I actually watched the first half of the Thunder blowout loss to the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks. The Gonzaga-St. Mary’s game started just as the Bucks had dropped 76 first half points on OKC’s much vaunted defense per Little Nick Gallo. So it all worked out just right for me as a passionate hoops fan.
I’m glad I didn’t go to the game because I might have verbally taunted some of the Thunder fans. I’m better than that. No matter how bad it gets… I’m not wearing a brown sack or verbally engaging with any Thunder fans inside of Pay.Com Arena.
It was great watching Giannis, Bobby Portis, Jrue, Khris, and Serge virtually do whatever they wanted offensively anytime they had possession of the ball.
I’ll talk about Gonzaga’s win over St. Mary’s maybe tomorrow night because I don’t think Gonzaga is anything special. In fact…I think Gonzaga would have finished in third place in the Big 12 this season behind both Baylor and Kansas. I think Gonzaga is better than Texas and Texas Tech, but I can’t go any higher than that unless they prove me wrong in the Tournament.
I’ll be interested to see if the Committee gives the Zags a path where they don’t have to play many Big 12, Big 10, or SEC teams to get to the Final Four. OU played the Zags in the second-round last season….and I didn’t think they were anything special then either. In fact, they were extremely fortunate to beat UCLA in the national semis is the way I recall it.
Why do I have the video of Calvin Ridley posted on this Thunder game comment of mine? Because I believe if Calvin Ridley should be suspended by the NFL for integrity of the game issues for betting a few games…then I as a fan of sport, believe Sam Presti and the Thunder should be stripped of a first-round draft pick and fined $10 million dollars for abusing the NBA’s integrity of the game issues by their shameless tank this season.
I think what Sam Presti has done is far more damaging to the NBA as a whole than what Calvin Ridley did by betting few games when he wasn’t even actively playing games for the Falcons.
The Thunder would lose their first-round pick next year and the $10 million dollar fine would be put into a league escrow account to repay the Thunder fans who were stupid enough to purchase NBA tickets this season in Oklahoma City.
What Calvin Ridley did had no mens rea attached. Remember that’s the Latin legal phrase which means purposeful intent to perpetrate a crime or misdeed upon another party..
Conversely, Sam Presti and the Thunder had every intent as far back as this September to perpetrate this season of less than above board tanking.
If Presti had simply said back then, ” We’re tanking like a boatload of whores.” I’d be totally okay with this.
But he didn’t do this. He played games with semantics and used people in the naive Oklahoma City sports media market to assist him in this season of virtual deception.
So…that’s why I have the Calvin Ridley video posted above.
Tell me…who’s done more to harm the integrity of their sport in their market…Calvin Ridley or Sam Presti?