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One of these two teams needs to beat the other twice for a Big 12 team to advance to the Final Four. I think LSU will eventually be a wildcard in all of this.

Two gutty quarterbacks in Hurts vs. Ehrlinger.

I’m already jacked.

How ironic.

Chris Paul won NBA Rookie of the Year that first year of NBA basketball in Oklahoma City when Hurricane Katrina started a chain of events which brought NBA hoops to an unlikely destination in a rogue red state where Charles Barkley thought it laughable an NBA team could reside.

The whole thing is such an oddity. The hurricane. The team’s relocation to a place where Donald Trump would eventually be revered even after being endorsed by David Duke. The two years in Oklahoma City. George Shinn the controversial owner. All of it. Surreal to be sure.

But I got to see the rookie from Wake Forest who was the fourth pick in the NBA draft win NBA Rookie of the Year honors.

He almost rented the house across the street from us in fact. That would have been cool.

You figured Chris Paul by this stage in his career would have a couple of championship rings. But unlike Russell Westbrook, who at least made it to that one NBA Finals in 2012 when James Harden played the point at times–Chris Paul has never played in an NBA Finals. Not with Oklahoma City, not with New Orleans, not with the LA Clippers, not with the same James Harden in Houston, and clearly not with Oklahoma City in 2019.

You could make the argument Sam Presti traded away the league’s worst contract in Westbrook’s for the league’s second worst contract in thirty-four year old Chris Paul.

He still has enough game to win a ring if placed with the right roster with a more limited restrained role.

So the question will be where and when Sam Presti can unload the contract for some assets as the Thunder start the arduous process of realizing precisely what it meant when Portland took Greg Oden and Durant fell to the Seattle Sonics as the second pick.

I got to watch Durant in person in both Norman and Stillwater during his one year stay at Texas with Rick Barnes where he won National Player of the Year as a freshman.

I’ve been genuinely blessed to witness all of this in person in a college market which became an NBA market solely because of Hurricane Katrina.

Before Katrina—the closest OKC could come to landing any major league franchise was when the city lost out to Columbus for the franchise which would become the NHL’s Bluejackets.

How would the NHL have done in minor league Oklahoma City? I don’t think very well because there isn’t all that much fighting like there is in minor league hockey and the beer isn’t cheap in NHL arenas. In fact, Oklahoma City currently has no professional hockey at any level after the AHL affiliation with Edmonton didn’t draw much interest.

I’d love to talk hockey with OKC mayors Mick Cornett (former) and (current) David Holt sometime– as to why Oklahoma City doesn’t have a pro hockey team at any level playing somewhere in Bricktown if Oklahoma City is indeed a major league city. By the way though… Seattle, New Orleans, and Houston don’t have major imprints of professional hockey as well.

So Chris Paul is back in Oklahoma City where there is no hockey except for OU’s club team. Durant, Westbrook, Harden, and Paul George all have moved on to cities with a ‘bit’ more diversity than Oklahoma City and Sam Presti has grown a really bad beard which reminds me of Paul Giamatti in Sideways.

Sideways–what an epic film on human dysfunction. And sideways is what it will be for Chris Paul this season until Sam Presti can unload his contract to a team which is in contention for more than a lottery draft pick this NBA season.

Here’s a Chris Paul video just to show what a baller he was back in the day at Wake Forest.

If I had to pick a music video for my 62nd birthday this would be it. This is when you start reflecting in a serious, yet not too serious way. I’ll be covering Steve Kerr and his Warriors on my Thunder blog because they’re far more interesting than the Thunder on and off the court. And when you reach sixty-two years of age you can’t waste an NBA season covering the same team as Little Nick Gallo.

You never know when it’s your last season.

Give us your clueless, give us your terminally stupid, give us those still waiting to read their first book ever….the Trump Coalition.

Rome is burning.

It was my birthday on the 3rd. For some reason, doing this makes me feel better. Just doing this is me giving myself a birthday present. You can’t do this in public in Oklahoma…only if you have an underground blog would I even suggest this. If Trump gets impeached…does this mean Sarah Palin is coming back?

I have to have the video of what happens when Little Nick Gallo is allowed to rub Russell Westbrook’s dick during the course of a season in post game pressers on my birthday. In a nutshell…do you think this would have happened with a legitimate championship contender in any sport? Do you think team management would have ever allowed this to happen more than once on a team with championship integrity? I’ll be interested to see if this is how Russ does his pressers in Houston. This is why I didn’t even comment on the Sam Presti presser last week.

What an embarrassment to the archives of American history. What an absolute idiot. What does this say about the 53% of Americans who still support this fraud, phony, and con artist?

I’ll tell you what it says….

Rome is burning.

It says there is nothing left to assume other than America has become the abyss for human stupidity throughout the world.

“Send us your dumbest, your most illiterate, your most clueless. Our torch of freedom will be a magnet for you stupid motherfuckers.”

Putin is smiling. This confirms that the First Amendment has no connection whatsoever to human intelligence in any shape, form, or fashion.

It’s staggering is what it is. Even if you somehow get rid of Trump, what is there that would give us reason to believe these 53% which aren’t Mitt Romney’s 47% could do better if we actually allow them to vote again in the next presidential election.

What do you do with these people? Can they actually be rehabilitated as humans after falling this far?

Rome is burning.

This was the biggest game in Baker Mayfield’s NFL career to date … and he responded with his best game to date as a pro. His coaching staff responded and his teammates did as well as the Browns won at Baltimore and now stand atop the AFC North at 2-2..

But let’s keep this in perspective. Former Bedlam opponent quarterback Mason Rudolph just lead the 1-3 Pittsburgh Steelers to a win over a horrible Bengals team. This puts the Steelers one game out of first place behind the Browns in the North. Such is the AFC North this season. The Steelers are a mess and Baker Mayfield should feel blessed.

Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens did the right thing, that being, he play called like Baker Mayfield is still a rookie quarterback learning his way as a pro. Baker Mayfield isn’t Brett Favre, he’s a young QB still learning how to play in this league and what not to say in the press room. He’ll learn with time. It may take five years, but he’ll get there.

The pass routes were quick short hitters to start the game. The offense relied heavily on running back Nick Chubb. Baker Mayfield was sacked only one time and the Browns looked like a team which could go 10-6 and win what is a very weak AFC North this NFL football season.

The Browns have the NFL’s easiest schedule the last nine weeks of the season. The next three weeks are tough…. San Francisco, Seattle, and Tom Brady.

If the Browns can go 2-1 that would be great… 1-2 would be okay, but the thing in the AFC North is that 10-6 should win this division this football season.

Think 10-6 big picture. Relish the fact the Steelers imploded and learn how to become a winning organization in Cleveland beyond just making the NFL’s first round in the playoffs. Learn how to win in this league and stay relevant as a franchise.

If I were Baker Mayfield, I’d pay a great deal of attention to how Tom Brady approaches the NFL game and ask for his autograph in three weeks.

And if I were the Browns’ coaching staff I’d keep this as simple as possible for my young QB still learning on the job and what to say after the game.

Browns versus 49’ers next Monday night.

My NBA coverage will be different this season. It will depend when the Thunder unload Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari as to how hard I follow the Thunder.

Golden State, Houston, and the Clippers will be a big part of what I watch this season NBA-wise.

The Warriors are clearly in reset, but it shouldn’t be awful once Klay Thompson returns from his ACL injury. Klay, Steph, and Draymond still form the nucleus of this Warriors team. Kevon Looney resigned. Willie Cauley-Stein was obtained. And unlike the Thunder, the Warriors got a quality player in exchange for Kevin Durant in hybrid guard D’Angelo Russell.

That’s six nice players to build a team around and add some special pieces here and there.

Once Klay returns the Warriors will still score the ball no doubt. The question will be on defense without the length of and flexibility of Durant and Iguodala. Call me crazy…but a player like Jerami Grant now at Denver would be a very nice fit for this team.

I’m not going to pout about the Thunder because the rest of the West will be fascinating to follow and Golden State will be a consistent part of my blog this NBA season.

• This is the Trump base. They could care less about the Ukraine or Crimea or whatever. They could care less about impeachment. This won’t matter to them no matter what Donald Trump says or does. The polls will mean nothing. This is the America of which Donald Trump understands like no other politician. Forget the polls. Talk to people in the streets and you’ll understand.

So much history unraveling in front of us this week. But, of course, in Oklahoma where books aren’t read and Fox is a religion it won’t matter. I think I’ll call my good friend James Lankford on Monday and see where we stand on Putin/Pence 2020.

As I’ve crawled through traffic with my Putin-Trump sign there really hasn’t been that moment yet with a Ttump person. I’ve gotten some smiles from college educated suburban women, blacks, and Hispanics with a few cell numbers who want to join the Resistance Movement, but no fistfights. No one has even flipped me off. I feel a little deflated actually. I even have my Golden State Warriors ball cap on and…nothing.

Trump now joins the group of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton as going through the impeachment process.

My advice is to watch McConnell. That’s where the impeachment either will or won’t take place. Can he extract anymore from his idiot puppet Donald Trump? I mean…he got two Supreme Court justices. massive tax cuts, massive deregulation for the then two Koch Brothers… and a rollback of most everything Obama.

You would have to think McConnell and the other Never Trumpers should be somewhat satisfied with their haul to date.

It’s all about McConnell at this point. Can he get anything more from his reality television star?