Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Of course it is and has been ever since July 4th, 2016. It may be Paul George’s career MVP year, but make no bones about it… this is the team Sam Presti built for Russell Westbrook to drive. This is the racecar the NBA Executive of the Year has rebuilt with precise care and diligence to fit Westbrook.

This Thunder team from one thru thirteen can run the court. It may be the fastest team in the league baseline to baseline. They’re all athletic. They’re all long and look like they might be related to Stacy Augmon. At times I find myself calling Jerami Grant ‘The General’ and then realize father Harvey is home watching. Dave Sieger would smile watching this team when they bring their Big Boy defensive game to the arena. When they want to defend they look close to special.

Take Westbrook out of the mix and you have five players in George, Adams, Grant, Ferguson, and Schroder who are all having career years. Putting numbers aside–this is the smartest basketball I’ve ever seen out of Nerlens Noel at the NBA level. He appears functional and beyond.

We were supposed to believe without the fragile Alex Abrines this team couldn’t shoot threes, but in reality ever since Abrines went back across the Atlantic Ocean to follow his heart the Thunder have been one the league’s better three point shooting teams. Go figure.

Paul George is in the running for MVP. Dennis Schroder is in the running for Sixth Man of the Year. Terrance Ferguson is in the running for Most Improved Player and Paul George is a double nominee for Defensive Player of the Year. And of course–I have Sam Presti currently in the lead for NBA Executive of the Year.

So I ask myself this question…would any of this be possible without Russell Westbrook driving the Thunder bus?

And my answer is no.

Other than shooting the three–Westbrook is having the best year of his career in pretty much every category…. rebounding, defending, assists, steals, and most of all leadership. His free throw shooing will be back by April.. I almost feel certain.

I’ve been tough on Russell Westbrook at times on my blog this season pleading with him to morph into Maurice Cheeks 1983. But you know what, for the most part he’s almost there. He’s given up parts of his game. Maurice Cheeks made Moses Malone and Dr. J better players. Russell Westbrook is doing the exact same thing with Paul George and Steven Adams every night. Every single night. Paul George is in the running for MVP not in spite of Westbrook, but because of Westbrook.

As we get ready to start the back third of the regular season I write this with total confidence this is still Russell Westbrook’s airplane only with Paul George in the co-pilot seat instead of Durant. As Westbrook goes, so will go the Thunder.

This was nice.

I find myself having to play this at least once a month to get thru the presidency of Anne Coulter’s pet idiot. For some reason–Dave Chappelle telling poor whites the truth gives me some sort of validation on here. BTW…if you didn’t see A Star is Born—Dave has a nice small part in the movie.

Anyway…this was my February fix. Peace….Anne Coulter finally got one right. ANNE COULTER +1 Yes….our POTUS is an idiot. But at least he’s our own private Russian asset idiot. That’s called setting the bar low. Is it too much to ask your president to act like he made it from the fourth grade to the fifth grade?

With Nick Collison’s jersey retirement ceremony coming up I thought maybe taking a look at some of the more prominent players for Seattle from the ’79 NBA championship team might kind of be fun. I was twenty-two years of age at the time and very much remember that NBA Finals which pitted the Sonics vs. the Washington Bullets led by Wes Unseld and Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe.

The Sonics won the series and to date it is the only world championship won by the Sonics/Thunder franchise. Brown’s Sonics appeared in another NBA Finals and lost to Washington in ’78 while the Thunder made the 2012 NBA Finals before losing to LeBron’s Miami Heat in five games. In addition, George Karl’s ’96 Sonics team made the NBA Finals and lost in six games to Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

Brown was drafted out of the University of Iowa by both the ABA’s Kentucky franchise and the Sonics in 1971. Brown was the 6th player taken in the first round. His career got off to a slow start only playing in 33 games and averaging 4.2 points a game. It would be the only season in Brown’s thirteen season career in which he didn’t average in double figures scoring the ball.

Brown was a two time NBA finalist and an NBA-All Star in 1976. He started at times earlier in his career, but as the captain of the ’79 championship Sonics team he was the Sixth Man as Gus Williams and Dennis Johnson of later Celtic fame were the starting backcourt.

Downtown Freddie Brown holds several individual franchise records of note. He shares with Russell Westbrook the record for most points scored in a regular season game at 58 points. He shares with Ray Allen the record for most points scored in a playoff game at 45 points. And he shares with Gus Williams most steals in a game at 10.

Downtown scored 14,018 points in his career and averaged just over 14 points a game. He played from 1971-1984 and like Nick Collison only played for one franchise in his entire professional career.

His No. 32 jersey was retired and he’s one of the greatest players in the history of the Sonics’ franchise which now resides in Oklahoma City.

This is what I’m going to write about on Friday morning. I’m just putting up the pics to get me in a state of mind. Between then and now I’m going to do something on Downtown Freddie Brown and finish my Oscar pics with an emphasis on Green Book. If Dave Chappelle were with me right now he’d shake his head and say, “Will you look at these people standing by the fence in this heat.” Sheesh.

I want my blog to read like a magazine of sorts. Of course… I want the Oklahoma City Thunder to be the cornerstone, but I also enjoy following other things and writing about other things. Since in reality we have no newspaper in Oklahoma City…I want my blog to reflect not only on the Thunder and OU football, but a feel for what’s going on from a political sense in our country. We have no Op-Ed page in Oklahoma City, nor any real diversity of thought in written form on what should be the state’s leading newspaper. There is not one single politician in Oklahoma I admire or respect currently….both parties. So I want my blog to reflect what this Oklahoman’s perspective is of the world at large beyond the prism of the predictable rogue red prism which is Oklahoma.

I have no political slant per se. I’m not an ideologue. I disdain both parties, but for different reasons. I’m an equal opportunity disdainer. They’ve both become worthless for different reasons. I disdain the GOP because they don’t give a shit about the human element in governance. I disdain the Dems because they don’t have the discipline to govern with a pragmatic hand. Somewhere in between these boundaries is where I reside. If I had to vote right now at this precise time on the 2020 election…I’d vote for Michael Bennett from Colorado—the moderate Dem. You can’t give everything away as Bernie Sanders wants to promise. You can blend a combination of capitalism and socialism, but you can’t go all the way either way I wouldn’t think or you’ll lose the essence of the American Dream and what makes America special. The middle class is what makes America special. FDR and LBJ both knew this and nurtured it with the New Deal and the Fair Deal.

This will require a deft hand. Not the clumsy club of someone like Trump or an American Heritage Foundation puppet like Mitch McConnell. Learn something today and google Grover Norquist. Do it. You’ll learn something about your country and why in part this is where we are.

I was thinking of Sean Spicer the other day and wondering if his life is okay. If he got out in time and didn’t ruin his professional reputation by being associated with Trump. Compared to the person who replaced him…he was actually pleasant considering his job was to be the personal spokesman for a pathological liar. But still, in a weird way…I kind of miss him.

Fairly soon I want to start following the 2020 election process. I’ll probably wait two more weeks to see if Biden and the kid from Texas enter the race. Bill Weld a liberal Republican (whom I like) has announced he’s going to run against Trump. Weld is a smart dude. He has no chance whatsoever, but he’s smart and interesting to listen to if you ever get the chance.

I see no one as of yet who I think could go on a stage with Trump and handle his antics. Maybe it’s Melania since she’s the national spokesperson for anti bullying. But we’ll see. High level content doesn’t matter anymore in American politics. I’m not sure exactly how a candidate should run a race in this new country we live in.

Kanye West 2020 anyone?

Everyday we’re watching history. I hope enough people are paying attention.

I went to a high school called John Marshall. It was a tough place back in the mid 70’s with about a 50/50 ratio of black and white. I was a three sport kid entering 10th grade. I was the starting third baseman on back to back AAU state championship teams in junior high. I was the starting two guard on my 9th grade team. And a safety in football on the JV team. After my first semester in the 10th grade when I came back with a robust 2.8 grade average my parents told me I had to drop a sport. It was basketball because I knew at best I’d never be anything beyond the 11th or 12th guy even by senior season. Baseball was different. I was always one of the three or four best players on any team I played for…and that continued all the way thru high school.

But the thing I really loved about John Marshall was that sports assimilated me to the world we live in today…black, brown and white. Sports are that way. They bring people together because the goal is to win regardless of the color of your skin. Just win, baby—even if your name is Michael Jackson and you’re white. Just win.

Maybe Trump would have turned out differently if he’d gone to John Marshall and had a dog at some point in his to this point worthless miserable life. I think back to those days in the parking lot when all of us were dancing to this as one after a big win. I thought of myself as black because the black girls just thought I was it with the Michael Jackson shit.

People who have played sports understand what I’m writing here. It’s one of the reasons I believe sports are so integral in establishing relationships regardless of the color of your skin.

I want to be fair and not just write without thinking that Donald Trump is the worst POTUS in the history of the Republic. I need to think on this a little more in that I have a history degree and could have taught history if I’d chosen to do so. I won’t write that sentence without serious thought.

But I will write this …Donald Trump two years in is clearly our most corrupt president and the president most lacking having any qualifications or skills whatsoever to be the President of the United States.

As far as corruption goes, I’d rank it this way in a three man race….1 Trump, 2 Richard Nixon, and 3 Warren G Harding. In case you don’t remember, Harding was our 29th president and served from 1921-23 and preceded Calvin Coolidge in the White House. Like Trump, he was overtly corrupt and his years in the White House were marred by the Teapot Dome Scandals. Like Trump, as well, he had many mistresses, but of course back then we didn’t have television and we never heard Harding or saw Harding boast about grabbing a handful of pussy whenever he felt the need. And, of course, back then as well we didn’t have the Fathead Twins….Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, defending this type of behavior on the radio and airwaves in the name of Christianity.

Trump clearly is already our most corrupt president with his Reservoir Dogs mafia surrounding him… and will likely be regarded as the worst president at some point depending on how he leaves office.

It’s frustrating living in a state like Oklahoma where the educational system is a dumpster fire and there’s no viable newspaper to read in a city with the 27th largest population in the country. Sam Anderson should have touched on this in his book, but he needed the historical archives from the Oklahoman to write his book. I don’t need their archives. I studied all this in college. I’ve lived this and observed it firsthand.

This is a newspaper which probably would have endorsed Putin over Obama in 2008 as long as the Putin had an R stamped next to his name on the ballot. You think that’s hyperbole.. I don’t.

But right now if I had to rank the three worst presidents in American history….I’d go 1 James Buchanan, 2 Donald Trump and 3 Warren Harding. But Trump has two more years at least to get there and even if he extorts the Japanese Prime Minister into nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize…I still think he’ll get there eventually as worst POTUS ever.

To me, the truly amazing thing is the party of the Christian Right and family values still stand by Caligula Lite. And you know what…they’re staying and they will stay with him even if he did a live threesome with daughter Ivanka and Anne Coulter on a Fox pay per view special. These voters have shown they’re not going anywhere else.

81% of registered Republican voters still claim they support the president with the orange head and the Marco Rubio penis.

It must be the stock market. It must be the 401k accounts. It can’t be anything else. But as every president eventually learns you don’t run the markets, they eventually run you. Economic cycles run their course. Bulls are bulls and bears are bears.

So as I sit here…I’m not ready just yet to anoint Donald Trump as our worst president.

Not just yet.

Anne Coulter finally got one right…”Our president is a complete idiot.” Anne Coulter +1

For a guy that was tired of being second, that hasn’t been much of a problem these past three years. Since Durant’s July 4th departure from rogue right Oklahoma he’s done nothing but win. He’s won two straight NBA rings. He’s won two straight Finals MVPs. And he’s now won his second All-Star Game MVP in his storied career to date.

Pretty heady stuff. Jerry West and Bob Myers knew exactly what they were doing.

Durant has been taking some fairly heavy heat for what he did almost three years ago. I was mad at him for at least six months myself. But as time has moved on…I have no problem whatsoever with the decision he made. In fact, part of me somewhat admires what he did albeit not doing an interview and straight up telling the college market in Oklahoma why he felt it was time for him to explore something different in his life.

Recently Durant walked out of an interview because he’s still getting heat for all of this and to some degree for being surly with Ethan Strauss. Durant didn’t do anything different from what Russell Westbrook has done consistently over the years with the Daily Oklahoman’s Barry Tramel so I’m not sure why this is that big of a deal.

If I were Durant this is what I would say and I’d say it openly and put all this behind me:

“I left Oklahoma City only after fulfilling my contractual obligations to the fullest. My time there will always be a part of who I am, yet can you really blame me for leaving a place where Donald Trump garnered almost 70% of the popular vote and elected Mary Fallin governor twice. I wish it were different. I wish they would have grown up somewhat and become something more than a college market with an NBA team due to Hurricane Katrina.

We made it to four Western Conference Finals and one NBA Finals. My relationships with Russell, Nick and Sam Presti will always be something I treasure and I hope to repair these relationships over the years.

I also wanted to pursue basketball at the highest level possible and in all truth I felt like I couldn’t go any further with Russell Westbrook because he still continues to play high risk, low reward basketball when exactly the opposite should be the model in Oklahoma City.

I know in saying this I’ll probably enflame the haters in Oklahoma even more. But at the end of the day, I not only have to be honest with myself, but with the public. It is what it is. This is me. This is who I am and I said it on Sixty Minutes. Why should I pretend to be something I’m not?

As far as where my career goes from here…I don’t know for sure. I want to play for a coach I respect and Steve Kerr is that type of a coach. I enjoy winning. I want to be the best I can be and if Warrior ownership wants to keep myself, Klay and Steph together then why not.

Bill Russell won eleven championships in thirteen seasons with the Boston Celtics. I think that’s very cool. I also respect Bill Russell for being his own man and openly addressing racism is America not only back then but in the present as well. We need people to speak openly about our country.

Just like any other human, I want to wake up every morning and make the effort to become a better person every day.”

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If I were Durant I’d say that and be done with it. If people in Oklahoma still want to boo that’s on them. I’m still waiting for Russell Westbrook and Paul George to make a public statement of substance in regards to what it feels like as a black man to play in a market which has so fully embraced the most racist president in the history of our country. That’s on Westbrook and Paul George. I had no idea signing a n NBA max deal excluded a person from having First Amendments rights.

If I were Kevin Durant.. I’d quit worrying about what people in Oklahoma or Ethan Strauss think. I’d answer questions with complete candor. There’s no way in hell I’d go play for the Knicks though. That wouldn’t be on my radar screen.

If the season were to end today this is how I would vote on several categories:

MVP:

Paul George
James Harden
Giannis Anteokounmpo

Coach of the Year:

Mike Budenholzer
Mike Malone
Dave Joerger

NBA Executive of the Year:
Sam Presti
Bob Myers
Tim Connelly

Defensive Player of the Year:

Rudy Gobert
Paul George
Draymond Green

Rookie of the Year:

Luka Doncic
DeAndre Ayten
Trae Young
Jaren Jackson

Biggest Disappointment:

New Orleans Pelicans
LA Lakers
Houston Rockets

In the end, I have Paul George and James Harden in a dead heat, but for the time being, I gave Paul George the nod because of Houston’s abysmal record. Granted…there have been injuries. But if I’m going to hold Paul George accountable for a 55 win season, then I should at least hold James Harden accountable to a 50 win season with some injuries.

That was an awesome dunk! I’m guessing Little Nick Gallo will never be the same. Even with the elbow cocked on the rim…that was great. I saw some incredible things at John Marshall back in the day, but I never saw a bruh fly over Shaq wearing a Superman top and dunk.

Hamidou Diallo Nature Boy…Whoo! That was great!

Diallo Superman Dunk > Greatest Ric Flair Strut Ever!