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This is the karaoke video I want for my Sam Presti karaoke sessions as we go thru this season of tanking. I’d like to know if this was in the original plan of sustainability?

Three years minimum just to be a contender for the No. 8 seed. The notion of being a championship contender isn’t even on the radar. How long did it take the Lakers to get back?

Don’t scoff you Durant haters. Kevin Durant was the franchise in Oklahoma City and it’s debatable now if he’d even come back to get his jersey retired here given the way he’s been treated by the Trump racists.

I love this video. Just love it.

My favorite Dylan song by a mile.

Even when they’re both tanking…Bob Myers gets the best of Sam Presti. I couldn’t even watch this bullshit as it unfolded in front of me. The Thunder played their tanking roll to perfection for most of this game as they trailed the G League eight man version of the Thunder for most of the night.

Then… the Thunder inexplicably rallied at the end to lose their loss and absorb a win in their quest for the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.

If you love professional wrestling—this is your season as an OKC Thunder fan.

The Thunder get their first road win and now stand 1-6 on the road. Consider this though—take away the three wins from this Walking Dead version of the Warriors and the Thunder are right there as the NBA’s worst team with a 2-11 mark in the quest for the first pick in this summer’s NBA draft,

Who would have thought this time last season we would see Sam Presti and Bob Myers at this point with their respective franchises this quickly?

Golden State was literally decimated by injuries and had no choice while the Thunder had to cut ties with Russell Westbrook’s contract for obvious reasons.

But the fall to this extent this fast is stunning to witness even when you know the teams are tanking.

But the Warriors have three rings, while the Thunder have the dubious distinction of being the NBA franchise which had Kevin Durant for nine years and didn’t win anything.

The Warriors with Steph, Klay, Draymond, Looney, whoever they get for D’Angelo Russell, and whoever their No. 1 pick is this summer will be back next season.

And as it turns out not a bad year for the Warriors to be in rebuild in San Francisco as the 49’ers appear to be headed for a run at making the Super Bowl if they can get by the Seahawks and the Saints.

With the Thunder though it will be a much longer rebuild if ever depending on how much luck Sam Presti has with his draft picks. But it will be a glorious ESPN 30/30 film. No rings, but an epic 30/30 film.

So on a night when the Thunder should have lost to the Warriors they screwed around and won…which is a loss.

Sam Presti needs some theme music for tanking. This seems about right.

It should be an interesting game in Stillwater on Saturday night as OU visits O State in what is a must game for OU if they hope to slip thru the back door into the college football playoff final four.

The Sooners enter as No. 7 and the Cowboys at No. 21 and on a nice little run with their defense playing much better as of late.

Both teams have a Heisman candidate. OU with Jalen Hurts and O State with Canadian running back Chuba Hubbard. There’s a genuine argument for both being the Big 12 Player of the Year.

Both defenses of late have been making plays which is nice to see for college football fans in this state.

OU’s defense in reality has made season saving plays three weeks in a row when you think about it: 1 The stop on the two point conversion versus Iowa State. 2 The Nick Bonito interception to clinch the win at Baylor. 3 The late pick by Bookie Radley-Hiles to get the clinching stop against TCU. It’s been Alex Grinch’s young guys saving the season week by week with a heavy does of Jalen Hurts usage to keep them off the field as much as possible.

To me…this is very encouraging for the future of the OU defense. Caleb Kelly is back for the remainder of this season and next. Tre Norwood will be back in the defensive backfield after an injury redshirt season. Jon Michael-Terry will be back from injury as well. But most of all OU will return a plethora of young players on the defensive side of the ball who have seen meaningful minutes.

Kenneth Murray will be gone next season, but look for a guy like Ronnie Perkins to step up and become a star. Perkins to me is a key for OU moving forward on this side of the ball. I think as he goes on the pass rush—OU will go the remainder of this season and next.

For O State both wide receiver Tylan Wallace and Spencer Sanders are done with season ending injuries. Dru Brown the graduate transfer from Hawaii has the opportunity of a lifetime to become a rock star for life in Stillwater if he can lead the Cowboys to an upset.

Mike Gundy has calmed down these past few weeks. The press conferences seem less manic with no further talk of double doses of Ambien to get thru the nights. Simple. His team is playing hard for him and doing their best given the hand dealt.

It could be a classic Bedlam or it could much of the same as O State hasn’t won in Stillwater since Weeden’s championship season in 2011.

The games have all been close of late and OU hasn’t blown anyone out since the home win over West Virginia.

Vegas has OU as a 10.5 favorite, but history would tell you to take the points since OU hasn’t covered since the West Virginia game.

OU needs some help even if they win Bedlam. They may need an Auburn win over Alabama, and they definitely need LSU to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.

Mike Gundy needs a Bedlam win…period.

It should be a great week-end of college football.

Another entertaining loss as the Thunder clearly showed why they lead the entire NBA in this category with a 130-127 home loss to the LA Lakers.

I’m guessing this was one of the better home games as far as attendance and if you looked around the arena there was quite a bit of bright gold Lakers tops amidst Thunder blue.

Less than a decade ago the Thunder were becoming America’s Team with a core of Durant, Harden, and Westbrook. But now with LeBron and Anthony Davis the Lakers appear to be headed to greatness once again as long as LeBron stays healthy.

If you watched the Houston vs. LA Clipper game last night you not only cursed the Harden trade to Houston, but at this point you have to question Sam Presti not keeping Durant and Harden together following the 2012 Finals appearance versus the Heat.

But that’s another level of hindsight and not completely fair on my part because Harden was horrible in those Finals against Miami.

You have to look at this with some reality attached….WITH CHRIS PAUL AND DANILO GALLANARI the Thunder are 5-10 overall, 0-6 on the road, and have won only one game to date against a playoff team with a winning record (Philly).

If you’re a sunshine pumper…you might want to think what these first fifteen games would have looked like without Chris Paul and Gallinari.

This isn’t a horrible roster one thru ten, but to me what it illustrates is how much of a beast the Western Conference is this season. Imagine what it would be like if Golden State and Portland hadn’t imploded with injuries.

Or throw in the fact the Thunder had the fortune of playing the Pelicans without Zion. The basketball gods have actually been kind to the Thunder so far in this regard.

You’re not going to read me on here bitching or whining though because Presti had no choice. Paul George knew he wasn’t winning anything in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook, and Sam Presti knew he wasn’t winning anything without Kevin Durant or Paul George attached to Russell Westbrook.

The Thunder are tanking in order to get a lottery pick with their own pick. They get another first in this draft for trading Jerami Grant and it remains to be been what they’ll get for Gallinari. I have no idea who would want Chris Paul’s contract, but we’ll see.

The Thunder won 23 games their first season in Oklahoma City—so to me that’s the line of demarcation as this Thunder season moves along and less talent remains on the roster as the season moves along.

You would think the core coming out of this season will be SGA, Ferguson, Bazley, Diallo, and perhaps Noel. Presti has quite few buttons to push and it will be more entertaining to witness the rebuild than the basketball itself at times.

There’s no real sense in bitching about how Billy Donovan handled the last 11.8 seconds last night when the Thunder were down by three with a chance to send the game into overtime.

Because as much as it hurts to admit….this Thunder season becomes better the more the Thunder lose.

Next up the Warriors in their new San Francisco arena. This is a game where something has to give as either Golden State wins a game or if the Thunder can win their first road game of the season.

The good news is there are several great Western Conference matchups almost every night if you were a serious NBA fan before Clay Bennett moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

In places like New York and San Francisco this will matter. In places like Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Alabama it won’t matter.

Such is the state of our Union and the New Confederacy.

The Fox zombies will roll their eyes in reference to Sondland’s testimony. Union members where math, science, and some semblance of history still matters will regard this as a historical moment we’ll never forget.

I don’t think so.

Because I honestly believe at this point Donald Trump could rape daughter Ivanka and slit her throat on a live Hannity telecast and Trump supporters would maintain it was Obama wearing a Trump disguise. Roger Ailes of Fox founding fame must be proud looking down from Fox heaven at what he created.’

What Ailes created in 1996 is a cable news network which exhibits little shame in pandering horseshit nonsense which a certain segment of white Americans accept as the truth.

So do I think this was that moment in Watergate where the lapse on Rosemary Woods’ tapes did Richard Nixon in?

I do not because from then to now the percentage of Americans who trust their government has dwindled from 71% to 17%. Who do I cite for this stat? Jon Meacham.

Let me give you another prescient stat from a somewhat obscure historian from Norman, Oklahoma named Roger Bishop.

He shared this thought with me this past Sunday over lunch in the heart of Trump Country…. in Seminole, Oklahoma.

What Professor Bishop said to me was this, ” Mike, in all reality—we should have just pretended we lost the Civil War in the 1860’s and perhaps if these dumbasses thought they were the victors it might have turned out differently for the country as a whole.”

So in reality — depending if you live in the Union or in the New Confederacy you probably have a much different take on Sondland’s testimony at the Trump impeachment hearings.

Once again the Thunder showed their roster isn’t trash one thru nine, but by the same token showed something is missing which could propel the team to being a playoff contender.

The Thunder headed West and had to play a road back to back versus the Clippers and Lakers and predictably lost both games in what were competitive games.

I’m very calm sitting here writing about the Thunder on my little blog because I had the Thunder at No. 12 in the West winning somewhere around 34-38 games this season depending on how long this roster stays intact beyond December 15th.

It’s not a terrible team. In a way it’s hard not to like their spirit, but by the same token they’re 0-6 on the road this season to date.

One of the first things I look at in a team is if can they at the least be a .500 team on the road. So far with this team the answer is a resounding no. I mean could this team even be 15-26 this season on the road?

In the West you’re going to have to be able to win some road games to be relevant if you want to contend for the No. 8 slot.

With the Thunder in fact we don’t even know what Sam Presti’s plan is this season beyond December 15th. I’m not rankled in the least. We should have known this was coming and at the least we’re going to see if Billy Donovan should be the coach beyond this season.

To me…if this roster stayed intact then I would have a 41-43 season as a barometer to keep Billy Donovan. Having a head coaching job in the NBA should somewhat be predicated on winning games in accordance with the payroll of the roster. Is there a metric for a coach monetizing his roster’s payroll is what I’m writing here.

So we’ll see if the full tank mode goes into effect after December 15th with some roster changes or if Sam Presti will see what he has in Billy Donovan.

I’m totally good. I love the NFL, the NBA as a whole, the NHL, and I was just treated to one of my favorite World Series of all-time as far as storylines.

I can detach myself emotionally from the Thunder for awhile. I never once wore one of those ridiculous playoff T-shirts the Thunder put on the seats which espouse the oneness of the Trump evangelicals in a place like Oklahoma. The shirts would say Us or Community or Spirit or some other bullshit reference to the MAPS aspect of having Seattle’s team in Oklahoma City.

I just like the basketball and enjoy watching elite players who are coached by coaches who know what they’re doing at this level.

The league best Lakers are in town on Friday and the Thunder to date are 5-3 on the road with a home marquee win over the Sixers on their 5-9 resume.

These Lakers are much better than those Sixers so we’ll see what kind of show the home team Thunder can give the home crowd on Friday night inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.

I would think there will be quite a few Lakers jerseys sprinkled in the crowd with what to date has been an easy and cheap ticket at Chesapeake Arena.

The birth of Sooner Magic occurred in 1976 when Barry Switzer’s Sooners stunned the Huskers with an improbable comeback which would linger with Tom Osborne for a decade.

As great as many of those wins were…what happened in Waco ranks right there with the best wins ever in the Sooner Magic series.

Whoo! Just win, baby!

I think for the most part as long as Gallinari and Chris Paul are in OKC the average Thunder fan is going to get a fairly entertaining night of NBA basketball in the games played at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

On the road…not so sure.

But on this Friday night the Thunder fans got their money’s worth in an exciting 127-119 overtime win against a legit Sixer team which should be a contender to make the conference finals in the East.

From my view–it was easily OKC’s best win of the season as it was a win over a possible championship contender.

Chris Paul, Big Gallo, SGA, and even Terrance Ferguson were excellent in this game. Especially—Ferguson who despite working thru personal difficulties of late in his life had one of his best games as a professional. Maybe this is something he can build on for the Thunder’s sake and his own.

The Thunder are now 5-3 at home for the season and 0-4 on the road.

The road gets very tough the next two games as the Thunder have a back to back against the Lakers and the Clippers. It won’t get any tougher this season.

But in this season you can’t fret over a tough upcoming road back to back. Instead, when you get a good moment like the one which came on Friday night inside Chesapeake Energy Arena you enjoy it and accept it for what it is. You enjoy watching Gallinari’s smooth game for as long as he’s here in Oklahoma City.

So how would have Gallinari and Chris Paul fit in with a starting five of Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, and a healthy Andre Roberson back in 2016?

We’ll never know. But for now we’re seeing them with Adams, SGA, and Ferguson in the early days of Sam Presti’s rebuild in Oklahoma City….and it’s fun when they play in Oklahoma City.

Next up… Kawhi and Paul George on the road.

For the first time this football season the Cleveland Browns almost played up to the pre-season hype which came their way after the Odell Beckham Jr acquistion this summer.

There appeared to be a slight hope at 4-6 and with the league’s easiest schedule the remaining six game there might be a roadmap for the Browns to make the playoffs as an AFC wild card.

It should have been a joyful moment for these Browns who have been the league’s biggest disappointment this NFL so far this season. Add to the fact it was the first time the Browns have beaten the Steelers since 2014. Ask yourself who was the Browns’ quarterback back in that win in 2014….you’ll discover it was Brian Hoyer.

For the third straight game Baker Mayfield and his offense didn’t commit a turnover. Nick Chubb showed he’s on the cusp of becoming one of the league’s best running backs. The front office waived knucklehead wide receiver Antonio Calloway as Kareem Hunt for the time being replaced Calloway as that specific roster designation.

It was a stunning defensive performance by Miles Garrett and the Browns’ defense. They were all over Mason Rudolph the former Mike Gundy groomed quarterback from O State who was intercepted four times on the night. It looked just like another Bedlam beatdown for Rudolph who is now 0-4 versus Mayfield head to head.

But in the blink of an eye in the game’s last eight seconds Miles Garrett ripped Mason Rudolph’s helmet off of him and tried to hit Rudolph in the head.

It was there for all to see. An out of control action and really stupid play when you think about it because Miles Garrett could have injured Rudolph and could have conceivably knocked Rudolph out of the lineup for the next Browns vs. Steelers game in several weeks.

Why would anyone on the Browns want Mason Rudolph out of the Steelers’ lineup?

But in this one play we saw why the Cleveland Browns are the dumbest franchise in the NFL. We saw that the Kevin Costner movie Draft Day is a complete and utter fiction.

In short—we saw why the Cleveland Browns are the Cleveland Browns.

We saw the last of the Browns’ best player Miles Garrett for this season and the end to any hope whatsoever these Browns are any different from what we’ve seen in the recent past.

We saw the Cleveland Browns for what they are….dysfunctional.

You have to take a very gentle/positive approach this Thunder season. There will be tough moments here and there.

The Thunder are 0-4 on the road this season and I have no idea how many of their forty-one road games they’ll be able to win this NBA basketball season. But look at it this way….the Golden State Warriors are going through this themselves this season and don’t feel alone.

I googled up the three worst road losing streaks to begin an NBA season and the ’92-’93 Dallas Mavericks hold the record with 29 straight road losses to begin an NBA regular season. So the glass half full take is the Thunder would have to lose 25 more road games in a row to tie this record.

If Draymond Green has to tank with his three rings—then surely we Thunder fans can tank. Maybe the smart move is to watch home games only this Thunder season and read the Daily Thunder recaps on road losses. I’m keeping my options open.

The Thunder now stand at 4-7 and in 12th place in the West. ..which is exactly where I have them in my DT Regular Season Contest bracket sheet. So…I’m good with all this losing.

My recap for this game will be that the Fox Southwest was running Michael Buble ads all night for his upcoming concert in OKC in April.

You see—there’s always a way out. Just go see Michael Buble in April and attend the home games only.

I love this song. The millennials would never understand this. Everyone needs a couple of shower songs. Try it some time.

I won’t have any problem getting thru this Thunder season.