Thunder Losing Out So Far

By Randy Renner

Now that LeBron James has made his decision and is going back to Cleveland the dominoes are starting to fall and so far none of them are falling Oklahoma City's way.

Pau Gasol seems almost certain to sign with the Chicago Bulls as I write this on Saturday morning, Mike Miller appears to be heading to Cleveland to join LeBron (and before then he was going to Denver it appeared) and now Vince Carter has signed on with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Anthony Morrow remains a possibility and he'd be a good one to fill the need the Thunder would appear to have at shooting guard.

It's been a disappointing free agency period for the Thunder. They clearly wanted Gasol because they pursued him heavily and even had big time face to face meetings between the big center and Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and head coach Scott Brooks. 

Durant also met with Miller. it's not clear how much contact the Thunder had with Carter but he certainly would have fit that seasoned veteran role for the Thunder. Carter had told the Mavs he wouldn't return to Dallas on the cheap and the contract he has with Memphis will pay him $4 million a year and that may have been more than the Thunder wanted to go too, especially in years because Carter has signed for three.

So we will see what happens with Morrow, or perhaps Caron Butler, the Thunder are also talking to him about returning.

But for now it appears the focus is back on developing OKC's own players and so far the organization has done an excellent job of that.

Perhaps Perry Jones or Jeremy Lamb can provide some consistency with both their defense and their shots because those are the guys the Thunder are counting on.

I'm still pulling double duty so it's back to Oak Tree National for the U.S. Senior Open, keep checking out the feed page on the site for updates on our Twitter feeds.