Tag: Basketball

As the decade draws to a close, it’s only natural to look back across the last ten years and evaluate how things have changed and evolved from 2010 to 2019.

The 2010’s brought the NBA mega-stars and the evolution of super teams, changing the landscape of the league forever.

Thanks to the rise of positionless basketball that saw bigs stepping out to the perimeter with increasing frequency, The Athletic’s Zac Harper had the unenviable task of trying to narrow down the numerous amount of players that have come through the league in the last 10 years to an All-Decade First Team and an All-Decade Second Team (with multiple guys earning honorable mention).

Some players, like Steph Curry and LeBron James, need no explanation.

Reflective of the organization’s rise over the last decade, four current and former Thunder players made the all-decade list.

James Harden

Harden lands on the list as a first-team win because, as Harper states, “he broke statistics.”

As he rounds out the decade, Harden is trying to average 40 points for the first time in an NBA season since Wilt Chamberlain did it. He might have to settle for the first player since Michael Jordan in 1987 to finish with 37 points per game or higher, but what a ridiculous accomplishment to be able to pull off. Only LeBron James and Kevin Durant have scored more points in the decade, and a good chunk of that decade had Harden as the Sixth Man behind KD and Russell Westbrook. He’s fifth in assists and third in steals for the decade. Harden has an MVP award and a Sixth Man of the Year award. There are six All-NBA Team awards and five of them are First Team.

Though Harden was only in Oklahoma City for the beginning of the decade, his impact on the franchise can still be felt seven years after he was traded to the Rockets.

Kevin Durant

Durant is also on the list as a first-team big thanks to his ability to “break basketball and hearts too”.

We’ve never seen a player like Durant before. He’s essentially a 7-foot shooting guard who can also dominate at any position defensively on the floor. Inside. Outside. Playing off-ball or dominating on-ball. Durant has become the created player in a video game who they tend to make algorithms against, just to try to make things fair. Surprisingly, the fascinating parts of Durant’s story have come off the court with alleged alpha struggles against Westbrook in OKC to alpha struggles with the identity of the team in Golden State between him and Curry. Durant has long wanted to be placed in the greatest players of all time category based on what he’s done. How could you not expect to be there with his résumé?

Durant’s relationship with Oklahoma City is complicated. He was loved during the time he was in OKC, hated when he left. Recent comments haven’t done anything to heal the frayed relationship between Durant and the Thunder, but there’s no denying the importance Durant played for both the organization and the growth of the NBA.

Russell Westbrook

Harper admits that he cheated by categorizing Westbrook as a wing. But the former Oklahoma City point guard deserves second-team recognition because he’s just been that good.

Averaging a triple-double over three straight seasons is something we talked about in the lore of Oscar Robertson and often wondered if anybody could do it again just once. Westbrook not only did it once, but also he did it so often that he’s kind of normalized triple-doubles. That’s a crazy thing to think about happening even 10 years ago.

For the majority of the decade, Westbrook WAS Oklahoma City. It almost feels fitting that as a new decade begins, the Thunder are learning what their organization looks like without a player as influential.

Chris Paul

The only player currently on the Thunder roster, Paul clocks in an All-Decade second team lead guard. His placement on the list may be controversial due to the fact that he’s never won an NBA Championship, he’s never even been to an NBA Finals, and he’s never been a league MVP. But for what Paul hasn’t done, there is so much more that the Oklahoma City point guard has accomplished.

He’s 17th in scoring during this decade despite being a pure point guard in the most traditional sense of the word. He did that on a true shooting of 58.7 percent over the decade. He’s second to Westbrook in assists for the decade by 253 dishes. And yet, he has about half the turnovers Westbrook does in this 10-year span. CP3 also played really good defense and ended up leading the decade in steals.

He had six straight seasons with both All-Defensive team and All-NBA team selections in the same year. He added another All-Defensive team on top of that. Maybe you don’t like Paul, but his production can’t be denied in this decade.

Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Kawhi Leonard rounded out the All-Decade First Team while Klay Thompson, Anthony Davis, and Blake Griffin made up the rest of the All-Decade Second Team.