The Thunder’s season ended in Houston last night as the Rockets had just enough offense from the free throw line to wear down OKC by a 105-99 count. That magical number of 115 for Houston really didn’t come into play on this night as the Rockets were a miserable 6-35 shooting threes, but as was the case in this series in pretty much all five games, Houston lived on the free throw line…most notably James Harden and Lou Williams.
Russell Westbrook was once again heroic with a 47 point, 11 rebound, 9 assist night. As was the case this entire season, Westbrook put Sam Presti, Billy Donovan, Clay Bennett, Berry Tramel, WWLS, his teammates, and this city on his back and carried them as far as he could. The problem is none of the people around him I just mentioned performed their various jobs as well as Westbrook did for 87 basketball games this season.
Here’s the most telling thing about this series in hindsight. At the trade deadline, Daryl Morey added Lou Williams to his team as a backup point guard, whereas Sam Presti picked up Norris Cole from China. Seriously, think about just that before you try and figure out why OKC wasn’t good enough to go beyond five games in this series.
Think about this as well, Morey went out and got Mike D’Antoni to coach this Rocket team and taylor it to James Harden, whereas Sam Presti fired Scott Brooks to bring on board a college coach with no previous NBA coaching experience. And right here in these two paragraphs is a major part to why Houston is advancing and the Thunder’s season is done.
And it’s funny to date I haven’t read anything by Berry Tramel on any of this because if he wrote anything truthful like this his wormy ass would probably be taking some major heat.
The thing is, without Westbrook, this team would have won something like maybe 22-24 games. And without Westbrook, the writers at the Daily Oklahoman and the pundits at WWLS would have had very little to write about or talk about other than why Baker Mayfield has gotten two major character passes from the local media and an enormous video pass by the Daily Oklahoman, and yet somehow Westbrook is a bad dude because he thinks Tramel is a phony. Let’s at this point call me the objective adult in the room.
Now, let’s go back to that question Tramel asked of Steven Adams. In essence, why do the Thunder play so poorly when Russell’s not on the floor?
And here’s the answer… ‘We’re not very good. That’s the answer, mate. Russell is all we’ve got. Myself and Victor for whatever reasons massively underachieved offensively. My mate, Enes, is an acute defensive liability who not’s playable against either the Rockets or the Warriors. And Andre can’t hit the rim with a free throw. Dude, we weren’t good enough. That’s it, mate.”
In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it. Sam Presti didn’t put enough around Westbrook and Billy Donovan had a very rough bench management series against the Rockets.
That’s it. Those are the answers to this season of basketball in Oklahoma City. That’s what Russell Westbrook didn’t allow Steven Adams to say.
As a fan and a blogger, I was completely captivated by Westbrook and his historic season. Without Westbrook, I can’t imagine what I would have even written about on here. Me, I was coming off a summer where my father passed away from pancreatic cancer in late August. It was tough. My father and I actually attended Game 6 together. It was the last sporting event my father attended. I’ll never forget my father’s reaction to Durant’s decision on July 4th. Good thing for Kevin Durant he didn’t have to meet with my father the tough ass trial lawyer in the aftermath. It would have been brutal, truly brutal.
But Westbrook hung around and signed the extension. He didn’t have to do it, but he did and as a result we all got something truly special to be a part of and enjoy as a city. Something to get our minds off the tragic death of Aubrey McClendon. Something to get our minds off the reality of $50 dollar West Texas crude prices. Something our city and state could rally around. And that’s the beauty of sport in that it can bring people together.
So, as I sit here winding this up, I want to make sure Russell Westbrook understands how much this blogger appreciated the ride. It was wonderful and I know you and you’re wife have a son on the way. You’ll love the journey.
Have a nice summer, Russell Westbrook…and thanks.
For Berry Tramel, dude this is for you. You should be better than this by now. Seriously. Grow up. The world could use another adult.