Thunder center Moses Brown made franchise history with his performance against the Celtics on Saturday, Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman writes.
Brown, 21, finished with 21 points and an astounding 23 rebounds in a losing effort. He recorded the team’s fastest double-double ever (eight minutes, 11 seconds), along with a franchise-record 19 rebounds at halftime.
“He’s got a nose for it and he’s got a motor,” coach Mark Daigneault said of Brown’s impressive rebounding, as relayed by Mussatto. “That’s probably the thing that’s a separator for him. There’s a lot of 7-footers in the NBA, but it’s a small group of people that are his size that play as hard as he does. I think the rebounding is probably a symptom of that.”
Brown also saw his play rewarded with a contract conversion on Sunday, signing a multi-year deal with the team.
There’s more from Oklahoma City tonight:
- Luguentz Dort suffered a concussion in the team’s game against Boston and has been placed in the league’s designated protocol, the club announced today. Dort tallied 10 points, two rebounds and 16 minutes in the contest.
- Two-way player Josh Hall will be “squarely in the mix” for the team going forward, Daigneault said, as relayed by Mussatto (Twitter link). Hall has been dealing with knee soreness, but the 20-year-old received over 20 minutes of action on Saturday.
- As we relayed on Saturday, the Thunder will be shutting down veteran big man Al Horford for the rest of the season. ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link) takes a dive into what’s remaining in Horford’s contract, noting that his salary is guaranteed next season and partially guaranteed the following.
Good for Moses brown I watched him at UCLA. Thought he was a heck of talent then, just looked like he needed to grow into his body. Was hoping lakers would have at least made a play at him after the draft.
Size will always be a premium in the NBA. Sometimes we forget the human body is still physically growing till early 20s. Kids come to NBA at 19 and we call them busts at 20-22. There was a time when rookies came in at 22-24. And still got better and better. Moses went undrafted and and stuck to it. Good for him.
Interesting read here.
link to nbadraftroom.com
Time for OKC to tank with the 8th worst record in the NBA and only 4 games ahead of Orlando for the 4th worst record. Toronto should be easy to catch, but it gets tougher after that with Cleveland and Washington for #6 and #5 respectively.
Moses Brown has such a high potential to be an elite big man throughput his NBA career. I remember readin his G league stats and after I saw those I knew he’d get a standard contract. Hall is another player I really like if I were Presti I’d wait a month and see how he does and if he does ok I’d seen him as well because they’re in rebuild
The NBA needs to figure out a solution to these these teams not putting their best teams on the floor in a attempt to save money. There is no reason Hortford for should not be playing just like there was no reason for Drummond to be benched for A month.
The nba isnt going to do anything about horford and thunder agreeing its best if he sits out and gets paid.
Theyre going for a youth movement, as they should, and need to evalulate younger talent as hordford will most likely be traded or bought out during the off season.