I had always believed that Cam was never a ceiling raiser for them and the crowd of Cam, THJ and JV didn’t necessarily make them better especially in the Playoffs.

MPJ might genuinely be the best tough shot maker in the league, is a very good rebounder and a better defender. In the Playoffs that stuff absolutely matters.

Granted its one Regular Season game, but he felt almost invisible in this game. And thats the thing, what is it going to look like in high pressure Playoff situations. 

And look at Isaiah Joe, two absolute daggers and big time shots. 

More than nice guys i think it is more the idea of the player than the player itself. Guys like Barnes, Harris or Johnson are in theory the guy you want on that ³⁄₄ spot: tall wings, that can space and in theory guard multiple positions, can do a lot of stuff at a ⁶⁄₁₀ or ⁷⁄₁₀… but they are not star in anything and doesn’t have the attitude and attributes to play in big minutes.

Harris is the biggest example of this, imho. He was always a guy playing the correct way, but he disappeared in big games and every now and then because he just stick to game plan and that’s fine if you are an MLE guy, but not when you are paying 25+ Mil.

Cam Johnson became this ideal dude right after 2022 playoffs and during his Brooklyn tenure where he was good on a shitty team. But he is probably even worse than Tobias and closer to Barnes chokes levels instead (particularly he is not that great of a shooter as people think).

That’s why when all the people shitted on MPJ I kept saying there are no many players like MPJ in the league, that can make virtually any basket and catch fire once every 3 or 4 games, being constantly above 40% from deep… only because of this MPJ gets much more respect from defense than a guy like Cam can ever get.

I agree. Jokic has been given enough chances.

Bigger issue is his lack of availability imho, but yes also shoting is going bad. I would say to explore trades to improve the spot.

Wait is he not at 42%?

jokic has never not shot like that

It’s also ironic that a lot of us Thunder fans were gooning for Cam Johnson last year, hoping for a trade to Thunder

They always have the advantage in games like that because they have arguably the best collection of defensive players ever. They got multiple All-Defense guys and multiple guys who could easily be on that level. If both teams are missing shots, that’s the game OKC wants to play

No Ajay Mitchell has hurt a ton. He was balling out of control when healthy.

I think they def should have tried to beat okc if they really wanted to win that series (:

Yes the Thunder leave open players they are confident will fuck up a wide open look, in order to overcrowd the actual good players who might score

But the game was already out of reach so not very clutch. Could have used those shots in the 4th when Jamal was silent

Yeah, agree with all of that. But it seems like he also brings such a mental edge to the team as well that you don’t see a lot from a 3rd option.