Post by Haberino on Jul 25, 2011 20:37:24 GMT -5
Aaron Haberman, GM: So where'd we leave off?
We continue with our series on one of the most active and visible franchises in BBS, the Oklahoma City Thunder in Their Own Words. This installation gives special focus to a special season. Our guests today are Rich Cho, assistant GM, and Aaron Haberman, GM.
Rich Cho, Assistant GM: I think I ended it making a joke about us dumping our youth and turning our core into into a batch of also-rans.
Haberman: Rich is excellent at driving phrases into the ground, yet even though he was joking, in some ways he's right. What was last year's team? Two of our main pieces were in their mid-to-late thirties, and our best player was 33. But obviously there's some more to the story.
Cho: One thing I did say in earnest was that I thought we were going to relax for a few years.
Haberman: That was the feeling we had. We had all these assets - the seventh pick, the 2027 Cavs pick when they were rebuilding, along with guys we loved in Brady Cooper, Marcus Jay and Randy Sinclair.
Cho: It got a little complicated from there. We loved Jojo Okulaja on New Orleans, and they were interested in the Cleveland pick. We thought, do we wait for Cleveland's situation to unfold, or do we throw precaution to the wind and get a guy we really like?
Haberman: It wasn't so dramatic a process. We had no reservations about Jojo.
Cho: At that point, our focus was still on the future. Jojo was young, and getting him made us feel like our future was taking shape.
Haberman: We felt he and all our other guys were still developing.
Cho: Well, they developed faster than we expected.
Haberman: Randy became a terrific rebounder and defender very quickly. Larry Foust's shotblocking and defense made for a really tough tandem to score on. The outside shooting guys were stellar, and we were winning a ton of games.
Cho: Then things really came together when we looked into acquiring pieces from teams who were trying to lose games. We dealt a pick for Fab Melo and got the post scoring and frontcourt depth we needed.
Haberman: When we got Fab, I thought we might have a chance to contend.
Cho: Basically, we kept winning. I think a little after the midway point, we were 44-16 and Aaron called me on a Friday night.
Haberman: I was at my cousin's wedding, and it was an open bar. At some point in the night, a point by which I'd had a lot to drink, I went to take a shit.
Cho: He's always taking and talking about shitting, so that's not really a surprise.
Haberman: I love shitting. Anyway, I'm looking in my phone, and I'm try to text Rich about the way the team played that day, because we were winning games, but I was at a point where I was feeling increasingly impatient.
Cho: It's a perennial feeling. But we'd won 44 of our first 60 games, and oddly enough we were both convinced our backcourt would get bullied by Chicago or New York.
Haberman: We thought about doing something like Brady for a similar young guard who could defend and rebound better. Brady made our offense go, but he was deficient in other important areas.
Cho: At that point, our lineup was unconventional. Our best offensive unit had this outside shooting identity - Cooper, Jay, Ramsey, and bombs away. But Ramsey's production was better at SG, and we loved Jojo's rebounding and defense at SF.
Haberman: I think our concerns were vaguer, actually. We liked everyone - we loved, loved, loved Frank Ramsey, but we liked everyone. Overall, though, we felt the backcourt unit could get outclassed by Chicago or New York, or possibly the Clippers.
Cho: Right. We wanted a dominant talent, with the one stipulation that he could either be young or inexpensive.
Haberman: Anyway, what happened was, I was scrolling to Rich's name, and of course I pass Ray McCallum's name.
Cho: He texted me in capitals that we needed to get Ray back.
Haberman: His value was at an alltime low, he was aging, and his team wanted to lose games. Alec Burks hadn't played a minute for us, and we didn't care about our picks, as we so often don't.
Cho: It took no time to get him back.
Haberman:It's funny, I came dangerously close to going on the record during the last installment and saying that we'd be bringing Ray back. I realized I needed to stop short, because of what I committed to when Rich came back, and because Ray was in his 30s and making a lot of money.
Cho: Getting Ray didn't cost us much, and it was huge for our fanbase. Fab was liked his first time around here, but Ray was the face of the franchise. It was a great thing for everyone involved to be bringing Ray back at a time when we were really good and needed his help.
Haberman: Very, very few guys could have unseated Brady Cooper from the get-go. But we had total faith in Ray, and we gave him the offense.
Cho: I think Brady privately didn't love losing his job when he was a 25 point scorer on the best team in the conference, but you can't be too vocal about your objections when an all-time great is coming back, and when fans are so excited about it.
Haberman: That was about the only regrettable part of it, but I'd be disingenuous if I said I regret it. A tough move, but the right one.
Cho: We got even hotter right off the bat. We finished the season 18-4, our defense turned dominant and the turnovers fell fast.
Haberman: It was only our second time winning 60 games in this league, and we did it in what we considered a transition year. We'd won 28 games the previous year. We picked 7th in that draft. It was a surprise, but by the time the playoffs came around, we weren't exactly stopping to smell the roses.
Cho: We wanted a fucking ring!
Haberman: The first round was easy enough. Memphis had an amazing backcourt, and Kyrie used to have his way with Ray, but everywhere else we were twice the team.
Cho: Oddly enough, we weren't concerned who we met in the conference finals. It was that second round matchup that we feared. The Clippers kicked the shit out of us at our place late in the season.
Haberman: And all they did in game 1 was blow us out by 31. We hung on by hairs in that series. We went down 3-1, gave up 141 points in an elimination game and escaped with a 1 point win.
Cho: We somehow came back from down 3-1, and got past the Suns without much trouble
Haberman: We really had no idea what to expect against the Bulls. We split the season series with them, with both teams winning the road game.
Cho: We were running very fast, and we wanted more versatile scoring, so we went balanced, started Fab, and made him a focal point. That's the depth chart that got us past the Clippers, too.
Haberman: We were expecting an absolute shootout. Nothing more, nothing less. Home court is obviously such a big advantage, but they had the better scorers, hands down. But in those first three games, the story was our defense. Dickerson got nothing done on us, and Jojo and Ray were both shutting Chicago's scorers down.
Cho:After we won, we didn't say anything about it for a while, but we knew how narrowly we escaped with that ring. They moved Dickerson to power forward, where he manhandled Randy and did something like 35 points, 15 rebounds, and 7 blocks. We took game 6 at home despite a terrible offensive performance, and finally, after 35 seasons of frustration, of being so close and falling short, we won.
Haberman: People ask if it was special because it was unexpected. No. It's special because we won, and if anything has to make it more special, it meant everything that Ray was here. He may be gone now, and we may be back to our old ways of constant retools, but nobody can say we didn't finally make it work. And to do it with the ex-franchise player brought back from the drudges of a rebuild, from the most surprising irrelevance, and winning MVP of the playoffs, well, you couldn't have written that. And if you did, everyone would say it's schlock, because it's too good to be true.
We continue with our series on one of the most active and visible franchises in BBS, the Oklahoma City Thunder in Their Own Words. This installation gives special focus to a special season. Our guests today are Rich Cho, assistant GM, and Aaron Haberman, GM.
Rich Cho, Assistant GM: I think I ended it making a joke about us dumping our youth and turning our core into into a batch of also-rans.
Haberman: Rich is excellent at driving phrases into the ground, yet even though he was joking, in some ways he's right. What was last year's team? Two of our main pieces were in their mid-to-late thirties, and our best player was 33. But obviously there's some more to the story.
Cho: One thing I did say in earnest was that I thought we were going to relax for a few years.
Haberman: That was the feeling we had. We had all these assets - the seventh pick, the 2027 Cavs pick when they were rebuilding, along with guys we loved in Brady Cooper, Marcus Jay and Randy Sinclair.
Cho: It got a little complicated from there. We loved Jojo Okulaja on New Orleans, and they were interested in the Cleveland pick. We thought, do we wait for Cleveland's situation to unfold, or do we throw precaution to the wind and get a guy we really like?
Haberman: It wasn't so dramatic a process. We had no reservations about Jojo.
Cho: At that point, our focus was still on the future. Jojo was young, and getting him made us feel like our future was taking shape.
Haberman: We felt he and all our other guys were still developing.
Cho: Well, they developed faster than we expected.
Haberman: Randy became a terrific rebounder and defender very quickly. Larry Foust's shotblocking and defense made for a really tough tandem to score on. The outside shooting guys were stellar, and we were winning a ton of games.
Cho: Then things really came together when we looked into acquiring pieces from teams who were trying to lose games. We dealt a pick for Fab Melo and got the post scoring and frontcourt depth we needed.
Haberman: When we got Fab, I thought we might have a chance to contend.
Cho: Basically, we kept winning. I think a little after the midway point, we were 44-16 and Aaron called me on a Friday night.
Haberman: I was at my cousin's wedding, and it was an open bar. At some point in the night, a point by which I'd had a lot to drink, I went to take a shit.
Cho: He's always taking and talking about shitting, so that's not really a surprise.
Haberman: I love shitting. Anyway, I'm looking in my phone, and I'm try to text Rich about the way the team played that day, because we were winning games, but I was at a point where I was feeling increasingly impatient.
Cho: It's a perennial feeling. But we'd won 44 of our first 60 games, and oddly enough we were both convinced our backcourt would get bullied by Chicago or New York.
Haberman: We thought about doing something like Brady for a similar young guard who could defend and rebound better. Brady made our offense go, but he was deficient in other important areas.
Cho: At that point, our lineup was unconventional. Our best offensive unit had this outside shooting identity - Cooper, Jay, Ramsey, and bombs away. But Ramsey's production was better at SG, and we loved Jojo's rebounding and defense at SF.
Haberman: I think our concerns were vaguer, actually. We liked everyone - we loved, loved, loved Frank Ramsey, but we liked everyone. Overall, though, we felt the backcourt unit could get outclassed by Chicago or New York, or possibly the Clippers.
Cho: Right. We wanted a dominant talent, with the one stipulation that he could either be young or inexpensive.
Haberman: Anyway, what happened was, I was scrolling to Rich's name, and of course I pass Ray McCallum's name.
Cho: He texted me in capitals that we needed to get Ray back.
Haberman: His value was at an alltime low, he was aging, and his team wanted to lose games. Alec Burks hadn't played a minute for us, and we didn't care about our picks, as we so often don't.
Cho: It took no time to get him back.
Haberman:It's funny, I came dangerously close to going on the record during the last installment and saying that we'd be bringing Ray back. I realized I needed to stop short, because of what I committed to when Rich came back, and because Ray was in his 30s and making a lot of money.
Cho: Getting Ray didn't cost us much, and it was huge for our fanbase. Fab was liked his first time around here, but Ray was the face of the franchise. It was a great thing for everyone involved to be bringing Ray back at a time when we were really good and needed his help.
Haberman: Very, very few guys could have unseated Brady Cooper from the get-go. But we had total faith in Ray, and we gave him the offense.
Cho: I think Brady privately didn't love losing his job when he was a 25 point scorer on the best team in the conference, but you can't be too vocal about your objections when an all-time great is coming back, and when fans are so excited about it.
Haberman: That was about the only regrettable part of it, but I'd be disingenuous if I said I regret it. A tough move, but the right one.
Cho: We got even hotter right off the bat. We finished the season 18-4, our defense turned dominant and the turnovers fell fast.
Haberman: It was only our second time winning 60 games in this league, and we did it in what we considered a transition year. We'd won 28 games the previous year. We picked 7th in that draft. It was a surprise, but by the time the playoffs came around, we weren't exactly stopping to smell the roses.
Cho: We wanted a fucking ring!
Haberman: The first round was easy enough. Memphis had an amazing backcourt, and Kyrie used to have his way with Ray, but everywhere else we were twice the team.
Cho: Oddly enough, we weren't concerned who we met in the conference finals. It was that second round matchup that we feared. The Clippers kicked the shit out of us at our place late in the season.
Haberman: And all they did in game 1 was blow us out by 31. We hung on by hairs in that series. We went down 3-1, gave up 141 points in an elimination game and escaped with a 1 point win.
Cho: We somehow came back from down 3-1, and got past the Suns without much trouble
Haberman: We really had no idea what to expect against the Bulls. We split the season series with them, with both teams winning the road game.
Cho: We were running very fast, and we wanted more versatile scoring, so we went balanced, started Fab, and made him a focal point. That's the depth chart that got us past the Clippers, too.
Haberman: We were expecting an absolute shootout. Nothing more, nothing less. Home court is obviously such a big advantage, but they had the better scorers, hands down. But in those first three games, the story was our defense. Dickerson got nothing done on us, and Jojo and Ray were both shutting Chicago's scorers down.
Cho:After we won, we didn't say anything about it for a while, but we knew how narrowly we escaped with that ring. They moved Dickerson to power forward, where he manhandled Randy and did something like 35 points, 15 rebounds, and 7 blocks. We took game 6 at home despite a terrible offensive performance, and finally, after 35 seasons of frustration, of being so close and falling short, we won.
Haberman: People ask if it was special because it was unexpected. No. It's special because we won, and if anything has to make it more special, it meant everything that Ray was here. He may be gone now, and we may be back to our old ways of constant retools, but nobody can say we didn't finally make it work. And to do it with the ex-franchise player brought back from the drudges of a rebuild, from the most surprising irrelevance, and winning MVP of the playoffs, well, you couldn't have written that. And if you did, everyone would say it's schlock, because it's too good to be true.