Friday Bolts - 10.31.08

• An excellent feature from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "At some point you kind of have to let that go and learn from your mistakes, I suppose. But the thing is, nobody in this town has stepped up and said, 'My fault, I had a hand in this, I'm sorry.' Former ownership, politicians, nobody. I guess it's a region full of Fonzies. They can't say that 'S' word."

• And to be fair a feature from the Star-Telegram: "This NBA neophyte is still trying to get to a place where it can go through some growing pains. If you want to buy a No. 35 Durant authentic jersey, you’ll have to wait until January. None available now. The transplanted Seattle SuperSonics— now Oklahoma City Thunder — had only team logo-manufactured T-shirts and ball caps available for sale at the Ford Center on Wednesday night. And if you want to take the kids to see a cute-and-cuddly mascot ... well, uh, please hold that thought. One is still in the works."

• David Thorpe's rookie rankings has Russell Westbrook at No. 8: "Westbrook figures to get serious playing time right away, despite a far-from-ready offensive game. He was drafted because of his defensive talents and his ability to complement Kevin Durant and Jeff Green. And because he's a winner. Although he will suffer through some real struggles, especially as a shooter, the Thunder want him to develop into a future starter, so playing time is mandatory."

• You know you're in Oklahoma when people are already restless about Coach Peej after one game (See: OU message boards after an OU loss): "I am not a fan of PJ and I question many of his coaching decisions. His starting lineup and player rotations for one. This is the most glaring problem that the team has. The wrong players are playing at the wrong times. Second the fact that he didn't have his team ready to play last night was a horrible mistake. There was only one game that this team HAD to win and it was last night. Keep it up PJ, your days I numbered, I hope."
  

• More thoughts from Joe on the Bucks game: "I’ve been reading a book by Dave Berri titled “The Wages of Wins” after hearing so many good things about it, as well as reading Mr.Berri’s blog “the Wages of wins journal” (see link on blogroll). In his book and on his blog he puts forth a sort of big picture stat called the “Win Score”. The win score can be expressed in several different ways, one of them being win score per minute, and thereby can be compared to the win score per minute average by position to help us evaluate and compare players and performances."

• Looking for last minute Halloween costume ideas? Well, why not see what the Big 12 is dressed up as? "Sexy Nurse - Baylor. Robert Griffin is darn fun to watch but by the end of the night, everyone has had their way with them." (Sometimes I have to plug myself.)