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The Western Conference race this upcoming season will or at least should be one of the most interesting in recent times. The conference is reconfigured and for those in California it should be a great season to watch NBA hoops. Even the Sacramento Kings could be in the hunt for a playoff spot if they can continue their overall improved level of play.

Golden State will still have the Splash Brothers and Draymond. The Clippers now have Kawhi and Paul George. The Lakers have LeBron and Anthony Davis. The Houston Rockets have paired James Harden and Russell Westbrook alongside a nice supporting cast. Even the Utah Jazz cannot be ignored as serious contenders in the West.

In Oklahoma City the window is officially closed. An era of basketball ended this summer with the dismantling of the Thunder roster for SGA, Chris Paul, Danilo Gallanari and a slew of future draft picks.

No one will no longer care if Thunder players don’t answer Berry Tramel’s questions as the Thunder will be in the bottom third of the West. The college market will once again be more focused on Big 12 football and perhaps even Big 12 hoops than the Thunder for at least this season of play.

Baker’s Mayfield’s Cleveland Browns will garner more interest than the Thunder if they can meet the hype which has been thrown their way heading into this NFL season.

What Little Nick Gallo does will not draw my ire any longer. If he kisses Thunder players on the lips during pressers I could care less. Life moves along.

And for this basketball season following the Thunder will be more of a civic sense of duty than of following a team with a puncher’s chance of winning a title on the horizon.

Durant is in the East so I feel I can follow Klay and the Warriors and not feel whorish about it.

The NBA world has shifted and it no longer has Oklahoma City as a relevant championship contending storyline heading into this NBA season.

In what looms as a historically important election the progressive wing of the Democratic party seems intent on re-electing Donald Trump.

Someone might want to remind these people that Independents count for more registered voters than either of the two major parties and that 57% of Independents are currently saying they would never vote for Donald Trump.

Winning the White House is more important than having a revolution amongst yourselves at this juncture in our history. Some of these candidates make Barrack Obama look like George Will. BTW…I voted for Obama twice while living in a place like Oklahoma.

Just a suggestion…before you give free health care and free college tuition to people illegally entering the country you might want to somewhat court that 57% like me who have been paying into every New Deal program for the last forty years or more.

I’m almost certain I never read where FDR or LBJ suggested we give away everything for free to people entering the country illegally. I thought there was a process we all had to abide by to certain degrees. Does Bernie have a program where my wife and I can sign over our house to people illegally entering the country?

I’m all for abolishing Citizens United or ousting Mitch McConnell or exposing the Koch Brothers, but a suggestion for the progressive wing might be to somewhat court those in the middle in this country who still somewhat believe everything shouldn’t be given away and should be earned in going through a process in what used to be called living the American Dream.

As far as these Dems..if it were my call I’d take Michael Bennett and Tulsi Gabbard. But of course that won’t happen because she served her country and he ‘s too qualified.

If Kamala Harris is going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump she might ask for some pointers from Gabbard since the young woman from Hawaii cleaned her clock in the second debate.

These progressive Dems might also want to note that the last two Dems to win the White House as in Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama both moved towards the center in winning the White House and then being re-elected.

Just a suggestion.

My question is a simple one…do the Dems have a candidate with the toughness to dethrone the imperial douchebag?

My take is no at this juncture.

This is some pump up music for the twenty four or so meek Dem candidates running for POTUS on the edge of the second round of the debates.

I hope this works out for Russell. Even before the Paul George demand to be traded it was apparent Russell Westbrook needed a reset with the back quarter of his basketball career. He had gone as far as he could go in Oklahoma City. Isn’t it ironic seven years after the Harden trade Russell Westbrook finally has a slew of effective three point shooters around him.

Can Harden and Westbrook figure out the usage issues in my mind depends on Russell. This is Harden’s team. Some Little Nick Gallo clone won’t be hovering around Westbrook as if it’s his kingdom. Russell Westbrook will have to adjust to Harden’s game more than the other way around.

Can he do it? Of course he can. We saw it with our own eyes in 2012 when the Thunder won the West with Harden being the ball handler in the Western Conference Playoffs.

If Russell Westbrook is genuinely serious about winning a championship anywhere he needs to rethink his game and be less ball dominant and a better defender who does the little things.

Durant won an MVP with Westbrook and Paul George just had his best season as a professional with him so this shouldn’t be impossible if he can come to the understanding his clock is running out.

As an NBA fan this is going to be an awesome season to watch, Not necessarily as a Thunder fan, but for the West as a whole.

The Thunder for the first time in a decade are projected to not make the playoffs. I would assume they won’t be part of the NBA Christmas Day package. Presti has yet to pull the trigger on a full blown tank. In his heart he knows the little college market won’t take to a tank and he can’t send the team back to Seattle for two years of tanking. This require significant nuance by Sam Presti.

Howard… we know you’re not going to be POTUS…would you like to rent your team back for two years? We could call it Hurricane Tanking.

But for me as a basketball fan I can’t wait to see the Rockets, the Clippers, the Warriors, and the LA Lakers as they are now.

When I go to see the Thunder play these teams in OKC it in essence will be to see the visitors. But by the same token I’m curious to see if SGA is indeed a player the Thunder can build around and if Billy Donovan can do with this Thunder team what Doc Rivers did this past season with the Clippers.

I’m not going to comment too much on this until I see the Thunder’s roster on December 15th.

I did think it was interesting though that Paul George used the phrase ‘one year experiment’ when describing his escape from rogue red Oklahoma.

Given the circumstances both parties did the right thing and hopefully the Thunder can sustain through the next ten years in a city which quite honestly like Utah doesn’t seem a cultural fit in the NBA.

My dad was a very good trial lawyer in spite of himself. As a kid growing up he would tell me stories of how to conduct voir dire. Or how to lead a witness down a precise path of testimony on direct. Or what never to do to a hostile witness on cross examination. NEVER ASK A QUESTION IN WHICH YOU DON’T KNOW HOW THE WITNESS WILL ANSWER. NEVER.

Other boys my age had dads who would build go carts or construct tree houses with them. But not my dad. These were the bedtime stories he told me and I loved every minute of it.

So when I saw Adam Schiff cut thru the bullshit and deliver five minutes of brilliance on his direct examination of Robert Mueller it caught my eye and I will hence post it on my blog.

This is how a good lawyer leads his witness through his story. And in this case there was no jury voir dire. The nation of America is the jury.

I have no idea if America is smart enough to sift thru what they heard today. But if they heard these five minutes one would hope it was enough.

Nice job, Adam Schiff. My dad would be proud of you.

I need a cleansing after what I witnessed from GOP lawmakers today in D.C. I’m embarrassed to admit I was actually a registered Republican at one point in my life.

This will be the No. 1 storyline this year in the Oklahoma sports landscape. Westbrook and Paul George are gone. The college market could never put a top tier shooting guard along them and in Oklahoma it won’t be the NBA team driving the sports news cycle in as much at some point you have to start playing games and can’t just trade away players for draft picks.

The Jalen Hurts story is a great one. He was 26-2 as a starter at Alabama and was part of two national championships and then got beat out by Tua for the QB job. He didn’t transfer. He hung in there and got a chance in the Georgia game. He led his team to victory with a miraculous comeback and now as a graduate transfer at OU he has an opportunity to close his college career on his terms with Lincoln Riley.

It doesn’t get much better than this and sports fans in Oklahoma will be able to forget what just happened with the Thunder this free agency season.

I need to see if I can get Ravel out of my head. Pauli freaks out when I do this.

It’s the sixth straight day of heat indexes above 105 degrees out here at the Deer Creek weather station. Massive humidity readings are driving this . It was 93% humidity at 7:00am this morning.

I’m not thinking all that much about the OKC Thunder. They’re anecdotal to a certain extent at this point. I would guess both OU football and Cleveland Brown football and maybe even perhaps Houston Rockets basketball will be more watched this season than the Thunder by knowledgeable sports fans in Oklahoma. And, of course, you’ll have the diehard O State Aggie fans who for some reason will think this is the year of their Haley’s Comet season.

Jalen Hurts, Baker Mayfield, James Harden and Russell Westbrook will be the storylines. Shei Gilgous-Alexander will answer Berry Tramel’s questions and no one will care.

I’ve always secretly wondered if Clay Bennett was giving Tramel the thumbs up to help drive Russell Westbrook out of Oklahoma City with all the Tramel press conference antics.

I could honestly care less either way because the team wasn’t working and wasn’t going anywhere and that’s precisely why Paul George asked to be traded.

Yesterday.. I was wearing my Auburn War Eagle ball cap inside a 7-11 and this cute girl smiled and said, “Roll Tide.”

I said, “OU has your quarterback.”

She said, ” We have the one who beat him out.”

I then said, “And Clemson still has the quarterback who beat his ass in the national championship game.”

She smiled and walked away.

See what I mean?

The Thunder have become anecdotal and life is still very good.

For some reason I woke up this morning and this is the music I’m still caring around inside my head all day.

I find women holding a flute extremely sensual.

It’s difficult at times being the only honest Thunder blogger amid the sea of Clay Bennett puppets such as Little Nick Gallo and Low Energy…so you must have some down time and reflect or you’ll lose all your brain cells.. Re-energize yourself as if you just attended a Donald Trump rally in West Virginia or Lawton.

This is a secret tip for all you aspiring Thunder bloggers. This is my best trick. Twenty or so minutes of this and I’m good regardless of whatever bullshit I’ve either read or heard in the little college market in which Baker Mayfield will be the most followed athlete this season with the departures of Westbrook and Paul George.

Try it…you might like it. It’s very refreshing. Almost cleansing.

See how many times you can spot Alex Abrines in the video.