Thunder have come together

All season long the Thunder have been unpredictable, but those days are over. The team has finally learned to play together, which is no easy task given all the new ego-dominant pieces at play. They are truly now one of the best teams in the NBA, and could give Rockets and GSW a run for their money in their current form. We recommend a cautious approach as we also have OKC winning by 10.4 points against one of our favorite organizations, Brooklyn, which matches the current +10 the Nets are getting @ OKC. We're only doing a 8.0% AUM bet, would probably be 16.0% but we're now gun-shy having lost our 3 biggest bets of 2018-- in a row-- all due to somewhat freak circumstances (and some bad coaches we forgot to account). Can we lose 4 big bets in a row? We're terrified, and you should be too if following us into this trade.
Here's our list of pros & cons:

#1 Gelling Thunder
You can't expect big personalities to get it going right off the bat, particularly ones who think they are equals. At least in Cleveland when LeBron and Love came to town, everyone respected LeBron as the leader, mainly Love. We don't think that's been the case in Oklahoma, and Russ has struggled to figure out how to accomodate everyone and mostly his own game. While Russ can probably still increase his game, at least he's begun to figure it out. Russ can figure out how to win with lumps of meat on his team, so this isn't a surprise. Whether this latest winning has come bc he's now written off George and Melo, we have no idea, but the result is the same, the OKC team is good. Personally, we think a big part of OKC success has been from maturity and improvement of the bench, particularly Jerami Grant, but MOST IMPORTANTLY the improving play of a still-young-and-improving Steve Adams. Durant is a bit of a jackass, and had he simply waited it out for Adams and Grant and Roberson to improve, we think OKC could have pulled off an upset on GSW last year-- moreso than Cleveland. We'll never know, and Durant has had a deserved rough go of it in GSW. Sure he got his ring, but his tweets and mouth have made him a lot more unpopular than he was in OKC where he was beloved by the hometown fans. OKC fans now get to see another contender, only 1 year after Durant gave the city the middle finger.

#2 Home Court Advantage:
this is a moneyline bet, so home court matters. OKC has been outstanding at home (16-7) while Brooklyn has been cruddy away (8-14).

#3 Incentive to Win
Right now the Thunder would face an ALSO-EMERGING Pelicans team in round 1, and THAT is much less favorable than the alternative for moving up in the rankings. They should have EVERY incentive to rise up the win column to face easier opponents in round 1, bc rest matters in the playoffs when trying to win it all, and OKC has that opportunity if they work hard now. Facing the Nuggest or Trail Blazers would be ideal, as they aren't yet complete teams (somehow).

#4 D'Angelo = liability
We like D'Angelo ASSUMING he's sG to Dinwiddie's PG. When Lin went down, we disliked Russell at the 1, and it showed in their win/loss column. Russell can be a bit of a ball hog, and can relax on defense due to being tired from dribbling so much on the other end. lose lose. Now that he's back and playing small minutes out of injury recovery, we think he won't be an asset but a drag until he's fully up to speed. he's not yet, plus he has to get used to a new set-up which was supposed to be the case back when Lin was starting PG (for one game!).

Why we might get this wrong:

A. Brooklyn is a proud franchise
Similar to our Indiana call over Lakers, we missed how proud an organization the Lakers are, wishing to win without Ball on the floor. Brooklyn is also a great organization with quality mgt and players. While Atkinson's minutes allocations have made no sense to us, he's been improving in that department. We don't trust him yet, but Luke Walton surprised us with Nance's minutes so who knows?

B. We're 0 for 3 in our bigger sized bets
See "terrified" above. Are we on tilt besides, betting another big one? As we said in 1st paragraph, we lowered our bet size by half just bc of this factor alone. Call it the "Is the NBA rigged against EZ bets midseason?" concern.