My blog will be different this basketball season. I’ll still follow the Thunder as they struggle to win thirty something games. For the first time since the inaugural season in Oklahoma City when the team went 23-59 the Thunder will be a losing team trying to lose games after the trade deadline.
I have no idea how many current fans in Oklahoma could tell you who Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis are or were in basketball parlance. But I’m fairly certain almost every Seattle Supersonics fan knows what it meant when they were traded for draft picks.
Interesting stat…of the twenty-five poorest states in America twenty-one were carried by Donald Trump in the Election of 2016. And my guess is despite an annual trillion dollar deficit looming, despite a recent $981 billion dollar trade deficit, despite no health care reform, despite an attack on our free press, despite no evidence of infrastructure policies, despite the lowest of our economically challenged people falling further behind…these dumbasses will probably vote for Donald Trump again.
This is where I have to paste my Dave Chapelle bit.
I set out with this blog to archive a book somewhat like Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam as he chronicled the Bill Walton’s Portland Trailblazers. I still feel that type of story is waiting to be told which wasn’t told by Sam Anderson in his recent book Boom Town. Or perhaps The Courting of Marcus Dupree by Willie Morris.
There’s a story here which goes far beyond the basketball court. There truly is. But there’s no way you could write this story if you’re on the Thunder payroll or say someone like Berry Tramel with the dying, almost dead Daily Oklahoman which used to be owned by the Gaylords.
My blog this season will be a combination of the presidential campaign and the Thunder’s season of tanking to replace all the black stars who decided Oklahoma City wasn’t the place to be.
Kevin Durant is in New York. James Harden and Russell Westbrook are in Houston… and I’ll ne pulling for them if Klay Thompson can’t come back in time this season. Paul George and Patrick Patterson are in Los Angeles with the Clippers. Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis are in Indiana. And Serge Ibaka is now a Canadian in Toronto with an NBA champions ring and a big grin on his face. Fuck Reggie Jackson.
As I sit here I ask myself this question… if I were a black NBA star would I stay in Oklahoma City beyond the constraints of the second contract which constrains players to move to another city?
I’d be a proud black man. I’d have some Bill Russell in me. I couldn’t just sit quietly and listen to dumb white people saying dumb white trash type of things. I’d have a problem with all this in Oklahoma. I’d have a problem being in a state in which the just deposed two term governor wouldn’t meet with Barack Obama when he visited the city.
Maybe I was black in a previous life.
If I were black I’d want to play for Pop or Steve Kerr or maybe Dwayne Casey. I might even turn out to be racist with my contempt for dumb white people.
I’d probably at some point have to escape to Toronto as I’ve chronicled on here from time to time.
But for now I’m writing a blog and taking notes in Oklahoma City.
Make America Great Again…please don’t vote for Donald Trump.