Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

I think I’ll do this every Saturday now that the presidential election is pretty much in full swing. It’s fun getting messages here and there about the political aspect of our country and today I have two questions.

Chuck from Flagstaff, Arizona asks:

Q: “I enjoy your blog, but I feel you go over the top calling our sitting president a con artist, a rogue, a grifter, a douche bag and a pussy grabber.”

A: “Chuck, thanks for reading the blog and the question. I would feel bad about calling our sitting president any of these things if I felt they were an untrue depiction of the him. But in this case, I feel as if my claims are if anything rather on the tame side and in fact pedestrian considering this human’s behavior. Hope you keep reading the blog.”

Carrie from Toronto, Ontario asks:

Q: “It’s refreshing to read an American who can be objective about how far American culture has fallen the past twenty years. Who are your favorite political columnists past and present?”

A: “Great question. Growing up my two favorite political writers were Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. I could never get enough of them and went on to enjoy reading many of Gore Vidal’s historical novels. I loved it when they almost came to blows at one of the political conventions on ABC back in the day.

In the present, if I want to be entertained and laugh my ass off…I enjoy reading Maureen Dowd. If I want to be informed in an objective, pragmatic manner… I don’t think you can go wrong with Tom Friedman.

Hope you keep following the blog.”

Hope to have a good question or two next Saturday.

In what was clearly the most compelling NBA game played this season—the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant sitting with a mild calf sprain–rode 33 second half points by Steph Curry to eliminate the Houston Rockets in Game 6 inside the Toyota Center.

It was vintage Splash Brothers as Klay Thompson carried the load in the first half with 21 of his 27 points. Splash Brother Curry had zero points in the first half and appeared to be bothered by an injured finger on his left hand which surely would have had Kevin Durant sitting in this critical crossroads historic game of sorts.

The narratives following this game will be immense. Some will say James Harden and Chris Paul are post season chokers much like the pair in Oklahoma City named Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Some will say Kevin Durant is still a cupcake and only has two rings because Steph, Klay, Andre and Draymond are the real soul of a team which had already won a championship and then the next season broke the Bulls’ record for wins in a regular season with 73 of them.

The talking heads will have a field day. But here’s the thing—these four guys who played last night in Houston just basically have championship DNA in their veins and the others don’t. Much like Tom Brady or Bill Russell or Tiger Woods or Roger Federer or Joe Montana or Sid Crosby or Jack Nicklaus… they make plays when it matters.

Think about the feeble pair of regular season stars in Oklahoma City who in two seasons together and millions spent have to date not won a series and have a 3-8 record against Utah and Portland in post season. Think about all that money spent and the paltry rate of return while these four in Oakland are on the cusp of a threepeat and their fourth NBA title in five years.

Think about how every time the Warriors appear to be on the edge of a cliff one of these four guys stand up and be counted. None of these four have constant drama surrounding them. None of them to my knowledge are overtly rude to reporters or rumored to be headed to New York with Kyrie Irving.

These guys just make plays and perhaps maybe since they weren’t shaped in the Sam Presti fantasy world culture in Oklahoma City they behave like grown men and perform like champions when it matters most and the spotlight burns the brightest.

But on this night it wasn’t just the four. Kevon Looney came up huge with 14 points and some rugged rebounding. Shawn Livingston added 11 points in his usual low key style. That’s the thing—when your stars lead like stars the role players follow.

But the thing which stuck with me the most on this night is that none of the three stars Sam Presti drafted in Durant, Harden or Westbrook had anything to do with how this Game 6 in Houston was grabbed by the throat by a baby-faced kid from Davidson and a then obscure shooting guard from Washington State.

Sam Presti hasn’t been in Bob Myers’s league as far as pushing the championship buttons…and to me that has to be a major storyline as we examine why Oklahoma City as a franchise became downgraded like a subpar bond in the summer of 2016 while the Warriors have become an iconic dynasty.

Here’s Steve Kerr and GM Bob Myers in 2018 after the repeat over LeBron for their third championship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwJSY6IwwM

All the sudden these Western Conference semi-finals have become very interesting heading into Mother’s Day on Sunday. The Portland Trailblazers won at home in Game 6 by a 119-108 count to send the series to a Game 7 in Denver. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum combined for 62 points while Rodney Hood stepped up big with a 25 point game.

On the other side of the bracket we get Golden State at Houston tonight with Kevin Durant now ruled out with a Grade 1 calf sprain for the rest of the series. Figures, doesn’t it? Durant won’t be able to play in his team’s two most impactful games of the season. It’ll be on Steph, Klay, Draymond and Andre to do the heavy lifting when it matters most for the Warriors’ chances of pulling off the threepeat.

No Durant and no DeMarcus Cousins and the word I heard was Andrew Bogut would be starting at the five with Livingston, Looney and McKinnie coming off what is now an even shorter and thinner Warrior bench.

For league wide suspense though it’s great. The West without Durant tipping the Warriors with a talent advantage is up for grabs this week-end. How ironic the two former Thunder players in Durant and James Harden will to a degree have their personal narratives defined by what happens this week-end.

If Harden can’t get past the Warriors without Durant will he and Chris Paul ever get to an NBA Finals?

And will Durant have to endure the Cupcake innuendos if his team wasn’t able to depend on him because of what is considered a somewhat mild injury?

Some great NBA storylines to unfold this week-end in the West.

Is it any surprise that when Kevin Durant left the floor with a right calf strain that the Splash Brothers assumed their previous roles from a championship team which then went on to win 73 regular season games in a season without Kevin Durant the next season?

For me…no.

These dudes have championship DNA. So do Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala as well. They know how to win. They taught Kevin Durant how to win when it really matters because Sam Presti couldn’t ever figure things out in Oklahoma City. As in… you friggin need a shooting guard who can shoot to win championships in the NBA. Even back before Moneyball and the analytics craze… guys like Red Auerbach and Jack Ramsey pretty much had this figured out. The only person in the NBA who can’t seem to come to terms with this flash of genius realization is the GM in Oklahoma City.

What a great game last night at Oracle. It had everything from a human emotion standpoint. It had Durant leaving the playoffs for who knows how long. It had James Harden not shooting the ball in the game’s most impactful moments. It had both Klay and Steph flexing their Hall of Fame championship biceps to all of those who think Kevin Durant is the engine which solely drives this historic team.

It had Draymond Green showing what he can do when it’s Big Boy time in the post season.

And it also had Steve Kerr outcoaching Mike D’Antoni in Game 5.

One would surely think the Rockets will win in Houston on Friday whether Durant plays or not.

So assume Durant doesn’t play in Game 7 at Oracle. Who would you take in that situation? I’d take the four dudes with championship DNA and home court named Steph, Klay, Draymond and Andre.

I wish they didn’t even have to play Game 6. I can’t wait for Game 7. All the sudden these NBA Playoffs just became a very compelling watch.

Great presser. Good questions and to the point answers. None of that fourth grade level bullshit Russell Westbrook does with certain members of the press. So look at these two guys and how they handle themselves in this setting and then visualize how Russell Westbrook handles himself in these settings. I know it’s hard because lifetime without Durant he’s 4-12 in post season–but look at the stark difference in how champions carry themselves and those who can’t win when it matters handle themselves.

Former Daily Oklahoman Thunder beat writer Anthony Slater made the best decision for his career when he headed back home to the west coast to be a Warrior beat writer in San Jose and now for The Athletic. If Royce Young were smart he’d push the buttons to make this happen for him in Denver.

So yesterday it was revealed Russell Westbrook will have a hand surgery and a knee re-scope this off season. We were also told Paul George has two shoulders which will require surgery.

Does this excuse the Thunder massive swoon?

No it does not because none of these injuries were to the brains of the two stars and this was the dumbest of the sixteen teams which qualified for the NBA Playoffs.

If you told me they were suffering from some sort of brain trauma which affected basketball decision making then I might give them a pass. But otherwise…no.

This team led the NBA in technicals received. They were in dead last place in number of team passes made per game. They routinely made the dumb play in the last six minutes of games following the All-Star break. This is a dumb team.

And let’s even look back at the Miracle in Philly road win when the Thunder should have lost in regulation when Russell Westbrook lost his mind with a sequence of horrific decisions before fouling out.

Being a dumb team and a dumb team without a reliable shooting guard are what doomed this team. Most pro athletes are playing hurt at the back end of their seasons. Their bodies become worn out. It’s a cycle for the athlete and the human body especially when one reaches the age of thirty.

The Thunder spin is in full swing in the NBA city which no longer has a viable Oklahoma City newspaper covering it.

No one locally covers this team which does not have an inherit quid pro quo coming right back at them.

So unless there was acute head trauma suffered by the two regular season stars this wasn’t on injuries.

This was on being a dumb team which can’t shoot and is now a collective 4-12 in post season without Kevin Durant carrying their lunch box for them.

The hockey has been superb in these Stanley Cup Playoffs. My two favorite teams are both still alive in the East and in the West.

The Boston Bruins in six games eliminated the Columbus Blue Jays to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Meanwhile, my favorite team in the West–the Colorado Avalanche take on the San Jose Sharks tonight on the road in another glorious Game 7 conclusion to a series.

The superstars didn’t advance per se this post season. Sid and Ovi didn’t make it out of the first round. Instead—the Boston Bruins with David Pasternak, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and netminder Tuukka Rask have made it thru two rounds and in Vegas are the presumed favorite to win the Cup at this juncture.

On the other side in the East–the upstart Carolina Hurricanes with stellar vet forwards Jordan Stahl and Justin Williamson have cruised to the conference finals with good goaltending and a power play which should keep working.

Three things to always watch in playoff hockey…1 who has the hot goalie, 2 which team’s power play is converting at around 28-30%, and 3 who’s killing off penalties with consistency. And of course physicality–which team is willing to make the hit to create space and time and to set an overall tone for sixty minutes.

These clips come from home sites in Carolina and Columbus and as you can see there are passionate hockey fans in other markets other than the just the traditional powers in the NHL.

Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avs tonight in Game 7 in San Jose. The winner takes on the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference Finals.

This shouldn’t be a surprise the Rockets had the Warriors at the edge of elimination last season before Chris Paul injured his groin.

It’s been a classic NBA post season series with neither team winning on the road yet. In a word, both Steph and Klay have been awful in this series and the Warriors aren’t moving the ball. The ball is stopping on Kevin Durant. He’s trying to carry the team, but that’s not what made this team special. What makes this team special is three guys who on any given night can go off on you.

Kevin Durant might take note of how brutal Kyrie is playing for the Celtics as they are down 3-1 to the Milwaukee Bucks and on the verge of their season being over.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe Oklahoma City actually beat the Rockets in that last week of the season game to screw up the standings and make this Rockets vs. Warriors a semi final instead of a conference final.

Mike Malone has a ball club the OKC Thunder fanbase wishes they had at the present. Tough, smart, and full of character. Young guys with a vet like Paul Milsap to balance the roster.

Thirty-six hours after losing in the fourth overtime on the road, they bounced back on Sunday to defeat Portland 116-112 on the road to even this Western Conference semi-final which has been very even to date and fun to watch.

It just goes to show what good general managing and good coaching look like in the present day NBA. You have to be flexible. You have to morph your style. You can’t live five years behind the curve as Sam Presti seems comfortable in doing each season in Oklahoma City.

Of the four teams left do you see a team with the player who fills the shooting guard position not being able to shoot?

Of course not.

The end.

For the first time in a while–I did not watch a single sporting event during a 24 hour span. I worked. But late in the day our son Chris sent us a picture of an “18 inch brown trout he caught in a stream on a dry fly about an hour out of Denver near a place called Deckard.

The browns don’t jump. They dart and dive. The rainbows jump.

We actually have some trout rivers in Oklahoma. I’ve stocked one our ponds out here in Deer Creek with trout for about three seasons using the same fishery which stocks both Dolese Park in Oklahoma City and the new trout stream in Turner Falls.

You can get 200 lbs. of trout for around a thousand dollars and if your pond is less than an acre it makes for some great winter trout fishing in Oklahoma. You just make sure and fish them out before it gets warm.

The fish range anywhere in size from ’12 to “20 . All rainbows from the Crystal Springs Hatchery in Missouri.

My son…the fly fishing purist will roll his eyes and say my method is like shooting fish in a barrel. Whatever.

Anyway…whenever Chris sends a pic of a trout he’s caught in Colorado stream… I always think of this. Always.

I’ll start with this…I thought it was somewhat ironic that the OKC’s Thunder ESPN beat writer Royce Young was in Portland covering this game and asked the first question of Terry Stotts in the post game presser. It must have been refreshing to walk into a press room and be treated like a professional by a NBA basketball operation after covering a game which was relevant. I’m assuming Little Nick Gallo wasn’t there and was home busy helping Russell Westbrook doing diapers and helping with their baby twin girls and Noah.

I think that’s the first NBA post season game to go into quadruple overtime since 1953 if I heard Dave Pasch and Doris Burke correctly. Those two are excellent as a tandem and Doris Burke along with Jeff van Gundy are my two favorite NBA analysts.

Portland just has that look that’s all I can write at this point. CJ McCollum wants to show the world that not only has Damian Lillard passed Russell Westbrook, but he has as well. And to me.. that’s the storyline in Portland moving forward in the event Portland plays Golden State in the Western Conference Finals. ‘

That being, have Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum both advanced to the point where they can make a series competitive against Kevin Durant and the Splash Brothers in a Western Conference Finals?

That will be tough given the Warriors’ starting five and the way they’re playing right now as they finally seem interested in playing some basketball. But you never know and that’s why you play the games.

Who picked Texas Tech vs. Auburn in the first national semi-final, right?

It’s a good story for Enes Kanter as well as he continues on this magical ride of his after being discarded by the Thunder and the NY Knicks. Another great move by Sam Presti in a sequence of great moves ever since that autumn Saturday when he traded James Harden for a one year rental of Kevin Martin, Steven Adams, Jeremy Lamb, Alex Abrines and if I remember correctly the draft pick which turned into Mitch ‘Weed’ McGary, who of course is no longer in the league. I need to recheck the McGary pick as that seems like a lifetime ago when the Thunder were relevant. Tell me he’s the owner of a cannabis retail store and I promise I won’t doubt you.

Every little thing is magic for the Blazers right now though. In the fourth OT…Mo Harkless started cramping and Rodney Hood entered the game after sitting for over an hour and matter of factly hit what turned out to be the game winner in overtime No. 4.

Hard to tell how each team will respond after twenty extra minutes of play with Game No. 4 slated for Sunday at 4:00pm, but how could you bet against the Trailblazers right now at least until they have to possibly hook up with the Warriors.

Here’s Mitch ‘Weed’ McGary in his rookie preview mix for the Thunder. Kind of hard to see how this guy got past Troy Weaver and Sam Presti when on his profile he noted eating cannabis brownies and playing ping pong with a buzz as his two favorite things to do outside of basketball. I think I read earlier this week Troy Weaver is interviewing for a job with the Wizards. Go figure.