The 2010 Thunder were a team that had gone 23-59 the previous year. None of them had any playoff experience at all. Harden was a rookie, Ibaka was a rookie, Westbrook and Durant were in their 2nd and 3rd years and were both only 21, Jeff Green was in his 3rd year too, and Scott Brooks was in his first full year as a head coach.
THAT is why I called them the "baby thunder". They had just had a 23-win season and none of them were over 21, it was the first year half the eventual stars had ever played with each other, and the team had never even been to the playoffs in its entire history. They were NOT going to threaten the defending champs.
That's why Kobe could play like gutter trash in that series (23-4-4 on 40% shooting going against kids) and the Lakers could still win 4-2 because Gasol/Bynum/Odom/Fisher were doing their thing. Gasol made the series game-winner, btw, after Kobe missed it twice in a row. And Gasol/Bynum carried the Lakers in Game 5 too with Kobe only playing 29 minutes and only scoring 13 points. They had carried the Lakers in the Game 1 win as well, when Kobe went 6-19. He was not getting "worn out" playing the Thunder.
In the 2012 Thunder, they had all been playing together for three years under the same coach. They had all made the playoffs for three years. They had already played in two WCF together by the time they faced Lebron's Heat. All the stars were 22/23 years old, the same age Lebron made his first Finals. They were NOT the "baby Thunder" anymore.
It was NOTHING like 20-year-old rookies playing in their first playoffs ever the season after a 23-59 campaign.
And that's why they destroyed the Bynum-Gasol-MWP-Kobe-Sessions (plus Blake/Barnes off the bench) Lakers in just 5 games, even though that was Bynum's all-star season when he had established himself as the #2 two-way center in the NBA.
THAT was the team that Lebron gets credit for beating in 5 in the Finals. Not the baby Thunder of two years earlier.
that's why his finals fg%'s are so low
