Cochran worked in OKC
For those of you who are college football fans, there is an entertaining video circulating on the Internet in which Alabama’s strength and conditioning coach, Scott Cochran, is firing up the Tide players before a practice leading up to this week’s game against Georgia. Cochran creates some controversy when he slips in, “They wearin’ black because they goin’ to a MF’n funeral,” referencing the Bulldogs’ plans to blackout their stadium this weekend.
Funny thing is, Cochran used to work for the Hornets during their two-year stay in OKC before leaving the team to take his current job. He’s not a guy who we ever wrote anything about. He was an assistant strength coach under Jack Manson at the time. But I remember him being just as fiery as you’ll see in these videos. I never heard him making any references to the Spurs’ black road uniforms.
Beware of the usage of the one graphic word he uses in the controversial line. It’s at the 1:05 mark in this video.
Before they knew it would backfire, the Alabama media relations department praised Cochran’s fiery spirit on page 89 of this year’s media guide:
“The booming voice you hear leading a pre-practice stretch or encouraging a Crimson Tide player to finish a workout session strong is that of Head Football Strength and Conditioning Coach Scott Cochran.”
Here’s another video from Cochran in which he drops several gems throughout the five-minute clip:
2:30 – “I thought I told you. I’m a no limit soldier.”
3:08 – “Gon’ have us a great day, baby. Gon’ have us a great day. Gon’ be fast all day. What’s happenin’ captin’?”
3:20 – “You have to pay the cos’ to be the boss. Pay the cos’ to be the boss. Yeeeeaaaah. How’s it go again? Pay the cos’ to be the boss.”
Should be a good game.
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Price joins Hawks staff
Mark Price, an Enid native and arguably the greatest high school player ever in Oklahoma, has joined the Atlanta Hawks as shooting consultant. He spent last season as the shooting consultant for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Price went on to star at Georgia Tech before becoming a four-time NBA All-Star with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Price has career averages of 18.3 points, 8.1 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 722 games. To this day, Price is the NBA’s all-time leader in free-throw percentage at 90.4 percent.
I thought Price would have been a great addition as the color commentator for the Thunder. Unfortunately for OKC, he seems to be more interested in embarking on a coaching career.
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Thunder notes
Had a conversation with Thunder coach P.J. Carlesimo today and touched on a number of things. I’ll have a short story in Thursday’s paper on how pleased Carlesimo is with the off-season progress of Kevin Durant and Jeff Green. Here’s a sample….
“They look very good,” Carlesimo said. “Those guys have had a real productive summer… I will be shocked if they don’t, not just pick up where they left off, but play at an even higher level right from the beginning. It will be noticeable to people that these guys are better players than when they left in April.”
We also chatted at length about Chris Wilcox for a story I’m working on for our Sunday preseason preview. Wilcox is one of the more intriguing players on the roster because he’s still fairly young (just turned 26 three weeks ago) and has shown flashes of being a dominant player but has struggled with injuries and inconsistency. This seemingly could be his last year to put it all together and prove himself to be an elite player in this league. If he does, he could become another piece of the long-term puzzle for the Thunder (or set himself up with security from another franchise if his asking price is too high). But that’s part of what makes him so intriguing going into camp: he’s in a contract year and appears to be at a make or break crossroads. Here’s a sample from Carlesimo…..
“He has a chance to be an elite player in the league,” Carlesimo said. “At times, he’s already proven that. But consistency is what defines the elite players.”
Also, for a story I could have for Friday, P.J. talked about how the Thunder is loaded at the power forward spot. Carlesimo seems excited about entering the season with a power forward rotation of Nick Collison, Chris Wilcox, Joe Smith, rookie D.J. White and at times Jeff Green. But he also understands that depth could pose a problem when it comes to distributing minutes. Here’s a sample…
“You arguably could say that’s our deepest position,” Carlesimo said. “We’re loaded…I think it’s safe to say we’re going to play a decent amount of minutes this year where we have two (power forwards) on the floor. Otherwise, it’s going to be very challenging, failing injuries, to get enough minutes for Nick and (Chris) and Joe without even talking about the young guys.”
The logjam at power forward brought up another issue with the “true” centers, Johan Petro, Robert Swift and Mo Sene. Carlesimo says those three, now more than ever, “have to earn their minutes.”
“I would prefer they do that,” Carlesimo said. “If Robert and Johan can give us productive minutes with a 7-footer on the floor, a guy who’s more suited to be a center, that would make me happy. But if they can’t then guess what, the (power forwards) are going to eat into the minutes.”
A couple of quick notes, some with more detail than others, I’ll have in the paper Thursday….
All players but Wilcox and Smith are in town. Wilcox is expected to arrive from Houston Thursday, and Smith is scheduled to return Friday….Robert Swift has a broken bone in his hand and is limited in workouts…Earl Watson’s broken thumb has healed and he was recently cleared to resume full contact practice…Mo Sene is ahead of schedule in his rehab from microfracture surgery but still will miss at least the first month of the season…P.J. will not limit Kevin Durant’s minutes in the preseason but will not overload him either.
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Collison Clarity
I figured I should try and provide a little clarity to my last post about Nick Collison’s comments about leaving Seattle and relocating to Oklahoma. I’ve received, seen and heard some negative and borderline harsh comments about Collison here and elsewhere, and I think it’s unwarranted.
Expressing strong feelings about one city is not the same as degrading another city. In no way did Collison degrade or belittle Oklahoma or its residents. In fact, he spoke highly of Thunder fans who sold out the team’s allotment of season tickets in less than a week and said he was excited to play here.
It’s understandable that he feels strongly about Seattle. He’s lived there, apparently year round, since being drafted by the Sonics franchise in 2003. That became his home, not just a city he played in and ditched in the offseason like most NBA players do. Yes, the Iowa-native and Kansas-educated Collison said it would be an adjustment living in Oklahoma City. But remember, he has lived in Seattle for the past five years, and I would think it would be an adjustment going from Seattle to Oklahoma City. How could it not be? And I’m not just talking about the differences in the cities. That too. But I’m also talking about learning and integrating into a new community, losing all familiarity with one city and learning an entirely new one and, above all, making sure his family is taken care of and comfortable in a foreign place. (Collison is married and has a daughter).
From everything I’ve heard and read about Nick Collison, and even in my limited experiences interviewing him over the past three seasons, he is one of the most professional players not just on the Thunder but in all the NBA. I think fans who read anything into his comments and are harshly criticizing him now will have a change of heart once the season starts and they see his work ethic on the court and his compassion and charity off it.
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Collison on OKC & Thunder
Thunder forward Nick Collison had this to say last week when asked about the franchise’s move to OKC.
“I love Seattle,” Collison told the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World. “We’ll continue to live there in the offseason.”
“It’s going to be an adjustment,” Collison said. “I’m excited to play there. I think the fans (who have already sold out season tickets at the Ford Center) will be great. Living there will be the adjustment. It’s going to be closer to home, closer to here.”
Collison, who grew up in Iowa and has spent his entire career in Seattle after the Sonics franchise drafted him with the 12th overall pick in 2003, also weighed in on the team and his expectations for this season.
“We were 20-62 last year. We have a long way to go,” he said. “I think they are setting our team up in the future the right way, to be a winner.”
When asked if he would start or come off the bench, Collison said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure how it’ll work out. I started 30-some games last year, and we’ve got Chris Wilcox back and (added) Joe Smith. We’ll see how it goes. I’m exited to get started.”
Collison averaged a career-high 9.8 points and 9.4 rebounds last season in 28.5 minutes per game.
This isn’t the first time Collison expressed strong feelings for Seattle. In late August, he told a Seattle newspaper he was “torn” over the move.
“I love living here, but even when there was this possibility two years ago, I said we have no control over where we are going to play,” Collison told The Seattle Times. “I’m torn because I love the city personally, but I also can’t dwell on it. I can just look forward and be excited about the season….
“The people of Oklahoma City have been really great, they’ve been really helpful. We haven’t seen players, but that’s the way it is in the offseason. Even if we were in Seattle, I would still probably be the only one here.”
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More Pinstripes
The Orlando Magic unveiled their jerseys today and, like the New Orleans Hornets, they have returned to their old pinstriped look.
The Hornets reverted to the pinstripped look a few weeks back, and now the Magic also will play with pinstripes next season. The Thunder will unveil its new uniforms next week and they are unlikelly to include pinstripes. The road jerseys could be sky blue with Oklahoma City across the chest and the home jerseys might be all white with Thunder across the chest.
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Training Camp Roster Announced
As expected, the Thunder announced its training camp roster today. No surprises. The 14 players are all contract players who will make the roster. They are…
Nick Collison, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Johan Petro, Desmond Mason, Mohamed Sene, Joe Smith, Robert Swift, Earl Watson, Kyle Weaver, Russell Westbrook, D.J. White, Chris Wilcox and Damien Wilkins.
The Thunder will open the 2008-09 season with media day next Monday and conduct training camp from Tuesday, Sept. 30, through Tuesday, Oct. 7. The first preseason game is Oct. 8 against Minnesota in Billings, Mont.
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One week until training camp
Can you believe it? NBA media day is one week from today. It will be the first team appearance for your new Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder will then begin training camp with the first day of practice one day later on Tuesday, Sept. 30.
I’ve finally returned from vacation and I’m excited and can’t wait to get started, getting to know this new team, its players, coaches and front office personnel and delivering readers news on the franchise on a daily basis. For those who don’t remember our coverage from the Hornets’ two-year stay, we essentially had a daily story and a notebook every day. That format will be revved up times 10 with the Thunder, partly because this team is a permanent one, but also because The Oklahoman is constantly striving to utilize more story-telling methods and take advantage of all the multimedia formats we have at our disposal.
Having said that, this will be the place I will blog throughout the season on all things Thunder and NBA as it relates to Oklahoma City. Thundermadness.com, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with by now, is The Oklahoman’s new fan message board dedicated specifically to the Thunder. My partner on the NBA/Thunder beat will be Mike Baldwin, who you’ll learn is an excellent reporter who I’m sure will gain a reputation for getting you news first. Mike will be a regular contributor to Thundermadness, and I will occasionally weigh in on that forum as well.
In addition to this space and Thundermadness, we’re planning on bringing you a heavy dose of videos and podcasts on the Thunder/NBA. We’ll have regular weekly videos, as many as four a week, including one live weekly roundtable that is in the works. And get this, I’m even scheduled to shoot video from the road to give readers/viewers a sense of what some of these other cities and arenas are like. That should be interesting to say the least. There also will be live chats with myself and Mike, podcasts with writers and columnists and sometimes with players and national media members as well.
That’s all in addition to the bevy of information we’ll have for the paper every day. We’ll kickoff our coverage Sunday with a training camp/preseason preview. Then you can expect to see a story on the Thunder every day in The Oklahoman through the end of the season. It should be a great inaugural season, one in which we hope to answer all your questions about this team and many more you never knew you had.
I’ll have a brief note in Tuesday’s paper on the Thunder now selling partial season tickets. The team is offering five different eight-game plans to those fans who signed up for the season ticket request list but had their select-a-seat appointments cancelled. The timetable of the mini plans being made available to the general public will depend on the remaining availability following the purchases made by the original ticket request list customers.
The Thunder has also finalized its training camp roster, which could be announced as early as Tuesday. The team didn’t invite any “fringe” players to camp, so the roster you see is what you get. NBA teams can open the regular season with only 15 players but can carry more on the roster throughout the preseason. The Thunder is likely to enter the season with 14 players under contract, so it would have been unlikely that a training camp invite would have actually made the team.
Mike Baldwin also reports today that the uniforms will be unveiled next week and the road uniforms will be sky blue.
Lastly, Thunder guard Kevin Durant hooked up with Hornets point guard Chris Paul last week for Paul’s annual celebrity weekend event in his hometown of Winston-Salem. You can read a report here, here and here. That last one is the most detailed about KD and how he has some laughable but effective skills on the lanes.
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Pro market
By Mike Baldwin
One theory years ago was Oklahoma City could never support a professional team because was there wouldn’t be enough big-money sponsors, big-money season ticket holders or enough people overall to fill up a 19,000-seat arena 41 times a year at pro ticket prices.
Support for the Hornets their two seasons in OKC quickly dispelled that notion. Now the Thunder’s season ticket sales are off the charts. It’s proof the nation’s 43rd largest market not only can support a pro team, it’s mind boggling to contemplate how many season tickets management might sell if the Ford Center had unlimited seats.
Select-a-seat started Monday at the Ford Center. When the day ended there were only 7,000 season tickets left after 6,300 were sold on Monday. In you have a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday select-a-seat appointment forget it. You’ll probably get an 8-game mini-package but all other season tickets will be gone. In fact, many people with Wednesday appointments might be left out in the cold.
Team officials won’t say how many “full” season tickets they could sell, but it appears 20,000-plus would be a safe bet. And that’s probably conservative. The Thunder will sell around 13,000 season tickets in less than three days before the team caps season ticket sales. That doesn’t include 2,500-plus season tickets for corporate sponsors. If the team didn’t hold back 4,000 tickets for group sales, individual games or mini packages you can rest assured those would be gone by the weekend.
Did you notice the price for ”Nicholson seats” was $105,00… per season ticket. Let that price tag sink in for a minute. For a cool $1 million you could purchase nine “Hollywood seats” this season. And they’re all gone.
To provide a little context, the 3,500 upper deck $10 seats will produce $1.5 million the entire season. That’s what make this such an interesting story. Tickets are quickly being gobbled up in all price ranges. Hundreds of $6,300 season tickets in the six most expensive sections – $25,000 for four season tickets – sold quickly.
Can Oklahoma City support a pro franchise? The answer Monday was ABSOLUTELY.
Festive atmosphere
By Mike Baldwin
Oklahoma City Thunder chairman Clay Bennett said he was surprised by the number of people who attended the nickname unveiling press conference Wednesday at Leadership Square. Hundreds of people packed the place, including a jam packed upper deck.
“I didn’t expect that,” Bennett said. “My family wanted to come down. I told them, ‘I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Everybody seems to know the name already.’ It was exhilarating. We’re very proud. The fans are proud. And we hope to make them proud.”
Bennett said keeping things secret was difficult.
“Maybe I had a warped sense of things,” Bennett said. “But it was a lot of fun. I was disappointed in the image being released (a few days early by someone who used a phone camera). But that’s all part of it, too. It’s a great game. It’s about fun. It’s about entertainment and connecting with the community. I’m just thrilled to be a part of it.”
