As the season gets closer and closer, media members and bloggers begin to rank teams based on their NBA’s League Pass watchability ranking. For this post, I will not be looking at the entire league, simply just what the Oklahoma City Thunder grade out to be.
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I will be using
to grade the Thunder.
They have five different categories and give a 1-10 for each category. The categories are…
Category No. 1: Relevance/Zeitgeist
"Interpreted as “relevance to the playoff picture,” “relevance to NBA junkies on the Internet,” and “general day-to-day relevance.” In other words, you went 0-for-3, Philly. (And Cleveland snared a 10 from both of us. Obviously.) (Via Grantland)"
Category No. 2: Hoops Nerdgasm Potential
"Covers special events like, “OH MY GOD, Phoenix is playing Bledsoe, Dragic and Isaiah Thomas right now with Gerald Green at the 4 and a Morris twin at center!” — as well as everything Pop and Carlisle are doing on a daily basis, everything that Stan Van Gundy and David Blatt might try this season, and everything that gets Haralabob Voulgaris fired up on Twitter (in a good way). If you’re coaching so creatively that you coax Zach into one of those 4,500-word columns with 15 embedded YouTube clips, you’ll score highly here."
Category No. 3: League Pass Minutiae
"Covers the quality of announcing teams (a.k.a. The Sean Elliott Mute Button Factor) and sideline reporters (we love you, Abby Chin!), as well as uniform colors, crowd behavior, any wide shot of empty seats on TV (sorry, Miami), the home arena’s floor pattern, the mascots, and for a second time, the mascots. You know, all the stuff Zach obsesses over."
Category No. 4: Individual Player Appeal
"If you employ the likes of LeBron, Durant or Curry on your team? You’re looking great for this category. If you revolve your team around Boogie Cousins? You’re looking great with one of us and shockingly decent with the other one. But if your only exciting player is missing the entire 2014-15 season with a broken leg? You might be looking at a Robert Parish — a.k.a. the double zero."
Category No. 5: Unintentional Comedy/Irrational Affection/Personality Intangibles
"This intentionally vague category covers moments like “Enes Kanter just took his 10th 3 of the night,” “Byron Scott is defending Phoenix’s 3-guard offense with Jeremy Lin, Nick Young and Steve Nash right now,” “Boris Diaw is feeling it,” any text or tweet that simply reads “Dante Exum!!!!,” “Marcus Smart just dove for a loose ball and inadvertently took out the scorer’s table while down 25 with 90 seconds to play,” “Giannis is starting at point guard,” “Dion Waiters is feeling it,” “Dirk just made his seventh straight one-legged fall-away,” “Blake Griffin just tried to dunk over four Warriors at the same time,” “Zach LaVine’s dunk from three minutes ago has already generated 220 comments on NBA Reddit,” “Jamal Crawford is feeling it,” “Kenneth Faried is playing tonight like terrorists told him he had to grab 30 rebounds or they were burning down his house,” all “STEPHEN CURRY HEAT CHECK!” texts, “Stan Van Gundy called a 20 just to stare down Josh Smith for 20 seconds,” and “Ricky Rubio has apparently decided that he’s only throwing alley-oop passes in tonight’s game.” You know, the stuff that makes the NBA’s regular season resonate with the true junkies every night."
Now to give the Thunder a grade (highest is 50, lowest is 0)
Note: Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe will have released their scores before this is posted. I am writing before I see theirs. Let’s see if I match up with two of the best basketball writers on the planet.