Oklahoma City’s NBA Reporting = Fail

I swear, there is no pro-Seattle bias in what I say about OKC basketball. In fact, last night I was almost ready to admit that I’d been too hard on the roster. You know, since they’ll land another high lottery pick next summer, and then Durant will blossom, and Ibaka will be like Ginobili touching down when he’s ripe. Just like San Antonio. Oh, and I did like that attempt to sign C.J. Miles.↵
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↵But man, I will never cease to be amused by the tone of The Oklahoman’s NBA coverage. It really reads like it was either spit out by a soft-spoken HAL, or done with a Microsoft template, or by one of those college seniors sent over to hang out in the Green Zone to help draw up the Iraqi constitution. From today’s assessment of young GM Sam Presti’s progress:↵↵⇥How will the expiring contracts of Chris Wilcox and Donyell Marshall be handled?
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↵⇥Presti seemingly has three options: 1. Trade one or both players before the start of the regular season to shore up one of the roster’s other areas. 2. Start the season with both players and allow a mid-season trade to develop with a team looking to cut costs by adding expiring contracts. 3. Keep them through the entire season, evaluating both to determine whether they’re worth bringing back and at what cost. Because Marshall is 35 and averaged just 12 minutes last season following a mid-season trade, he seems unlikely to return. Wilcox, however, could prove to be a building block at power forward if he produces a breakout season.↵↵Wow, thanks. So contracts are structured in certain ways that technically offer up a variety of options. All of these must be weighed carefully, and a lot depends on how the players look next season. Remember, always stay polite, avoid either upbeat speculation, which scares people, or stark realism, which sucks. I don’t doubt that Presti’s doing something, but until local reporting figures out how to discuss the game, I’ve got no choice but to think he spends his days eating goldfish and playing Connect 4 while sitting on a stack of every other team’s media guides.↵