I had no idea Kawhi Leonard was going to be a load management DNP, or else I would not have in any way promoted this game on my blog. The Clippers without Kawhi are not a contender or a top six team in the West. Period. End of that. Sad the fans in Oklahoma City did not get to see either Ja Morant or Kawhi Leonard in person this week.
I don’t cover bullshit games on my blog. I don’t have the time or patience. I switched over to the NBA Network and watched a pretty good game bewteen the Lakers vs. the streaking Minnesota Timberwoles with the sound down while I listened to Chrsitman music.
Of course…LeBron was a DNP, but he was wearing a cool winter stocking cap that I’m going try and order tomorrow.
I think tomorrow night I’l watch Jordan Poole’s return to the Chase Center and maybe blog down some comments on that fatefrul decision the Warriors made in keeping Draymond and giving him a four year $100 million dollar deal.
Plus…I think I’ll do my first Top 12 Western Conference Poll of the season just days before Christmas.
Have a wonderful next four days. I know I’m not going to miss a minute or nuance of this Christmas. I made it.
Here come Russell Westbrook and Thunder West tonight at the Pay.Com Arena. The Clippers are the hottest team in the NBA being winners of their last nine games and jelling perfectly with a healthy Kawhi Leonard and a new kid named James Harden.
Throw in Paul George….. and Russell now volunteering his own new bench role and the fact of the matter is these Clippers of predicted mass dysfunction have become the tightest unit in the NBA just shy of the one-third mark in ths NBA regular season.
This should be magnificent theatre tonight in the Bible Belt of Adam Silver’s NBA since no longer are the Thunder losing by script.
I love the fact Russell took the high road for his team and is now coming off the bench. I love the way he’s somewhat mitigated chucking up those Wild Thing threes of his and is playing the team role like he did back in his UCLA days.
Russell…I’m proud of you. Please do not deviate from this mode. Kawhi is good enough when healthy to help you get your ring. You’re a role player now….which is not a crime.
Keep doing your job, buddy…and I’ll treat you like a God on my blog.
I wonder how a podcast called Thunder West Clippers would go?
Hmmn.
I’ve actually got the time to cover this game tonight front and center. Let me see what you are Thunder.
What a phenomeal game last night at the Chase Center in San Francisco as the once 10-14 Warriors came back from 17 points down in the fourth period to defeat the Boston Celtics.
Steph Curry led the charge and applied the dagger late in the overtime period with one of those patented moonbeam jumpers of his to complete the miracle comeback against the Celtics who entered the game as winners of five straight with a league best record of 20-5.
The Warriors’ now without Draymond Green wreaking havoc upon his own team….have settled down with a much younger looking team which all the sudden looks pretty decent.
It’s somewhat amazing when you don’t have someone on your own team killing you every night with an unimaginable slew of brain dead, stupid… self abusive plays what you can accomplish as a team.
If I were GM Mike DunleavyJr. I’d be in no hurry whatsoever to bring Draymond back or even broach the conversation with Joe Dumars of the NBA’s disciplinary board. I would even seek a ruling holding Drayond out at the least till the trade deadline without pay. I’d also seriously think about trading Draymond to some stupid franchise like the Detroit Pistons or clueless Washington Wizards and see what I could get for Pat Bev’s podcasting partner. I have no patience for stupid football, basketball, or players who are getting paid millions.
You know where stupid basketball players are come late April? They’re either playing golf or fishing….or flashing a pistol around in a strip bar.
Speaking of…..
Ja Morant came back last night after his 25 game sit and was miraculous as he led the previously in a coma Memphis Grizzlies to a win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Ja Morant is a top ten player in the NBA, Draymond Green is not a top 25 player in the league. Role players cannot play dumber than a f–king rock. End of Mike’s current rant on the famous podcaster aka Draymond Green.
As far as the Warriors…I applaud what Steve Curry is now doing with his roster. He has made Andrew Wiggins a bench player because he hasn’t done all that much either and Coach Kerr is going with the players who are going to give Steph a chance to lead this team back into the playoff picture.
The youngsters like Johnny Kuminga, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Brandon P, and Moses Moody are the future.
Johnny Kuminga had in my mind his best NBA game ever last night in the win over the Celts. TJD, the second round draftee from Indiana replaced Drayond and responded with a double-double. Brandon Podziemski has already proved to me he’s at least one guard of the furure and I’ve always loved the versatility of Moses Moody.
For a hundred million dollars over the next four years…I’m fairly certain Mike Dunleavy Jr. can find something better than a player who sabotages his own team and has become bigger than the game in his own mind.
Next up for the Warriors are the pathetic Washington Wizards. Jordan Poole can breathe easier now knowing he won’t be physically beaten in this game with Draymond in exile.
I’ll get to the 17-8 Thunder tomorrow before their game with the streaking LA Clippers.
I’m staying good on my pledge to write great things about the Thunder’s win on Saturday at Denver. But I want to wait and see what kind of maturity the Thunder display tonight versus the lowly Memphis Grizzles.
I want to see now if they can take care of business like a mature team which aspires to be a legit contender.
It’s been a great start for Porter Moser’s Sooners in Year 3.
Year 1…. the Sooners should have been included in the Big Dance with the nation’s toughest schedule bar none….but 18-15 wasn’t a good enough record despite the Sooners being ranked No. 38 by the NCAA’s own ranking website.
Last year was tough as the Sooners finished 15-17 and rightfully missed the NCAA Tourney. The only rotation players returning from that team are Milos Uzman, Otega Ohweh, and Sam Goodwin. Porter added two nice college recruits and five transfer guys who all meld in nicely with the Sooners’ various roster needs.
In reality…the only Sooner player who left who’d being seeing floor time with this group of players would have been Jalen Hill. I absolutely loved Jalen Jill and what he stood for as a young man and a player, but he chose to go back home and play his fifth year for Lon Kruger’s son at UNLV. Best of luck for Jalen with his final year of college hoops.
Of the five transfer portal players…. I want to start integrating them here on the blog starting with Javian McCullum who is the best player on the team. Javian is a quick athletic guard who reminds me very much of Hollis Price who played on Kelvin’s Final Four team. The second portal player I’ll mention is John Hughley who’s a 6’9″ big with great hands, quick feet, and a very soft set of passing hands, plus not at all shy shooting the three.
Then’s there’s Jalen Moore the very athletic transfer from Oregon who I would desribe to my buddy Fran Frashela as a Swiss Army knife type. Maybe somewhat like Daryl ‘Choo’ Kennedy from Northwest Classen from the Billy Tubbs era of Sooner hoops.
The other two kids are both guards and I’ll work them in on my pregame next week when the Sooners hook up to play the iconic North Carolina Tar Heels in a highly anticpated Big 12-ACC matchup.
OU is 9-0 entering this game versus Green Bay, ranked No. 11 in the Coach’s Poll, and 4-0 versus Quad 1 competition.
This will be my first venture into a basketball arena since the cancer issue. The walker isn’t going with me on this trip. I should be fine. I’m pretty well jacked just being inside of a basketball arena. This is kind of moment for me…so to speak. Yo, Adrian.
If the Thunder beat Denver or just play them tough.. I’ll write something nice about them on Sunday morning.
Well….that didn’t last long. We had a staff meeting here at okcthunderground.com and have decided to scratch on the idea of going any further with the Dub Nation Oklahoma podcast series in that none of us actually anticipated Draymond Green would completely lose his f–king mind and the Warriors would be out of playoff contention by December 15th.
Some advice to all you youngsters out there aspiring to be an underground internet guru….flow with the changes…be fluid.
My executive producer, T-Cullpepper suggested, ” You know, Mike…..the Thunder aren’t tanking any longer and they just milked the taxpayers in Oklahoma City for an additional billion dollars. Maybe…a big free agent signing could be on the horizon which could make the Thunder a legit contender?”
I replied, ” Did you see them lose last night in Sacramento? Same old Thunder. Same underacheivers. Trust me on this.”
T-Cull said, “The Kings are pretty good. Maybe cut them some slack and see how they play in Denver tomorrow night. But I know this…we can’t go any further with this Draymond nonsense. Some of our best crypto advertisers aren’t on board with Draymond any longer. And we both know Andrew Wiggins is playing below the level of dead shit. Let’s try the Thunder thing.”
So I’ve agreed to see how the Thunder play tomorrow night in Denver before moving forward with the podcast here at okcthunderground.com for the time being.
I’m headed to the OU game tomorrow night to see Porter Moser’s 11-ranked Sooners take on Green Bay Wisconsin in preparation for next week’s game versus nationally ranked North Carolina.
I’ll be wearing my official fake black ESPN pullover and have my fake press credential…so if things go right maybe I can sneak into a seat there on the press row far away from Joe C’s discerning glare.
Let me see how Denver does tomorrow night in Denver…and then we’ll come to terms on the podcast.
Have a wonderful Saturday.
All this traditional Christmas music is driving me crazy. I need a break ten days out.
This is why I went crazy the other night after in reality Draymond slayed his own Warriors with the most blatantly stupid foul I’ve ever witnessed in an NBA game.
The Thunder didn’t win that game. No way. It was gift-wrapped to them by the podcaster dude- pretend ganster aka Draymond Green whose podcasting and social media brand has caused him to be more pimp than NBA star role player these past two NBA seasons.
In essence….starting with the punching out of the whiny bitch Jordan Poole, the chest stomping of Domas Sabonis, and the choking of the annoying Rudy Gobert….there has appeared to be something amiss with either Draymond’s basketball smarts or mental stability.
But even me…who loves tough, smart, players…. even I cannot cross this bridge with Draymond after the eggriously stupid play in Phoenix the other night when he again self-inflicted another loss to his team when he displayed his heliocopter neck chop to Jusuf Nurkic with the Dubs leading by five points on the road.
The enabling from Dub Nation can go no further. If I were Adam Silver and Joe Dumars… I would at the minimum sit Draymond until one week before the trade deadline. This would give Draymond, his agent Rich Paul, and his family time to decide which path forward Draymond should pursue.
Draymond Green is not stupid. He’s a smart dude. You have to be smart to do what he’s done with his NBA career being that he was a little known second round pick from Michigan State back in the day.
Draymond wants a career beyond the court as well, perhaps being the next Charles Barkley of sorts. Make absolutely no mistake about this previous sentence of mine. You’ll notice Ron Artest, Dennis Rodman, and Bill Laimbeer never ever sat on the same panel with Ernie Johnson.
Draymond…Chuck pulled this off becuase he became lovable to white people. You might want to pull in the angry Black Panther look. Just a career suggestion.
If I were Draymond and super agent Rich Paul I would heed my words from the above graph, get the professional mental help needed, and pull my shit together ASAP.
As far as this season goes for the Warriors…I would say they might be close to being done if Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Looney, Klay Thompson, Chris Paul, Moses Moody, Johnny Kuminga and Gary Payton II don’t figure some things out.
I’m giving Dario Sarcic a pass because I acutally think he’s been decent.
I’m also giving rookie guard Brandon Podziemski a pass because he’s been more than decent so far this season. He was in fact the Warriors’ second best player on the court the other night in Phoenix behind Steph.
Brandon P or BP hence forward on my blog.
Consider this…in Phoenix the Warriors’ bench scored 80 points and the starters still somehow managed to lose this game.
80 bench points and you find a way to lose. That is truly remarkable.
Steph, Dario, and Brandon cannot do this alone.
Klay I love you, dude. Andrew Wiggins, your team needs you. This would be the time you two guys rev your basketball engines and begin the 2023-24 NBA basketball season.
I’ll be covering the Thunder’s game tonight in Sacramento in as much as this is a game I’ve had circled in red since I saw the Thunder’s schedule.
Have a pleasant day and get some things done before the rains roll into Oklahoma tomorrow.
I have to tell you…I’m a little overwhelmed on the blog this week. The Sooners hoopsters jumped to No. 12 in the Coaches Poll, Ernie Johnson was honored in the Hall of Fame, Austin Reaves is still on a torrid pace carrying LeBron and Anthony Davis, and the Draymond Green sentencing phase for his most recent eggrious offense will require an editorial of some sort by the executive editor-in-chief of the okcthunderground.com blog sometime tomorrow.
What a week!
Who says I need Trump and his rabble to fill the content voids on an Oklahoma City Thunder blog?
BTW…before I get started on David Holt…he was the Little Marco Rubio Oklahoma Chairman for that epically failed presidential run back in 2016 when we all thought Donald Trump running for Potus was just a joke to attract Twitter hits and troll Hillary Clinton.
Fast forward to now. Oh, wait….add the Big Orange staying out of federal prison to that list as well for reasons for POTUS 45 to seek a second term.
So….the Thunder’s deal to build a new billion dollar arena passed yesterday with the yes votes carrying a resounding a 70% plurality despite this perhaps being the worst major league venue deal for a city in recent contemporary memory.
The 95/5 ration of investment is pathetic, but I’m in no way a martyr of any sort …so I didn’t vote either way yesterday considering my health prospects of this even being germane to me at some point in my life before the year 2030. I have my own issues to be focused on.
The Warriors, Austin Reaves’ Lakers, and the Nuggets will still travel to play here while I’m still living and that will be fine with me out here at the Deer Creek mini-ranch.
Maybe not so much for the poor people in Oklahoma City who could use a better system of education, a more diverse economy, relief from not having a home, drug addiction rehab facilities, and more police driving our streets.
I wonder if in hindsight if David Holt was a fiduciary for any of those people who can’t even afford to attend a Thunder game despite the fact for the last three years… the Thunder in attendance have ranked dead last, dead last, and are now ranked near the bottom again despite an exciting young team which is near the top of the Western Conference standings.
If your own nan base can’t fill the upper levels of the arena….then why not give those tickets away to people who could not otherwise attend?
So I laughed when I saw David Holt exclaim he and Oklahoma City just beat the world. What in fact happened was Clay Bennett and his ownership group got a sweet deal.
Just my take.
Peace.
MJ
Editor’s note: In case you didn’t notice today… Jerome Powell and the Fed declared there will be no other interest rate hikes and the Dow accordingly crested above the 37,000 plateau. And just so you know…Donald Trump had virtually nothing to do with this happening.
It appears Ernie broke the Internet last night with his Hall of Fame speech. So let me do this instead and I’ll be back to post last night’s speech a little later on in the week.
It’s up. YouTube has got it under control.
I love Ernie Johnson…I can’t lie.
Mike loves Ernie.
Even before I joined the Cancer Stage 4 Survivor’s Club, Ernie Johnson was someone who had my ear the instant he opened his mouth and spoke.
Back in March when Dr. Showalter closed the door and told me what I had and told me I might have two months to live or maybe more depending on me…..one of my first thoughts raced to Ernie Johnson because I knew of his cancer ‘battles’.
BTW….I love Dr. Showalter as well.
I thought to myself…how would Ernie deal with all of this. I asked myself and God to give me the inner faith and strength to be like Ernie Johnson.
That may sound like some contrived bullshit, but it isn’t. That’s how impressed I’ve always been with the manner in which Ernie Johnson has conducted his life.
Ernie Johnson doesn’t know it, but he in fact has been an example of how I wanted to set the goalposts of my own life. To just try and be a better man each morning you pull yourself out of bed and treat others around you with decency and kindness.
Ernie Johnson…you are the GOAT in many ways, my friend. Please don’t ever change because I know it’s not just me who feels this way.
I’m crying right now…I truly am. But in a profoundly good way.
Ernie..thank you for being the person you are beyond the sporting events you cover.
I gotta go work out and then get back to the mini ranch and do some outdoor things with my wife.
Draymond…it appears we may need to have another chat tomorrow. Good lord.
This was like a turning point week-end for me in Seminole. I watched Coach Moser’s guys destroy Arkansas to improve to 9-0 in the annual Tulsa Sooner-Razorback Classic. Eric Mussselman…for the second time in three years got tossed which was hilarious.
I spiritually bonded with Hank the Dog and we’re now officially dog soulmates with Pauli. I think all things considered…Pauli understands.
I did the Zoom/podcast with the retired United States Air Force ofiicers along with a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force and it was awesome. The next one is scheculed for Dec. 28…the same day as the Alamo Bowl.
Then yesterday as that incredible sunset was looming on the horizon…I did my first two mile walk hike without the walker just using the two ski pole-like poles Dorthy the Serendipitous Physical Therapist gave me in the parking lot of the OKC Health Wellness Center last Thursday.
Then…I find out today … both Billy Bowman and Danny Stutsman are returning for their senior seasons in Norman.
Now…I’m going to go work out and then later this evening explain the epiphany I had on my hike which told me I need to vote Yes on the new Thunder arena even though the the ownership offer is total and complete bullshit.
Don’t ever let anybody ever tell you it’s over and you can’t keep dreaming.