Challenge #2: Choose an NBA team. Think about the team’s strengths and weaknesses during the 2011-12 season. What needs do you think the team should be addressing in free agency?
- If the team has already signed a free agent, how would you evaluate the fit of the signed free agent with the team’s needs? If you agree with the signing, why do you think it was a good move? If you disagree with the signing, which player should the team have signed instead?
- If your team has not yet signed any free agents of note, who should they be chasing?
- Please support your response with an analysis of the team’s strengths and weaknesses and how the particular player fits in with those strengths and weaknesses. Feel free to focus on players acquired through trades as well.
The team I will be using in this challenge is the Oklahoma Thunder. Now, the main weakness that the Thunder had that cost them in the championship is that they had no sort of post-up game whatsoever. The only players that tried to post up were Nick Collison and Kendrick Perkins and they didn’t have a lot of points. They had 42 points all together that whole series long combined together, and that’s so sad. They had 8.4 points in the paint per game and you can’t win like that. The Thunder were a jump shooting team meaning that if they weren’t hitting shots they would lose. Their first round pick Perry Jones won’t make an impact any time soon in that area. He had one of the worst points per possession on post ups for his position with an average of 0.796 points. But he can run the court well for a big man, so Perry will fit the Thunder perfectly in that way. But if they want to get a big man that can post up, they should look to try and trade James Harden because they can’t pay him and Serge. So trade for a Dwight Howard or an Andrew Bynum those could be options for the Thunder.
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