Author: Mike

My son went with some buddies to the Rose Bowl. He called me I think it was on Saturday and said, “We’re going to see Dave Chappelle tonight in Los Angeles.”

I didn’t say anything immediately. He then said, “You know who Dave Chappelle is, right?”

With my eyes rolling as far backwards as they can roll without leaving the back of my head, “I replied, yeah, I’ve seen Dave Chappelle do standup.” As in I’m a fan of Dave Chappelle and actually have his iconic routine on this blog where Chappelle said to give American Caligula a chance.

I’m having dinner with my son tomorrow night. I plan on asking him about the Dave Chappelle night in Los Angeles. This should be interesting.

The fact it appears Sam Presti and Billy Donovan have finally come to terms on Alex Abrines gives me hope. I have no idea if Abrines is actually really injured right now or not, but I know the fact every minute he doesn’t see the floor helps the Thunder cause and my mental serenity.

Russell Westbrook, a.k.a. Bad Little Dude, says the closing of the deal which keeps Paul George a Thunder for beyond this season is simple. Bad Little Dude says, ‘Just win the NBA championship and things pretty much fall into place’.

I like that. It’s simple, to the point, and for a non-millennial like me connects with my inner competitiveness. Just go win it all.

Okay. I’m going to help Russell with a roadmap as to how this could be plausible. Quid pro quo. He stayed. I should help him. Simple.

If OKC is to pull this off, then I would say the Thunder not only need to overcome the T Wolves, but the San Antonio Spurs as well for the eventual No. 3 seed in the West. Just get on the other side of the bracket opposite the Warriors.

Houston doesn’t do that much for me. They’re beatable in a seven game series. They have inner demons as well. Neither James Harden or Chris Paul have ever won anything. I don’t lay awake at night worrying about the Rockets. The Warriors…yes, but not the Rockets.

So…the Thunder swept their little LA road back to back with a 127-117 win over the Clippers on Thursday night. In case you didn’t notice—OKC scored a combined 260 points in these two games which is very Warrioresque in as much as what it takes to score the ball with the Warriors and the Rockets.

Nice wins because I look for trends in a team. First trend here is the Thunder have been good on the road since they dipped to a 2-11 road record at one point. The Thunder now stand at 8-11 roadwise for the season. Put that on your Thunder dashboard.

Another trend which is obvious is that Westbrook, Paul George, and Carmelo are at times now showing maybe they’re figuring this out. OKC’s big three combined for 82 points against the Clippers and it appeared somewhat natural. Not that big of a deal.

I’ve been very clear about what I think Billy Donovan needs to do. He needs to be a better NBA coach. He, along with his team, need to elevate hand in hand. I’m hopeful this Alex Abrines thing is over. That Milwaukee game still pisses me off. I want to see Billy Donovan coaching on the edge. I want to see some urgency. I want him to be the kind of coach who helps this team eventually go toe to toe against the punk Warriors.

I have no idea how far Terrance Ferguson will go this season, but I know this. The Euro frilly Alex Abrines isn’t the answer. So whether Billy D eventually goes with either a nine or ten man rotation as we get to the goal achieving portion of the schedule is irrelevant to me.

The rotation should go 1 Westbrook, 2 George, 3 Carmelo, 4 Steven, 5 Andre, 6 Jerami, 7 Raymond, 8 Hustis, 9 Patterson, 10 Ferguson. First seven are set. The last three should inter-shuffle depending on the night and the opponent.

I’m not going to worry about Paul George and the trade deadline anymore. Westbrook is right. This is on him, his teammates, and Billy Donovan to close the deal with Paul George. At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand and if you can’t sell yourselves over the Lakers right now–then who can you sell yourselves to? I mean, seriously, their own star rookie forward just called his own team out for laying down and quitting against the Thunder on Wednesday night.

So…the Thunder improve to 22-17 and visit the Phoenix Suns on Sunday night.

Bad Little Dude has thrown out the gauntlet.

Let’s go.

OU rode Trae Young’s 27 point, 9 rebound, 10 assist night to a 109-89 win over rival Oklahoma State in Norman on Wednesday night. Fellow true frosh swingman Brady Manek led the Sooners in scoring with a career best 28 point night. All told, it was a night when OU’s overall team balance showed itself as Young while clearly being the star of this team–is seeing more and more support from his teammates every game.

The game was a sellout and the rest of the home slate for conference play is either already sold out or will be by the respective game days. Which is a good thing because this team deserves to get this kind of crowd support.

Young is clearly the star of this team, but Lon Kruger has a nice overall team with multiple pieces. Manek, a local kid from Harrah, has been solid from Game 1. Then there’s Christian James, Cam McGusty, and quite frankly an overall roster with nice balance and depth all the way through the 11th or 12th man in the rotation. If you look at OU’s roster, there’s only one senior among the top twelve players. So–even if Trae Young decides he can’t turn down being a top five pick in this summer’s NBA draft…Lon Kruger has done a good job of reloading his program after the departures of Buddy Hield, Isiah Cousins, Ryan Spangler, and Jordan Woodward from the Final Four team. In case you haven’t noticed…Lon Kruger knows what he’s doing.

OU will take it’s No. 7 national ranking to Morgantown this Saturday evening to play the No. 5 West Virginia Mountaineers in what should be an extremely interesting game. There will be no easy wins moving forward for the Sooners or any Big 12 team for that matter. This conference is a death knell. Just look at the coaches in this conference…all big time except O State’s Mike Boynton who’s in his first season ever of head coaching at the DI level. Bill Self, Bob Huggins, Lon Krueger, Jaime Dixon, etc. You better bring your team ready to play every night if you expect to be competitive.
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On the Thunder front, the Thunder took care of business and routed the LA Lakers by a count of 133-96. Rookie Terrance Ferguson got the start in place of sitting Andre Roberson and had a 24 point night while hitting six threes. Daniel Hamilton had some nice minutes as well. Good for both of them.

Hard to glean much from this game because the Lakers are so bad, but it’s a win and the main thought I take from this game in LA is if Sam Presti is in all the way with the notion of going with Paul George past the trade deadline without a contract extension of some sort.

Very interesting situation. Westbrook says winning the championship will be a sales pitch enough in itself. Right now–I would calibrate this team’s chances of winning four playoff series and sixteen playoff games without home court advantage as the No. 5 seed at somewhere around maybe 1-2% at best. So–what I’m saying here–is at what juncture in this does Presti make sure and get something for Paul George so as he didn’t trade Oladipo and Sabonis , whom he got for Serge Ibaka, for nothing except one season of play and the double hit of another team in the West moving the Thunder down a notch in food chain peg.

Presti got nothing for Durant. Not even a draft pick. He made a great trade for Ibaka in getting Oladipo and Sabonis, but if Paul George walks for nothing— I don’t know, buddy. What happened to sustainability?

Anyway, nice to see Ferguson have a nice game. Abrines was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t have any volume on while watching the second half of the game… so I’m to assume he was hurt and nursing another minor injury of some sort or else Presti and Donovan finally realized maybe the dude on the rogue blog isn’t completely crazy and might know something.

The Thunder in Staples again tonight–only this time against the Clippers. I think I’ll be bold and go with Matt Pinto on the audio and TNT on the video. Others can listen to the Alvin the Chipmunk and Bullwinkle Show if so inclined.

It used to be a big deal when the upstart Thunder played the Lakers. We all used to chant, “Beat LA.” Now we just hope Paul George isn’t living in LA and playing there come mid February. So excuse me if I could care less about the Thunder in LA tonight. If Paul George wants to be a Laker, then so be it. But I’ll write this–if Sam Presti screws around and gets nothing in return for Paul George then it would be a very hard thing to take the Thunder seriously moving forward.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that if the Thunder weren’t careful they could become something less than the primary basketball story in Oklahoma this winter. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Trae Young and the Sooners are 11-1 and No. 7 in the AP poll heading into tonight’s Bedlam game in Norman. I don’t write this to be snarky, but the truth is, OU will be my focus tonight and the Thunder playing the Lakers in LA will be a secondary storyline for me. This will be the first time since the Thunder arrived in OKC I’ve had this feeling in my heart…like in–I don’t care about the game tonight and it’s the first Wednesday in January.

And consider, in this this span of time of the Thunder’s presence in OKC, OU had two other National Player of Year players with Blake Griffin in 2008 and Buddy Hield just two seasons ago when the Sooners made the Final Four. Clay Bennett and his fellow owners have gone deep into the luxury tax this season, but here’s the thing–fans want a team which plays hard with some sense of urgency and meaning attached to the season itself. The games need to have the appearance they actually mean something. That’s why fans pay money, they want to feel it means as much to the players as it does to them.

Here’s another thing to ponder, would this Thunder roster be better suited to Lon Kruger’s coaching style versus what we’ve seen to date from Billy Donovan. Maybe Clay could talk Lon Kruger into doing the the Scott Frost thing and coaching two teams simultaneously. Just kidding, kind of. I mean, seriously, I wonder if OU regent and Thunder owner Clay Bennett has given any thought to the possibility the best basketball coach in the state isn’t coaching the Thunder, but is coaching the Sooners in Norman. Close your eyes Brian Davis, Michael Cage, Nick Gallo, and Royce Young…pretend you didn’t read that and go back to gulping apple juice from your Thunder sippy cups.

Anyway, OU is 11-1 with three of their wins coming against ranked teams Wichita State, TCU, and USC. The Sooners haven’t lost since an early season loss to Arkansas in the prestigious early season Portland tournament. And OU hasn’t just won, it’s been more than that in that true freshman point guard Trae Young has emerged as a serious contender to win National Player of the Year honors.

The Big 12 is rugged with five teams currently ranked in the top eighteen in the AP Poll. Every game will be tough and hold meaning. Players will play hard, they may not win every time, but I can assure you they’ll play hard for forty minutes. Maybe Billy Donovan will take this sliver of salient fact to heart since he appears to have difficulty getting his team to commit to 48 minutes of attention to things like detail and effort. I wonder if the Sippy Cup Four have ever pondered that notion.

One of my buddies is a sportswriter, which means he almost knows as much about sports as I do. From time to time he rolls his eyes at me when I passionately talk about the Thunder. His eyes roll, he sighs, and then says something like, “Mike, they don’t play hard for 48 minutes. They coast. The league is bullshit.”

So tonight while the Thunder are playing the worst team in the West in LA–my attention will be on Bedlam with Lon Kruger’s Sooners hosting Mike Boynton’s O State Cowboys. If you want to see teams play hard, watch Boynton’s team play Kruger’s team tonight.

Note to OU regent and Thunder owner Clay Bennett: I don’t mind paying a hundred bucks a ticket to see an NBA game. But I seriously mind it when the team doesn’t play hard. Truth hurts.

Just a great football game. I had it as a pick ’em game and the closeness of the game did not in any way surprise me. Georgia is a good ball club, as is OU, and when I look back at what is already being described as the best game of the year and the greatest Rose Bowl ever—I’m a little sad, but in no way have any regrets as a fan. OU had a great season, and quite frankly had three separate chances to win the game even after Georgia came back in the second half. Give Georgia credit, they made some plays.

Let’s be honest here, Big 12 defenses lack physicality, so I pretty much expected Chubb and Michel to have success, but not quite that much success. I thought freshman linebacker Kenneth Murray had a difficult game. Plus, OU’s kicking game was horrific if you objectively take the game apart. The bad squib kick giftwrapped three points to Georgia, the blocked field goal effectively ended the game, the inability of OU kick returner Jeff Badget on three straight kickoffs to get the ball beyond the 17 yard line in the third period denied OU field position , and the bad punt by Austin Siebert which led into Georgia’s tying touchdown all contributed to OU losing the game.

Baker Mayfield moves on. Kyler Murray will be OU’s starting QB next season. For me, if OU wants to aspire to win a national championship in this era of SEC dominance, it has to start with their linebackers. OU has to have linebackers with more physicality who can still run with the spread defenses of the Big 12

So…now we have two SEC teams in the championship game…yawn. I would guess it will be something like Alabama 20- Georgia 16. Snore. UCF should have an opportunity, a Big Ten team should have had an opportunity, and even a PAC 12 team should have had an opportunity. I’ve always been a proponent of an eight team field and still am. BTW…nice to see Josh Huepel land the UCF job.

Either way, it was a great season for OU. They just have to become better from a physicality aspect in a league which is basically a finesse tackling in space league. Maybe easier said, than done. Big 12 went 5-3 in bowl play, but collectively if the league wants to win national championships they all need to become more physical.

OU vs Georgia National Semi-final this afternoon. I went to the 2003 Rose Bowl when OU beat Washington State 34-14. Most incredible football venue I’ve ever been to. A Bucket List kind of day. I’m home today. If OU advances I’m going to try to get to Atlanta for the National Championship Game. My son and his buddies are there. They went and saw Dave Chappelle and Jon Mayer last night. To be young again, eh.

BOOMER!

I’m marking this down as the week which could have gone gold gone bad. After the Thunder beat Toronto to improve to 20-15 and pull within one game of the T Wolves in the Northwest, there was all the sudden a feeling of optimism about this Thunder season. A feeling the pieces were coming together especially considering the Thunder had two more home games inside Chesapeake Energy Arena to close out 2017.

But all that has gone flat as for the second home game in a row the Thunder couldn’t as a team do all the little things which ultimately separate contenders from pretenders. Sure, the Thunder still finished the month 12-5 and Russell Westbrook will most likely win Western Conference Player of the Month, but in the big picture OKC is still three full games behind the T Wolves, but more importantly still has the look of a team still searching for its identity and a coach who might be in over his head.

Consider this, OKC’s Big Three of Westbrook, George, and Melo combined for 84 points, but in the end it was rookie point guard Dennis Smith Jr. who stole the show at end in the final two minutes as the Mavs won their fourth straight in defeating the Thunder 116-113 on the road.

In the final 1:39, Smith scored 11 of his 19 points and made every clutch play, while quite frankly… Russell Westbrook didn’t. Otherwise, Westbrook had another triple double and dominated the game. But it’s what you do at closing time which really matters in close NBA games.

OKC falls back to 20-17 a full three games behind the T Wolves and now hits the road for five of its next six games.

The storyline here isn’t the bad officiating which has been bad this entire NBA season for various teams, the storyline is as a team when OKC had a glorious opportunity to show it was a serious contender..it wilted with soft defense, some soft coaching, and two bad losses to reset the Thunder back into a gaggle of Western Conference second or third tier teams with Denver, Portland, New Orleans, and maybe even Utah with a healthy Rudy Gobert.

It was in this game I couldn’t take it any longer and muted the volume on the Fox television broadcast and went with Matt Pinto on the audio. I can’t take it any longer….even Antonio Davis. It’s like watching Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders pressers on crowd size.

The Thunder didn’t lose these two games because of the zebras, they lost these two games because as an organization from head coach thru the roster they’re somewhat soft and didn’t bother to play hard for 48 minutes. Their defense didn’t show up against the Bucks or the Mavs. When the Thunder had a glorious opportunity to show the basketball world there was toughness attached to them…they wilted and went south at home against Milwaukee and Dallas.

Don’t get me wrong, Milwaukee should be an up and comer in the East, and Dallas with Carlisle is always interesting even when they’re struggling…but there’s no way this home stand should have ended this way. No way.

So…here the Thunder idle, back with teams with less talent, but apparently with more passion for the task at hand.

The obvious has to be to written…rookie Dennis Smith Jr, thirty-nine year old Dirk, and Harrison Barnes were too much for the Thunder on New Year’s Eve in Oklahoma City on a bitterly cold night to usher in 2018.

Thunder hit the road to play the Lakers on Wednesday.

The NBA did indeed rule their crew blew the call on Friday night. No big surprise there unless you’re blind. And no big surprise to me Matt Craig of the Daily Thunder and Bret Dawson at newsoksports wrote about the manner in which Billy Donovan blew it by going too heavily with Alex Abrines.

Before I move on to tonight’s game with Dallas– I want to write a bit more on the Abrines thing and why I think it was such a bad piece of bench management by Billy Donovan. All four major sports have what I call specialty players. Hockey has penalty killers and power play guys. This doesn’t mean they get to play even strength situations in meaningful situations. Football has special team players…kickoff, punt, extra point, nickel back situations on defense, specialty third down players on offense, etc. Baseball has closers, middle relief pitchers, pinch hitters, DH’s, guys a manger will platoon against either left or right handing pitching, etc. None of these niche positions above equate with starting.

Alex Abrines is a speciality player. He is not an honest two zone basketball player in spite of what the knuckleheads on Fox might want to tell their viewers. Alex Abrines is on this roster to do one thing…make three point shots at somewhere hopefully at a clip no lower than 35% and maybe hopefully at some point as high as 45%. Alex Abrines should not be starting in place of Paul George when the opponent is an extremely talented team like the Milwaukee Bucks. This is where you go with a player with some athleticism like say Jerami Grant or Josh Huestis. Maybe…in certain situations where you’re playing against a really bad team like the Memphis Grizzlies you can get away with starting Abrines, but why would you do it when you have two much better options.

I have no idea if Sam Presti was part of this decision, only Donovan and Presti know that. But here’s what I know, OKC already was at a disadvantage without Paul George, basically–the Thunder put itself in an even worse situation with Abrines where they played 4 on 5 basketball to start the game against the high flying Bucks. Good NBA coaches don’t do this. Especially NBA coaches who have a team which got out to a slow start this season and from this point forward need to try to win basketball games.

Yeah, I get the fact Abrines needs his confidence stroked in that he’s been the major disappointment on this team so far, but as a coach you do something like that against a team with a talent level where Alex Abrines and the team both have a chance to be successful. OKC not only lost the game, but now you would think Abrines’ confidence level can’t be much because here we are all talking about what an absolute piece of shit game he played against the Bucks.

Billy Donovan needs to step up as an NBA head coach. This loss is as much on him as it is on the NBA crew who missed the obvious out of bounds with 1.3 seconds left.

Tonight will be such an interesting game in light of what happened on Friday. The Dallas Mavs aren’t very good, but they’ve won their last three games and have one of the top three NBA coaches in the league in Rick Carlisle. I go 1 Pop, 2 Carlisle, and 3 Steve Kerr currently on my Top Three NBA Coaches Dashboard.

So, as a passionate NBA fan…this game holds great interest for me. Billy Donovan’s team has stepped up for him in the month of December. Now he needs to step up for them. It’s kind of a bilateral thing, if you know what I mean.

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This is Carlisle right after the Mavs won the 2011 NBA Championship over the Miami Heat. Great interview.

So…after reading Al Franken’s book…Giant of the Senate, I wrote him a letter on email. It went something like this…

Dear Senator Franken:

Some friends of mine gave me a copy of your book ‘Giant of the Senate’ and I’m writing to tell you how much I enjoyed the book. Even though I don’t consider myself a liberal per se…I do believe in climate change, globalization, equal rights for all, and believe it or not, I voted for Barack Obama twice. I know…someone from Oklahoma reads…who would have thought?

In the end, I couldn’t vote for Hillary though, and I instead voted for John Kasich. So—we agree on some things, disagree on some other things. This is what makes us Americans… right?

This whole thing with you resigning disturbs me greatly. You just don’t strike me as an abuser of women. I mean, it’s not like you said, “She was married. I moved on her heavily. I took her furniture store shopping, and of course, I then tried to fuck her like a bitch.” You just really don’t strike me that way. You really don’t. You strike me as a guy who used to write comedy on SNL and who’s actions have been taken out of context.

This whole thing with these Dem women forcing you to resign kind of upsets me in that we live in turbulent historical times. I watched the Judiciary hearings for the confirmation of Sessions, Price, DeVoss, and Pruitt—and quite frankly, you were the best DEM senator asking questions. You should have been a lawyer, you missed your calling. Trust me, I know a good cross examination when I see one.

If you say you didn’t abuse women, then you shouldn’t resign. Period. Here’s why, because most of your constituents voted for you twice and voted for YOU TO REPRESENT THEM. Not the National Organization of Women…they voted for you to represent them. PERIOD. End of discussion.

So what I’m saying is…do in your heart what you know to be the right thing.

In closing, you should never have listened to your aides when they told you not to send that note to Ted Cruz telling him what a douchebag he truly is. Isn’t it amazing how a Harvard liberal like you and an Oklahoma moderate like me could have this many things in common? Again, the it’s American thing.

At some point, if the Democratic Party wants to start winning back control of the House, the Senate, and the White House there needs to be that flash of genius moment when the party comes to terms with the fact not all 330 million people were conceived in an Ivy League sperm bank. I think you know what I mean.

I know you’re struggling with this. Do your best.

Best wishes,
Mike

This is why I have a blog called okcthunderground.com. This is why because… I’m fairly certain guys like Royce Young and Erik Horne aren’t going to do the right thing and tell the truth because they’re young and they need their jobs. I haven’t read what either wrote, but I did watch the presser with Billy Donovan and heard some of the questions from the two ‘aforementioned writers’. So…again, I have no idea what they ultimately wrote. Maybe they’ll surprise me.

But here’s what I’m going write.

There are two storylines from what happened last night in OKC’s heartbreaking 97-95 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. The first storyline is that game officials totally blew the call on the baseline and OKC would have either won the game in regulation or gone on to live at least another five minutes in overtime.

Fair enough?

The second storyline is that Brian Davis ‘kind of’ got it right when he said, “It never should have come to that.”

But what Brian Davis didn’t say is that Billy Donovan was guilty of coaching malpractice by starting Alex Abrines in place of the scratched Paul George.

This game was in essence decided in the first period when the Bucks ripped and rolled to a 38-18 lead after twelve minutes of play.

Consider what I write. The Milwaukee Bucks are a team of freak athleticism and length. They really are. And given that fact and the knowledge Alex Abrines can’t defend my eighty-two year old mother…. this maybe was a time maybe the head coach needed to think outside the box a bit. Keep in mind, Alex Abrines was a putrid negative 19 against the Raptors on Wednesday in a little over six minutes of play. He rightfully never saw the floor again in that game.

But knowing this, Billy Donovan went right ahead and started Alex Abrines against the high flying Bucks. And he not only started Abrines, but he went with Abrines for 9:24 of playing time all told. Nine and a half minutes Billy Donovan allowed Alex Abrines to do absolutely nothing. Oh, but he did do something. He took one shot which didn’t even graze the rim and outdid himself from Wednesday night with a -24 in nine minutes of play. Here’s what this means–in fifteen minutes of play in these last two games…Alex Abrines is 0-1 from the field and -43.

And, you see, that’s the real storyline here. Billy Donovan derailed his own basketball team. Sure, four missed critical free throws and a lane violation didn’t help-but Billy Donovan had three other options other than Abrines.

He could have started Josh Huestis. He could have started Jerami Grant. He could have even started Ray Felton and gone really, really small from the get-go to answer the guard tandem of Bledsoe and Middleton, but Billy Donovan and/or Sam Presti went with Alex Abrines. And if you think I’m stretching it here…you’ll notice like on Wednesday night–Abrines never once again saw the floor in the second half because every jacket on that Thunder bench knew they had messed up.

As far as the rest of the game? I thought OKC fought hard and showed some grit from fighting back from that deficit. They never quit and they played their asses off and on this night deserved much, much better not only from Leon Wood, but more importantly—from Billy Donovan.

He let his team down. I mean, okay you started him, but to allow 9:24 of this to transpire all told is unforgiveable from an NBA coach who’s got a contending team. Simply unforgiveable.

I like Billy Donovan. Like I wrote before, he seems like a wonderful human being, just maybe one who should be coaching in the SEC instead of the NBA.

Not many college coaches have successfully made the transition to the NBA game. Larry Brown did. It appears Brad Stevens will. But Lon Kruger didn’t. John Calipari didn’t. Fred Hoiberg hasn’t and neither has Billy Donovan considering in his two and half seasons so far he’s had the luxury of coaching Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony, and Victor Oladipo. If you weren’t counting, that’s seven all-star caliber players if you cut Serge some slack.

Tough to have to write this recap like this, but in all candor that’s the way I see this….the Thunder have an elite NBA roster with a college coach who’s comfort zone probably is tilted more towards coaching college kids than multi-millionaires with agents.

Thunder host the Dallas Mavs on Sunday night. The Mavs have one of the worst teams in the league with one of the best coaches in the league in Rick Carlisle. We saw how that went the first time these two teams met in late November as Dallas rolled the Thunder.

Thunder Game Day music is going to be a bitch on Sunday. A real bitch.