There has been so much turmoil in our lives of late I thought I’d post this today in appreciation of Chris Paul’s season in Oklahoma City.
Whether the NBA successfully restarts its season in August doesn’t matter. Chris Paul came back to Oklahoma City in the trade for Russell Westbrook and was the perfect fit for Billy Donovan and Sam Presti.
His professionalism and clutch play were key in OKC’s surprising 40-24 season which was ended in March by the COVID-19 play stoppage.
He was clearly the Thunder’s MVP as he formed a three guard tandem with SGA and Dennis Schroder which was one of the best three guard tandems in the league.
I have no idea if the NBA will be able to successfully pull off this COVID restart in August, but either way it goes Chris Paul’s season in Oklahoma City was an extreme positive for every fan of the Thunder.
The Thunder are starting to practice again and ‘ostensibly’ will start playing some games again in August. So we’ll see how that goes.
As an Oklahoman this 5th Congressionaal District runoff will be something I keep track of on my blog.
Obviously…I think Terry Neese is crazy and a Glenn Close-like stalker of the the Trumpster Fire. So as an open minded independent I will give Stephanie Bice a look.
She’s attractive. She’s articulate. I would pick her over either Mary Fallin or Kevin Stitt in a heartbeat. She has experience in Oklahoma politics. I wish she would just be honest and say she was a Carly Fiorina supporter back in 2016. BTW…just last week Carly Fiorina endorsed Joe Biden pretty much saying Donald Trump is a complete and utter joke in the White House.
If Stephanie Bice would just say openly in Oklahoma what Carly Fiorina said just last week I could actually consider voting for her even though I’m somewhat of a social liberal with fiscal conservative leanings.
I differ with her on several things, but I’m an open minded person. I don’t need all of my boxes checked. If I voted tomorrow I’d vote for Kendra Horn just for the fact she agreed with Carly Fiorina and voted to impeach the most corrupt POTUS in American history.
So here’s Stephanie Bice doing an intro interview explaining her candidacy back when there where nine Republicans seeking the opportunity to unseat Kendra Horn who like Carly Fiorina doesn’t think Donald Trump is fit for the presidency.
From the first moment I saw a Terry Neese ad and then her subsequent Save Trump yard signs there was never a doubt in my mind she’d be the GOP choice in Oklahoma’s 5th congressional district.
Terry Neese took the Kevin Stitt playbook from the 2018 gubernatorial race and went two steps beyond tethering her and Donald Trump together as if they are one.
Neese garnered 36% of the vote while state senator Stephanie Bice came in with 25% of the vote.
Neese’s stategy will be simple…she’ll continually run ads reminding every rogue red Rebublican in the district that Bice was originally a Carly Fiorina supporter in 2016.
Ball game. Game, set, and match.
Mick Cornett go ahead and call Stephanie Bice and explain to her what is about to happen.
On the Dem side Kendra Horn easily swamped one of my former poly-sci professors at UCO in Tom Guild. Tom actually used to be a Republican. Go figure.
Horn vs. Neese should be a war and one of the more interesting congressional elections in the nation on November 3rd.
Oklahoma’s 5th District is somewhat what unique in that it combines Norman with some of Oklahoma City’s more educated pockets of people who woudn’t automatically vote for Hitler or Stalin if they had the R next to their names on the Oklahoma ballot.
Vegas would have Horn as a very slight favorite I think in that she’s amassed a nice war chest of $2.3 million and I would think Independents like myself need a little more than Terry Neese’s mantra of Save Trump and Mary Fallin II.
For political junkies it should be a great race.
In reality…this is a very effective ad. It offers no apology in throwing red meat at the Trump base and explaining why every Trump voter in the 5th District should vote for Terry Neese.
From a political strategy standpoint…I give her credit. Never give a sucker an even break and kick him in the face when he’s down.
Too damn hot in Deer Creek today to write anything about the primary today. Clicked out to a 107 degree heat index. Hottest day of the year so far at the Deer Creek Weather Station.
Like Secretariat…Pauli doesn’t train on days like this. She’s already shown she has the champion DNA gene.
Good day to play a little Dire Straits and drink plenty of cold liquids.
I would guess Terry Neese and Stephanie Bice will be the two Republicans who advance to the final GOP runoff later in the summer.
Be especially safe with this weather the next two days.
Hard to tell what is going to happen at O State with Mike Gundy and the $17 million he is owed on his contract. I’m sure if O State could prove contractual cause they would love to move beyond the Mike Gundy era at this point.
So who would be the next head coach in Stillwater? I think it would be offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn. He checks all the boxes for Oklahoma State moving into the future.
Lincoln Riley was a coordinator at OU when he got the call. Same with Mike Gundy back in the day. Bob Stoops was the defensive coordintor at Florida when Joe C made him the man. Barry Switzer was Chuck Fairbanks’ offensive coordinator in 1972 when he was elevated to the head job.
All were players’ coaches. Not so sure I have Mike Gundy in that category.
My point being, I think AD Mike Holder has his man if he can legally get rid of Mike Gundy’s contract.
Dunn’s ascension to this point is pretty much like Gundy’s…position coach, offensive coordinator. Dunn is sharp and a player’s coach pretty much like Lincoln Riley, Bob Stoops, and of course Barry Switer.
If we have a college football season…this O State team should be pretty good as well. I was going to have them at No. 2 in the Big 12 before Mike Gundy created this mess in Stillwater.
There is no need in Stillwater for Todd Monken or Larry Fedora or even an aged Les Miles at this point. Mike Holder in my view has his man if he can rid of the other man he’s had to babysit since 2012.
I just wanted to profile Kasey Dunn because I think he’s going to be someone’s head coach in the not too distant future.
If Holder does this then he would have Mike Boynton and Kasey Dunn as his two head coaches in basketball and football moving forward. Two coaches who one would think would on the surface make O State a more attractive destination for elite black college athletes in the two most important sports Holder looks over as AD.
This was beyond eloquent, but it was in 2016. Four years ago.
Nothing has changed except the problem has gotten worse. Why do we in America treat our dogs better than we treat black people?
Now…we don’t do that if the black person is vital to our favorite sports team. But if a black person isn’t in sports or entertainment…do they really have an equal chance to participate in the American Dream?
Do we view black lawyers, doctors, and engineers as we do whites in the same professions?
No…we do not on a whole.
Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, and LeBron back in 2016 gave their views on racism in America.
This was last spring in Salt Lake City as Russell Westbrook said no more to some racist comments from a white couple in the stands.
No more. I don’t blame him or any of the athletes.
You wanna talk that trash sign a waiver release and come down to the bench and handle it in person.
At what point in society do you stand up for yourself if you’re black?
Russell did and though it was an ugly scene…I think in the end he probably in privte had a talk with his young son and said we don’t have to take this from anybody.
It’s been close to a year now since Russell was traded and it turned out well for both Russell and Chris Paul. I’ll be pulling for the Rockets to go as far as they can in the NBA post season.
It will be interesting to see how both Russell and James Harden do with all this unaccustomed rest their bodies have gotten during the shutdon of the NBA season.
For me, the Rockets are one of the compelling stories as we ‘maybe’ get back to NBA basketball.
I still think Adam Silver’s plan is far too complex. Sixteen teams. Best three out of five in the first two rounds and reduce the human numbers as much as possible and get this done by mid-September or don’t do it at all.
Russell and I are in complete agreement on Donald Trump. It’s pathetic. We all know fourth graders who speak more intelligently than Donald Trump. Russell pretty much says this in public and seems at ease within himself as a man. Not just a black man. A young man.
Russell spoke at the Juneteenth ceremony in Tulsa with Kamala Harris and other black leaders.
It’s good to see Russell take a leadership role in this. He has a young son. Russell knows this is not the world he wants for his son as my son knows this is not the world we want for my grandson.
This will be my national question for Smerconish this Saturday.
Simply put…does the Trump base have enough left in their collective gas tank to re-elect the most inept, most corrupt POTUS in the history of the Republic?
Think about this current version of the GOP. Not one former Republican president or nominee of the party from Dwight Eisenhower thru Bush 43 would be endorsing Donald Trump or attending the convention with the possible exception of Bob Dole. Dole was the only one who attended the convention in 2016.
I don’t think even Nixon would be on board with this nonsense.
This list would include Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bush 41, Bob Dole, Bush 43, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.
That is close to seventy years of history.
What does this say about the party and what does it say about Donald Trump’s base as we head into July?
I hadn’t really thought all that much about the Thunder till his signing this week. With Dort in the starting lineup the Thunder were 16-5 this regular season. He was the perfect chemistry fill for OKC’s starting lineup.
Dort now officailly becomes my favorite current Thunder player. He is the epitome of my TSN metric by which I measure winning basketball players. Tougness, Smarts, Nasty.
Putting aside Dort is Canadian he will be our Mark Messier type moving froward, while our other Canadian hydrid guard… SGA, will of course be Gretzky.
I wonder if both of these guys skate?
Maybe the almost always useless Little Nick Gallo could do a story about our Candians’ hockey experiences while growing up.
I would guess most people in Oklahoma have no clue as to who Mark Messier or Paul Coffey were in their glory Edmonton Oiler days.
I may have to do a Mark Messier mixtape to glorify Lu Dort even more.
For the first time since Rudy Gobert tested positive…I’m kinda exited about the Thunder possibly resuming their season if possible.