Oklahoma City Thunder Rumors & News

The Oklahoman "All the Thunder wanted to do was extend the series. Take it back to Memphis and see what happens. “It's not hoping for a miracle to win one game at home,” coach Scott Brooks said at his team's morning shootaround. In the end, it wasn't meant to be. A season that started off so..." May 16

Fox Sports Tennessee "Memphis players follow the lead of coach Lionel Hollins and like to say they have accomplished nothing yet. That may be true of the long run, but after surviving a furious rally at Oklahoma City on Wednesday night for an 88-84 victory, the Grizzlies are headed to the Western Conference finals for..." May 16

The Oklahoman "Suddenly, the Thunder has a new issue. And, no, this latest problem is not a natural sign of the team's progress. It's more like Oklahoma City's leading cause for concern. Already saddled by fundamental flaws such as turnovers, rebounding and an inability to knock down open shots, the..." May 15

Memphis Commercial Appeal "Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder found out just why the Grizzlies have three NBA All-Defensive players and a stinginess that earns them the right to be called the most oppressive team in the league. It was a reminder Monday night that couldn’t have come at a worse time for the..." May 14

NBA.com "Memphis Grizzlies guard Tony Allen and Miami Heat forward LeBron James, winner of the 2012-13 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award, headline the 2012-13 NBA All-Defensive First Team, the NBA announced today. Allen totaled 53 points overall and James tallied 52. Each player received 25 First Team..." May 13

The Oklahoman "“Yeah,” Ibaka said. “It's normal, man. It's normal. A little bit. But that does not mean my confidence is way down because after all the shots I missed, after the (missed) dunk, I was still playing defense. I wanted to still help my teammates. I wanted to still try to be aggressive. But it's..." May 13

SportingNews.com "The image of OKC Thunder power forward Serge Ibaka missing a point-blank dunk attempt is about as jarring as the numbers attached to his first postseason series without Russell Westbrook and James Harden. In three games against the Memphis Grizzlies, Ibaka averages 9.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and..." May 12

The Oklahoman "Serge Ibaka laughed. I asked him about the two missed dunks, and he laughed. It's one thing to miss 17-footers by the riverboat load. It's quite another to miss uncontested dunks. If Ibaka can't even dunk anymore, if the loss of Russell Westbrook has robbed the Thunder even of the most simple..." May 12

The Oklahoman "Reggie Jackson called them boneheaded plays. There were two of them, in the span of 41 seconds, and if Jackson could take them back you know he would. “Do it differently,” Jackson said, “and it might be a different story, a different headline.” Perhaps. Instead, Oklahoma City fell into a 2-1..." May 12

The Oklahoman "In between watching games from a spacious suite inside Chesapeake Energy Arena and rehabbing his right knee, Russell Westbrook has spent his time watching movies and tutoring teammates. “Even though I'm out,” Westbrook said, “I still have a voice and I can help my team.” Perhaps no player has..." May 11

Memphis Commercial Appeal "The Grizzlies kept the home court advantage on Saturday that it stole from Oklahoma City, but it wasn’t easy. Memphis had to close the game with six consecutive points, all on free throws, to take an 87-81 victory in game 3 at FedExForum to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western..." May 11

The Oklahoman "No Russell Westbrook. No Derrick Rose. No Luol Deng. No Danny Granger. No Amar'e Stoudemire. No David Lee. The NBA's conference semifinals are rife with stars sidelined by injury. Only the blessed — the Heat, the Grizzlies, the Spurs — are playing with a full deck. But that doesn't mean a pass..." May 11

The Oklahoman "He looked like Russell Westbrook. He sounded like Russell Westbrook. But I'm not convinced. Too much smiling. Too much introspection. Too much charm. Westbrook sat down Thursday morning for a 17-minute interview with the Thunder press corps, his first public comments since the knee injury..." May 10

The Oklahoman "To hear Memphis coach Lionel Hollins tell it after Game 1, Tony Allen had as much hope of guarding Kevin Durant as Woody Allen. After the Grizzlies defensive whiz barely guarded the Thunder superstar on Sunday, Hollins was reminded that Allen had done a pretty decent job against Durant in the..." May 09

Fox Sports Southwest "Down two points, Kevin Durant got another good look. Kind of like he did in Game 1, but this time his 3-pointer on a designed play out of the timeout missed. Then less than a minute later and with the Thunder trailing by four, Durant tripped and fell and lost the ball. He missed another..." May 08

The Oklahoman "Mired in a near-historic mid-March shooting slump, Derek Fisher's NBA expiration date seemed about two years overdue. The Thunder's February decision to sign him produced puzzled looks. Scott Brooks' decision to keep playing him came with heavy scrutiny. But now, less than two months after..." May 05

The Oklahoman "Scott Brooks on Friday night finally did what so many have seemed to want him to do for so long. He benched Kendrick Perkins. When the decision worked, and the Thunder went on to a series-clinching win in Game 6 over the Houston Rockets, those recognizable three syllables once again..." May 05

The Oklahoman "The morning after Pau Gasol put a series-clinching tip-in straight through the Thunder's heart during the 2010 playoffs, we here at sports department headquarters ran one of our more memorable headlines. “GASOL, FOLKS”. Thing is, that wasn't Gasol, folks. Not even close. Every year that the..." May 05

CBSSports.com "Down by one in the final minute, the Oklahoma City's Derek Fisher turned a tough situation for the Thunder into the worst-case scenario for the Grizzlies. Fisher poked the ball away from Memphis' Mike Conley, springing three-time NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant into the open court with a..." May 05

The Oklahoman "Scott Brooks never has seemed to mind how simple his coaching philosophies might sound. Even after losing his All-Star point guard, even after two straight losses, including one highly disappointing home defeat, and even after getting peppered with questions in the last two days about what he..." May 04

New Orleans Times-Picayune "Certainly the complexion of the first NBA Western Conference semifinal that tips off Sunday afternoon is far different than anyone expected. Sure, the defending Western Conference champion Oklahoma City Thunder is one of the combatants, but the Thunder carries a far different look with point..." May 04

Houston Chronicle "The Rockets finally ran out of comebacks. They had taken the Oklahoma City Thunder as far as they could, farther than seemed possible when the series began, and could go no farther. The Rockets had one last burst in them, opening a 10-point third quarter lead. And with that, they were done. The..." May 04

The Oklahoman "A Houston Rockets rookie tried to trash talk Kevin Durant. Two days later, Durant got the last laugh. Royce White, the Rockets’ 16th overall pick in last year’s draft, took to Twitter following Game 5 to tease Durant and the Thunder about the team’s seven-point home loss. “Y’all are looking..." May 03

Houston Chronicle "Kevin Durant apparently doesn’t know Omer Asik. The way Asik is playing, Durant will soon. In the fourth quarter of the Rockets’ 107-100 Game 5 victory, Oklahoma City used a strategy of fouling the Rockets’ center intentionally in hopes of making a comeback. It didn’t work, as Asik made..." May 02

The Oklahoman "The Thunder-Rocket series is proving two things, at least on the Oklahoma City side. How good Kevin Durant is. And how good Russell Westbrook is. The Rockets clubbed the Thunder 107-100 — it wasn't that close — in Game 5 Wednesday night, and everyone in Thunder blue is thinking the same..." May 02

Houston Chronicle "Houston’s season is not history yet. Instead, the Rockets’ quest for NBA history is still alive. The Rockets beat host Oklahoma City 107-100 on Wednesday in Game 5 of the Western Conference opening round. The Rockets pulled within 3-2 in the series and come back home for Game 6 on..." May 02

The Oklahoman "Serge Ibaka looked like he'd just been shot, as if somewhere high in the Toyota Center stands lurked a sniper, whose scope had been locked squarely on the front of his road blue No. 9 jersey. After missing the game's most important shot Monday night at Houston, a stick-back attempt from..." May 01

Houston Chronicle "Finally, the ball did not bounce 12 feet in the air and stab the Rockets in the heart. Kevin Durant did not get the last shot. The Rockets held on. After consecutive games in which the Rockets did everything but close out a win, they held their breath as a pair of final, last-chance Oklahoma..." April 30

Yahoo! Sports "A ball boy for the Oklahoma City Thunder is being investigated for making an alleged death threat to Houston Rockets player Patrick Beverley, according to Oklahoma City police. According to CBSSports.com, Thunder ball boy Mitchell Brown reportedly sent out a tweet on his own account that read,..." April 28

Houston Chronicle "Finally, as Kevin Durant’s last-minute 3 bounced high above the rim and hung in the air before falling through the net, the Rockets had run out of comebacks. The Rockets had come back from a 26-point deficit to take another fourth-quarter lead. They led in the last minute. But with the game on..." April 28

Yahoo! Sports "Before the Houston Rockets' practice on Friday, Patrick Beverley scooped up his phone and started to scroll his mentions on Twitter. Russell Westbrook needed knee surgery, and the angry online mob had come calling for the Rockets rookie in cyberspace. "Get off it," the Rockets trainer chastised..." April 27

The Oklahoman "Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook will undergo surgery in the coming days to repair a lateral meniscus tear in his right knee, the team announced today. Westbrook was injured in the second quarter of Game 2 of the first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets. Westbrook..." April 26

CBSSports.com "The founder and managing director of the National Basketball Players Association's former financial firm has been charged with attempting to defraud the union of $3 million by forging the signature of a dead man, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Joseph Lombardo, 72, the founder and director..." April 26

The Oklahoman "Kevin Durant scored 15 first-quarter points, made six of 11 shots and looked like he was headed for an historic night. Historic? No. Heroic? Yes. Durant dominated the final 200 seconds of a game that came perilously close to a huge upset, allowing the Thunder to survive the Rockets 105-102..." April 25

The Oklahoman "As we have all come to realize, Thunder star Kevin Durant is tired of playing second-fiddle to LeBron James, the Miami Heat, Greg Oden and everybody else in his basketball career. However, this week will mark the fifth time Durant has finished first as Sports Illustrated’s choice for the..." April 24

The Oklahoman "The love affair between Thunder fans and James Harden evidently is over. Harden was booed from start to finish Sunday night during Game 1 of the playoff series between OKC and Houston at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Actually, the booing came before the start during pregame introductions. On the..." April 22

USA Today "Give Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey credit for this much: he has no interest in gloating about the trade that transformed his franchise. Acclaim has been easy to come by for Morey this season, as his October deal that brought James Harden to town from Oklahoma City put his team..." April 20

Washington Post "Kevin Durant ceded his three-year run as NBA scoring champion to Carmelo Anthony, announcing on Instagram before the regular season finale that he was going to sit rather than exhaust himself trying to score the 70 points he would’ve needed. Durant likely also will wind up a distant second in..." April 20

Houston Chronicle "James Harden knew the attention – the cameras, the expectations and most of all the opposing defense – would all be focused on him. “It comes with the package,” he said. But he also knew the matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder would push it all to dramatically greater levels of scrutiny and..." April 18

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "No Kevin Durant. Russell Westbrook made an early cameo and sat down for the rest of the night. Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City's sultan of swat, played just 8 minutes. Hey, it didn't matter. The Milwaukee Bucks desperately needed a victory in the regular-season finale Wednesday night and..." April 18

Yahoo! Sports "Brazilian 7-footer Lucas Nogueira, a serious candidate to be a first-round draft pick, has decided to enter the NBA draft, sources told Yahoo! Sports. Nogueira, 20, possesses a 7-foot-6 wingspan and has been an intriguing prospect to NBA executives for several years. The center initially..." April 17

New York Daily News "Carmelo Anthony has won the title — the NBA scoring title, that is. Neither Anthony nor Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant will play in their team's respective season finales Wednesday, meaning the Knicks' MVP candidate will finish the season as the league's top scorer for the first time in his..." April 17