(Sporting Alert) — The Oklahoma City Thunder are full of life heading into tonight’s NBA opener against the San Antonio Spurs, despite losing one of its premier scorers on a trade that was finalized earlier this week.
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James Harden was traded to the Houston Rockets after three seasons with the Thunders, but with All-Stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook coming back to lead the way and the addition of Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, the confidence are still high.
In fact, General manager Sam Presti believes the team is still good enough to challenge for this year’s title.
“With the group that we have, they’ve been through a lot together and they’ve won a lot of games together. So, for us, of course we’re always going to feel like we’ve got a chance to do good things,” he said.
“However, I would also add that it’s never been our approach to do a lot of talking about what it is we’re going to do or who we are.
“I think we’re at a point as a franchise where we have to do what we say”.
The Spurs, in the meantime, returned most of its core group from last season and are again expected to contest for the title.
Tim Duncan and Tony Paker led the way in the season opening win over the New Orleans Hornets, taking that game 99-96.
Manu Ginobili, who missed Wednesday’s season opener in New Orleans because of back spasms remains a game time decision for Thursday night’s clash, but the team is confident he will play some part in the game.
