FanHouse JeffGreen

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The English dictionary defines relentless as "Jeff freaking Green." I'm not kidding. Go look it up. And if it doesn't say that, then your dictionary has been scared into a lie.

Jeff Green is the other-other Thunder. If Russell Westbrook is The Edge to Kevin Durant's Bono, Jeff Green is one of the other U2 members that you don't actually know because they aren't The Edge or Bono. But if you haven't been paying attention to Green because you've been too busy calling your friends to tell them Kevin Durant is breaking your mindskull, take a second look at the power forward for the Thunder. Because if Oklahoma City is going to take the next step this season, it won't be on the back of Westbrook, but the man they call Predator.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The goal of the Oklahoma City Thunder should be apparent: Rise from the dregs of the Western Conference and into the middle-of-the-pack. That's a realistic endeavor, and it will be the responsibility of coach Scott Brooks to get the Thunder there.

Nobody expects the Thunder to be lumped in with the Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Nuggets, Mavericks or even Hornets. But it does seem doable for OKC to gain some separation from the Kings, Timberwolves and Grizzlies of the world.

LAS VEGAS -- The question for the Oklahoma City Thunder is whether premium free agents will want to play in a city with little NBA reputation. That question will loom large in coming years because the Thunder will have a satchel full of money and cap space to attract an All-Star caliber player to join Kevin Durant, James Harden and Jeff Green.

Until then, the Thunder will rely on the draft and clever moves such as the mid-season signing of Nenad Krstic and the acquisition of former lottery pick Thabo Sefolosha. Oklahoma City has one of the NBA's lowest payrolls -- although many critics would say that's due to the thriftiness of owner Clay Bennett -- and just $20 million committed to players after the 2010-11 season. But will any of those potential 2010 free agents -- a class that includes LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Dirk Nowitzki -- consider the Dust Bowl?

The market for restricted free agent Paul Millsap was expected to be robust in theory, if not in actuality. This is to say Millsap is a highly desired fellow, given his proclivity to rebound like a champ, score efficiently, and defend his tail off at the power forward position. However, as always, a limited pool of clubs will head into July with cap space for next season.

The Thunder is one team with space to sign a free agent like Millsap. The team currently falls about $15 million under the cap, and Millsap has been pegged to pull a starting salary around $7-8 million. Oklahoma City can certainly afford to get into that ballpark, should Sam Presti desire to. Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune seems to believe OKC, in fact, desires Millsap.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Andre Miller didn't move at the deadline, despite Philadelphia's season not living up to expectations and Dre due for July free agency. To be honest, there didn't seem to be as much interest in Miller as you would have predicted. Perhaps that came from the Sixers shutting down inquiries. It's easy to see why when Dre goes off as he did Saturday, whipping out 30 points, nine rebounds, two assists and no turnovers.

Over the weekend, the Jazz announced that Jerry Sloan would be back for his 22nd year as head coach in 2009-10, the longest stint for any head coach in any of the professional sports.

On the exact opposite of the longevity spectrum, the Thunder and Timberwolves are mulling the futures of Scott Brooks and Kevin McHale, respectively, two of the newest members of the NBA's head coaching fraternity. Will they remain with Sloan in that elite group?

Georgetown freshman Greg Monroe couldn't have been more of a Duke guy if he'd been born with a birthmark shaped like the Blue Devil and given the middle name Krzyzewski.

He's pocket-protector smart, graduating with a 3.75 GPA from Louisiana's Helen Cox High School, so composed you could yell fire in a theater and he'd tell you to get of the way of the Paul Blart trailer, and grew up among that percentage of the population dwindling faster than an analog television set, those who like Duke basketball.

Heck, the guy probably helps old ladies to their seat during television breaks.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

The Thunder don't win very often, so when they do, it's cause for discussion. All it took was a home game against a Warriors team that plays zero defense for Kevin Durant and Jeff Green to lead the team to just its fourth win of the season.

Durant ended up with 25 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and two blocked shots, basically doing everything possible to ensure victory over a very beatable Golden State club. Green chipped in 26 and eight, and Chris Wilcox had 23 and nine off the bench. Again, should we really be impressed since this took place against the Warriors? Probably not, but for OKC, any win deserves some celebration.

Nene continues to impress: Can you be the most improved player in the league if you only appeared in 16 games the preceding season? That's a question those who vote on the award will have to answer, because Nene has been amazing this season for the Nuggets. Lots of big lines from the high-scoring affair in Toronto, but Nene's 21 points (on 12 shots), seven rebounds, three assists, and just three fouls in 39 minutes stood out in Denver's win.

They're not booing, they're saying Mbah a MOUte: The negative lines are as much fun to point out as the positives sometimes, and when a starter has a lot of zeroes in the box score, well, that's one that we're going to mention. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute started for the Bucks against the Rockets, played 19 minutes, and somehow managed not to do anything but foul people. He finished with zero points, zero rebounds, zero assists, and four personals.

With an awful team to call my own, don't ask why I have spent the past week catching every Oklahoma City Thunder game I could on League Pass. Something about Kevin Durant continues to thrill, and Russell Westbrook's new cult status as Rondo-on-a-bad-team coupled with Jeff Green's eternal Pippen mimicking make the team an interesting watch.

OKC earned its third win in 27 games against Toronto on Friday as the Raps played awful on offense. But Sunday's loss to the visiting Cavaliers seemed more telling. For all but a two-minute stretch at the end of the third quarter, the Thunder quite nearly played Cleveland evenly, despite killer shot-making by Delonte West and Mo Williams as well as another 30-point game from LeBron James. Late in the third, Cleveland turned a four-point lead into a 10-point margin and held that spread through the fourth.

But the fantastic thing -- the factor which kept OKC in closer proximity than most far superior Cleveland opponents -- is that the young Thunder players never quit.

Yesterday, Ghostface Ziller produced a great post defining what it means to get dunked on. Motivation for the post came from controversy over whether Kevin Martin really dunked on Greg Oden. Although there might be some gray area when it comes to determining if Martin's dunk was a true posterization, there are some dunks where there is no denying that a player got posterized. Case in point: Trevor Ariza dunking on the OKC Thunder's second year stud Jeff Green:



Now that is what Marv Albert would call "serving up a facial."

Ariza is a bad man. Throughout his career he's served up tons of facials. I can't wait to see who his next victim will be. Could he possibly give Greg Oden a welcome to the NBA facial during the Lakers home opener? Maybe Ariza's teammates will copy the Kings and put some money on the table to motivate that one.