The Thunder are the Oakland A's of the NBA, a franchise determined to build a perennial contender without breaking the bank in terms of payroll. The Heat sign ring-chasing vets; the Thunder run a finishing school for guys with supersized arms. Read more »

Kawhi Leonard must force Kevin Durant into becoming a scorer rather than a playmaker. While Leonard was on the court against Durant during the regular season, he managed to hold him to nine assists and 15 turnovers along with shooting slightly under 47 percent and 1-8 from three in 48 minutes. Read more »

The Clippers were never able to sustain the momentum of those first 15 minutes. They spent the rest of the game waiting for Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook to take over, and eventually, after a slow start, they did. Read more »

In common conversational usage, Matt Barnes' contact did cause -- i.e., set in motion actions that led to -- the ball sailing out of bounds, but not before it touched Reggie Jackson's other hand. Read more »

Blaming Russell Westbrook's style has become the cliche reference for anything impeding Oklahoma City's championship run. While his shot-selection can be harmful, his overall effect depends on being aggressive, especially with passive, overly-dependent role players. Read more »

Ever since James Harden was traded away, the Thunder have been frantically searching for that dynamic scoring option off the bench. Reggie Jackson played that role in Game 4. Read more »

All eight RealGM writers predict the Heat along with either the Thunder or Spurs to reach The Finals. Read more »

The Western Conference is highly competitive this season, but that didn't carry over to a deadline in which Steve Blake was the most important acquisition after the Rockets were unable to cash in their Omer Asik chip. Read more »

The Thunder are no longer the skilled team they were with James Harden and their fate cannot be determined solely by Kevin Durant’s abilities. Russell Westbrook’s leadership qualities, explosive personality, and ability to motivate and mobilize his team may be what OKC needs to move them toward a championship. Read more »

The following 30 questions are the biggest issues facing each NBA front office as the 13-14 regular season begins. Read more »

Once players leave AAU basketball and enter college, their careers diverge quickly, even those with similar amounts of talent. Some declare too early, others too late. A perfect example of how our perceptions can change is to compare Jeremy Lamb to Victor Oladipo. Read more »

Great drafts for the Rockets, 76ers, Nets, Warriors, Hawks and Grizzlies headline this complete rundown of the 2013 offseason. Read more »

With the 2013 NBA offseason underway, here is a primer on what all 30 teams are facing. Read more »

Breaking down all 30 teams by category of how they fared in the often surprising, never disappointing 2013 NBA Draft. Read more »

One fun component of the Amnesty rule is that we know exactly which players are eligible for it and that number can only decrease over time since the players had to have been under contract with the same team before the new CBA. Read more »

We have seen a whole lot of changes since the pre-Tournament issue of the Lottery Lowdown. March Madness gave us a few players to watch both this year and for 2014 while the Nike Hoop Summit and Combine helped clarify the picture in terms of athletic ability and positional versatility. Read more »

Had the Thunder been patient and truly believed in the strength of their program, they would have discovered that James Harden is better than good. Meanwhile, the Thunder are left with the burden of finding the right guys to get the team back to contender status. Read more »