one of his layups. I just wanted to let everyone know that the man is consistent.
• Cameron Payne scored 10 points and had 6 assists. Payne is only a rookie, and he had no trouble darting around screens and finding space. Payne is supposed to be in a position battle with D.J. Augustin. Augustin's stats weren't published, but Payne certainly outperformed him. Payne also made the game winning assist to Steve Novak for three. It will be interesting to see whether Payne can force his way into any minutes this season, though it's still way too early to tell. Donovan didn't really indicate which point guard he preferred, but pointed out that Payne could learn from both Westbrook and Augustin.
• Yeah, Steve Novak hit the game winner. For the bench. Figures, right?
• Westbrook had 14 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Westbrook never really engages full-blast in warm-up games, but this is still a re-assuring line.
• Kanter had 11 points on 5 of 5 shooting. Without Adams on the floor, who was going to stop him?
• People lined up to get into this game early in the morning. This was despite the fact that it started at 3PM. Just wanted to let you guys know that the excitement is real.
• Full highlights of the game.