Latest / Bring The Thunder Podcast / HOW is Chet #25?! And JDub #19?! Bleacher Report’s CRAZY Rankings…

Transcript

HOW is Chet #25?! And JDub #19?! Bleacher Report’s CRAZY Rankings… · Bring The Thunder Podcast

0:04
You're listening to the Bring the Thunder Podcast, a podcast
0:07
by fans, for fans. Yes, indeed you are.
0:14
We're going to go ahead and introduce episode #32 for you
0:18
guys. We got a long list of different
0:21
topics for us. The first one we're going to be
0:23
covering is why the OKC Thunder don't care about Lou Dorte 3
0:28
point shooting percentage currently.
0:30
I know Mark had made some recent comments about him and
0:34
specifically his outside shooting.
0:36
Last year he averaged 10 points, shot 41.2% on five and a 5.8
0:42
attempts from three. And this year those numbers are
0:45
down to 8 points, 33% from the three on 5.5 attempts.
0:50
So I'm really happy to see the attempts haven't gone down, but
0:53
that's been a pretty wide difference from going from a 41%
0:57
shooter to a league average 33% shooter.
1:00
I know the fan base definitely has been frustrated with Ludor.
1:05
I mean, he's only 26 years old. I still think he should have the
1:09
benefit of the doubt. He's been the longest tenured
1:11
player and is one of the best franchises, developmental like
1:15
success stories that we've had. So it's really hard for us to
1:18
give up on a guy like this and kind of give him the cold
1:21
shoulder. What Mark mentioned about him,
1:24
he has a body of work of hitting the shots and you know, shooting
1:27
a large sample size of having a pretty solid percentages.
1:31
So he mentioned that he's not going to be overreacting the
1:34
ball, not going in. He said we'll overreact to the
1:38
bad shots, bad process. But as long as he keeps shooting
1:41
the right one, then he's just going to hang in, hang in there
1:43
with Lou Dort. And specifically he was
1:46
mentioning Lou Dort and Alex Crusoe in those comments.
1:49
But what do you think about Lou Dort's shooting and why the
1:52
Thunder couldn't be worried, Jack?
1:54
Yeah, well, I think it caused a little concern when we lost a
1:59
couple games to the Spurs. But since that Minnesota game
2:03
that we lost, Ludo's pretty much been on the ball with his
2:06
shooting. He's been shooting much, much
2:08
better and back to what we're used to.
2:09
But he started the season shooting sub 30% from three and
2:13
he's only averaging 37% from the field right now.
2:17
So offensively, it just hasn't really been there.
2:20
And it's quite frustrating to watch at this moment only
2:23
because players like J Dub is also coming back of injury and
2:27
Chet isn't there every night. So sometimes there's just no
2:30
offense and he's kind of the easy scapegoat for the Thunder
2:33
fans because Jacob's got this injury, so he can't, like he's
2:37
got an excuse. Everyone's got an excuse apart
2:40
from him, even though I think, yeah, I think the Thunder fans
2:44
have been pretty harsh on him and we just got to keep sticking
2:46
with it. But I thought it was pretty
2:48
ludicrous when I saw some trades, mock trades with him in
2:52
it just because he missed a couple shots to start the
2:54
season. But obviously he's still a
2:56
premium defender and yeah, sets the tone on defense, so we
3:00
couldn't do any of that without him.
3:01
But we just got to stay with him and I'd rather him miss the
3:04
shots now than in the post season.
3:07
Yeah, let's go ahead and get those early woes out of the way.
3:11
Oscarsoe is shooting 7 points, shot 35% from the three on three
3:16
attempts last season. This season, he's down to six
3:19
points on average, 29% on 3 1/2 attempts.
3:23
So his attempts have actually gone up.
3:25
The percentage has gone down by like 5%, but what Crusoe and
3:30
Mark are mentioning is they're not really looking at the
3:32
percentages, they're just looking more towards the
3:35
mentality and the Thunder philosophy.
3:38
As you guys know, if you're long time Thunder fans or even short
3:42
term, we've really moved towards high volume of threes just to
3:46
keep up with teams because we're so good on the defensive end.
3:49
So if our guys aren't hitting shots and they're not hitting
3:54
them for stretches, we can't really freak out because this is
3:57
not something that they're entirely used to for like their
4:00
whole tenure of their careers. This is just something that
4:03
they've been asked to do all across the board.
4:05
The only guy that's not been asked to do it is Hartenstein.
4:08
And eventually I'm sure even he'll start shooting threes at
4:12
some point, I hope. But that's kind of the case for
4:15
both of these guys. What Mark mentioned, it's just
4:19
more of a competitor philosophy for them that they keep
4:22
shooting. This is kind of something like I
4:24
mentioned that they're asking of them, but also they're looking
4:27
at the quality of shots and from the data that they have present
4:31
for Alex Crusoe and Lou Dort, it's telling them that they're
4:35
hitting the right type of shots. It's just not falling right now.
4:38
And so I don't see any of their minutes being changed.
4:41
I don't see that impacting them in trade conversations because
4:45
if the organization's addressing the issue itself, like I don't
4:50
think they're just going to go ahead and trade the player
4:53
unless they were to mention like, hey, this is a bad fit.
4:56
And I'm sure that organization's been pretty honest about where
5:00
things are good and bad, fit for players especially.
5:04
With and come playoff time, if they're still shooting 10% from
5:09
3, then they might work their way out of the rotation, but
5:13
it's a long way away and it's you can't give up on them this
5:17
early into the season. We're not even halfway there.
5:19
And yeah, I think it's it's ridiculous to even be talking
5:25
any spack about these guys really.
5:26
I mean, they're still giving up their role on defense, so all we
5:29
really need from them as well. Yeah, absolutely.
5:36
And moving towards some other comments after the Hawks game,
5:40
Shay Goetz Alexander was mentioning that defensively,
5:45
that's where they want to win in this league.
5:47
And that's really where they've hung their hat when it matters
5:49
the most and to be able to get the job done.
5:52
And he mentioned that they can't let the, you know, this recent
5:57
stint like slip to achieve their goals.
6:00
The past couple weeks, it's been pretty evident that they've let
6:03
the defense kind of hinder their winning ability.
6:08
And we don't know if it's regular season boredom or, you
6:12
know, it feels like the last couple games we've just had
6:15
defensive leakage. And I don't know if we just need
6:19
to tighten things up. That's what I've been mentioning
6:21
is just tightening up from a player focus standpoint, whether
6:25
it comes to shooting, that's mental.
6:27
And defense is also a mental thing where everyone kind of has
6:30
to get on the same page. And it feels like on both things
6:33
we're lacking just a little bit of emphasis on those.
6:37
And I, I guess even Shay's been recognizing and mentioning it
6:41
publicly and I'm sure his teammates are going to follow
6:44
his lead. What do you think about that,
6:45
Jack? Yeah, I think the other thing
6:47
we've been lacking on both sides is just connection.
6:51
And it got way better last game and we blew, blew out the
6:56
Portland Trail Blazers. And it kind of felt like the
7:00
first, first game since that Timberwolves game where the
7:03
Thunder played like themselves. Even when they beat the Hawks
7:06
and and the 76ers, they didn't really feel like Thunder wins.
7:10
It was just us being too good. But yeah, the Trailblazers game
7:14
was absolute domination and it was just connected on defense
7:17
and as long as we have our defense sorted, then our offense
7:20
will always come. So that's why guys like Alex
7:22
Caruso and Ludor the so according to this team.
7:26
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And moving towards some Chet
7:31
Holmgren and Shae Gil's Alexander news.
7:34
They appeared in the 2026 All Star voting and those numbers
7:37
came back where Chet is in 19th place in the West amongst All
7:41
Stars and she goes with Alexander was placed fourth on
7:46
that list. I feel like 4th is really low
7:49
for a guy coming off of finals MVPMVP run and then obviously
7:54
winning the championship. I knew his fan base is growing
7:59
so that's actually better than maybe previous years he would
8:03
have gotten this high after winning so much.
8:06
I know his fandom is kind of growing across the medias, but
8:10
still 4th felt kind of a shocker to me that he wasn't, you know,
8:15
placed higher. Guys that were ahead of him were
8:17
Steph Curry, Nikola Yokich, Doncic, and guys that were ahead
8:21
of Ted Holmgren were Jimmy Butler, Lori and Devin Booker.
8:29
It's curious Lori Markman's ahead of Ted Holmgren this
8:32
season, but I don't know. It's just kind of a interesting
8:38
thing to see the numbers come in and see the fan base is still
8:42
growing, but it's still not on par with some other teams and
8:46
maybe some other stars. Yeah, and I think it's all the
8:49
NBA Twitter misinformation is getting to people's heads.
8:55
Like if you go over to the East, Kate Cunningham, Jalen Brothers
9:00
and Tyrese Maxi all have more votes than Shay.
9:03
I, I, I don't know, I feel like Steph Curry getting more votes
9:07
than Shay in 20252026 is pretty crazy.
9:11
I know he's got the fan base and he's loved but actually I hate
9:15
is pretty crazy. But I mean the one thing is I've
9:18
seen a couple of Thunder fans worrying about chat and Shay
9:23
maybe not making it, but they have to remember that players
9:25
and media make up the rest of the 2/3 of the votes so they'll
9:30
easily get him. I'd assume Shay would be first
9:33
and player in everyone else's votes.
9:35
So I think it's just testament to how little the fans really
9:40
know and how little they watch. But yeah.
9:44
Yeah, I don't know if Chet's going to make it as a reserve,
9:48
maybe due to the injuries and stuff he may make it onto the
9:52
team or whatever, But it doesn't seem like there has been enough
9:55
hype media media team wise and also player wise talking about
10:00
Chet as an All Star this season. As much as I thought would have
10:03
happened, especially kind of the leap that he's taken.
10:06
I think it's kind of just a little disappointing, but this
10:09
is coming up on February 15th in the Elliot, LA new stadium.
10:15
So can't wait for you know, seeing this and hopefully the
10:18
Thunder second best player on a all time season makes the all
10:22
time, you know, All Star team because we've seen other teams
10:27
that have had all time seasons and they've had two, maybe even
10:31
3 All Stars in the game. So I I feel like Chad definitely
10:35
deserves it this go around talking about some more news.
10:40
We've been mentioning the this, but this has been more
10:44
officially reported before even I got to it.
10:48
J Dub has to get a new normal for his surgically repaired
10:53
wrist. That's kind of how it's being
10:56
dubbed. He's had a kind of a stretch of
10:59
games where he's not been normal.
11:01
And I think the quote was we're really not going to overreact to
11:06
the period of time. I think he's still working back.
11:09
He's healthy, but I think he just has to work to a new normal
11:12
as it relates to his wrist. And he's doing a good job of
11:14
that. And that's coming directly from
11:16
Mark. And that's kind of what I was
11:18
mentioning was before this report or before this was even
11:22
leaked by Mark, that his wrist is not a new normal.
11:26
He mentioned to himself that it is what it is with the wrist
11:29
now, like how how it functions is not going to change over
11:32
time. And I think we were the first
11:35
ones to kind of start talking about this maybe a couple weeks
11:37
ago. But what do you think about
11:38
that, Jack? Yeah, it's a little.
11:41
Worrying. To be honest that we're in the
11:45
point where the wrist seems to have done some irreversible
11:49
damage to Jada, but I think he is slowly getting his footing.
11:54
The one thing he's doing a fantastic job of is play making.
11:57
I think he knows that maybe he like his shots not dropping all
12:01
the time, but he's averaging 5.6 assists, 7 assists in the last
12:06
two games. He's gone 77668 in the last
12:10
however many games. So I think adjusting in that
12:14
sense has been really key. And I think chat has also done a
12:17
great job of stepping up into the scoring role.
12:20
But the future's pretty uncertain as to what to expect
12:23
because if J Dub can't like, we may never see his three-point
12:28
shot as good as it was again. I think his mid range has come
12:32
back from watching it. But if he can't score exactly
12:35
like if the rest is stopping him from scoring how he did, then we
12:39
have to move not on from him, but move on from him being the
12:43
second option. I think he might need to become
12:45
more of a facilitator, more of a drive heavy player.
12:49
Definitely play more off ball. We've used them, we'll have to
12:54
use him in a different way and I think chat would have to step up
12:56
into that second option, but hopefully he can work through it
12:59
and like they said, get used to the new normal.
13:03
But who knows? Really, only only time will
13:07
tell. Yeah.
13:09
And I think we can kind of survive what he's going through
13:13
right now as he kind of makes this adjustment.
13:15
But especially if we want to go back-to-back this year, we're
13:19
going to need him to return to at least a reliable shooter from
13:22
the three-point line. And I think the roles have kind
13:25
of reversed and Chet's kind of take that onus on him to be the
13:29
more powerful player, be the second option in my opinion.
13:33
He's trying to go towards that. And JW definitely knows, you
13:37
know, these guys, these guys are clearly smart players.
13:40
They know where they sit. So he's going to be taking that
13:44
back seat. And I think that's no problem
13:47
moving forward. But I do want to share this BR
13:50
report real quick with everyone as we finish out here.
13:56
This is the top 25 players under 25 for Bleacher Report.
14:03
We're going to get to #25 on the list.
14:05
It's actually Chet Holmgren. He's only 23 years old.
14:08
Fans honestly don't remember that at times.
14:12
I feel like he's also just won a championship.
14:16
I feel like being 25 on a out of 25 under 25 list, it's kind of
14:21
really low for a guy that just won.
14:24
And he's also in the DPOY race this year.
14:27
So it's kind of, you know, this article, just what came out
14:31
today or yesterday to have him this low.
14:35
What do you think about that, Jack?
14:37
I have to see the rest of the list but I think being in the
14:40
top 25 for all sports is pretty pretty decent and I am glad he's
14:44
got that respect but I can't really make a judgement until I
14:47
see see who else is on here but. All right, we're going to keep
14:51
going towards the list. This is Trinity.
14:53
Trinity Rodman. She's a national women team
14:57
soccer player. We got Paige, of course, on the
15:01
Dallas Wings. We got Gunner Henderson.
15:04
I hear his name a lot in the MLBLE De La Cruz on the Reds.
15:11
We got Will Anderson on the Texas team and J Dub comes in at
15:16
#19 at age 24 as the second option to achieve each of team.
15:21
Now I. Know that is low.
15:24
I don't care who's next, but I feel like that is low. 40 points
15:27
in the final All NBA, all All Star and All Star and all
15:32
defense in the same year. I don't know about 19.
15:37
Yeah, it feels like everyone that's going to come ahead of J
15:40
Dub and Chet, I'm just going to be kind of in a weird spot
15:44
because J Dub is second team all defense that you can see on
15:47
here. I believe you know, an All NBA
15:50
player as well. So it's kind of weird that at
15:52
age 24, when there's dynasty talks and him being a second
15:57
option, I feel like him being at that number, especially when you
16:01
see the next person on the list is of course the DPOY.
16:05
But yeah, pretty interesting that they have data below him.
16:13
Even chat below Evan Mobley is pretty interesting, I can't lie.
16:17
Yeah, yeah. It feels like Bleeding Report
16:20
does this with the list at times.
16:24
It's not going to say like the reason why he's at this level,
16:27
but I mean it's mainly towards him winning ADPOY, but I don't
16:34
think that's as good as a championship.
16:37
Not at all, and especially when he wouldn't have won it without
16:40
Wemby getting injured. But I'm sure Chat might win it
16:42
this year because Wemby's gone down again, so I guess Chat
16:48
might be #1 at the end of the year.
16:50
Yep, exactly. And Bijan Robinson comes at 17.
16:56
Right here we have Alpen Shengoon at #15 on the list now.
17:03
You just can't convince me that Shengyu in his four spots higher
17:07
than J Dog at all. Well, what has he done?
17:14
I'm not sure what he's done exactly.
17:17
It looks like they're mentioning that he's on the back end of the
17:22
season MVP ballot. I guess that matters a little
17:24
bit, but. J Dog would have been as well.
17:28
I guess that is beyond me. I think.
17:33
There's not better than 10. With like Nikola Yokich and him
17:37
being baby Yokich, you know, his name peaks on a higher market.
17:42
Also, the market's bigger over there with the Rockets, so he's
17:48
on that list. Let's keep moving forward here
17:52
through a couple of these NFL stars.
17:54
And we have Cade Cunningham at #9 he's that many spots higher
18:01
than J Dub and Chet, I can see him definitely higher than Chet.
18:06
And then the year that he's having this year, him being
18:09
higher than J Dub kind of makes. But what do you think about
18:11
this? Yeah, I'm not mad at him being
18:13
higher than J Dub, we'll chat, but I'm mad at him being 10
18:16
spots higher. Like I don't think there's that
18:18
much of a gap between him and J Dub.
18:20
And I mean, if if the D point can carry Evan Mobley that high,
18:25
then surely a championship and a 40 point final game can't carry
18:30
J Dub higher in this list. But yeah, I guess Bleach report
18:34
has done their job by making us discuss this and tell them
18:37
they're wrong. But I'm interested to see who
18:40
who tops who runs out this list, to be honest.
18:42
Yeah, we're going to keep moving forward past a couple more stars
18:46
here and get to the number 5 spot with Anthony Edwards.
18:51
I think this makes a lot of sense in being in the top five.
18:54
I mean he's looked at one of the faces of the league, can't be
18:58
too upset about him being this high, but do you think he
19:02
deserves to be this many spots higher than J Dub?
19:07
No, but I think J dub deserves to be high and is definitely the
19:11
better player and definitely top five.
19:13
But 19 is ludicrous for J dub. All right, where would you put J
19:18
Dub on the list if you had to re position him?
19:22
Would you put him in the top 10 essentially like one spot Kate
19:26
Cunningham or would you put him more closer?
19:29
I don't really know the NFL too well, but I put him right below
19:32
Kate Cunningham and I I just don't believe anyone in between
19:35
Kate and J Dub has has done any, anything more impressive.
19:40
I mean Kate hasn't even done that much more impressive things
19:43
in the calendar year than J Dub in my opinion.
19:46
So I I getting to the peak and then winning, especially having
19:51
an all time performance that's you can't really top that no
19:55
matter, especially when you haven't won any accolades or
19:59
anything in the year. Like I can't really think of a
20:03
reason but. Yeah, I completely agree.
20:07
And I think he's definitely earned top 10 for what he's won
20:10
this year. But we're going to get to the
20:12
number one player on this on this list is Victor Wyman Yama
20:17
this many spots ahead of Chet Holmgren, who's neck and neck
20:22
with him in a DPOY race. Even if Wimby hadn't gone down
20:26
and Chet was the one that was going to win it in that case.
20:29
But Chet would still be second in in the list and he's not that
20:32
much further when it comes to betting odds and just odds in
20:36
general to, you know, beat out Victor on a healthy season.
20:41
So them being 24 spots apart, I feel like it's kind of unfair,
20:46
especially having just won a championship here.
20:51
Yeah, I think there's way too many NFL players in this list to
20:54
begin with. And I don't think the gap
21:01
between J Dub, oh, I think Anthony Edwards is higher than
21:04
Wemby. And I think J Dub is right
21:06
around the same level as Wemby, if we're talking like, yeah,
21:11
easily, I'd say for all the reasons I've already mentioned.
21:15
But I mean, Wemby hasn't made a playoff.
21:19
He's had a couple of good games, but I don't know if J dubs 41 in
21:23
the finals. Can't really beat that
21:25
championship or with a broken wrist like.
21:29
And he hasn't had a full season. He hasn't had a full season
21:33
being healthy the way Chet has. I believe he played a full whole
21:36
season and he's proven that he's going to be on the court.
21:40
Something with Wembe is he's more played in stints throughout
21:45
the seasons. He's had a lot of injured,
21:47
injury riddled seasons and also his shooting has been up and
21:50
down and he's not. I mean, for a guy that's 75, I
21:53
was looking at his numbers. He's 51% from the field.
21:55
It's not really impressing me, right?
21:57
Like I need to see better numbers.
22:00
Obviously he's really young still only 21 years old.
22:03
But there can't be that much of a gap between these NBA players,
22:06
especially ones that have the accolades, have done it over
22:10
longer years. Like a guy like Anthony Edwards,
22:12
who's honestly had a way crazier start to his his, I guess career
22:18
because he's improved year over year and elevated into super
22:22
stardom himself by putting in hard work in the offseason.
22:26
And we just haven't seen Wemby take that leap, even though he's
22:28
coming to the league as a really dominant big, I believe
22:31
averaging above 3 to 3 1/2 blocks per game.
22:35
That's super impressive. We've not seen a player like
22:37
that. But his defensive floor is the
22:39
one that really carries him to the number one on the list.
22:42
But I believe there's still a lot more left to be, you know,
22:46
had on the table with his, you know, on the court appearances
22:50
and on the court performances. Yeah, yeah, this is a terrible
22:56
list. Yeah, I completely agree.
22:59
All right, so let's go ahead and end things off here.
23:04
This is episode #32 for us, and I appreciate you guys for
23:08
joining. I know Joe's not here.
23:10
He he's here with us in spirit. I promise we'll we'll go ahead
23:14
and wrap this up. Thunder up, baby.
23:16
Let's go.