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I watched the game in a jam packed family room with family and friends. I kept my thoughts to myself about the Thunder heading into the game and after the game. Who needs another Grinch when you have Donald Trump already?

Fairly entertaining game with Clay’s Bennett’s version of the NBA United Way posing as a Western Conference elite team. It was a good game because without Chris Paul these Rockets like the Thunder are not two of the four teams I have circled as legit O’Brien contenders on December 26th.

But in the end the Rockets without Chris Paul made the plays and beat the Thunder by a score of 113-109.

There’s no need for angst. If you’re the Houston Texans or the Kansas City Chiefs that’s who you are. That’s who these Thunder are. A nice team which will be entertaining at times in the regular season but in all likelihood another quick exit by late April.

I use the Christmas games as my first marker of sorts to evaluate teams, then redraw the day after the trade deadline if somebody did something of consequence.

What a perfect Christmas game for the Thunder to prove the payroll was worthy of the luxury tax consequences. What an opportunity to show they could be something different. But in the end it’s hard to buy the facelift Sam Presti put together this summer really making that much of a difference post season-wise. But they really are very nice guys.

You couldn’t ask for a better non-profit organization to do an assortment of good deeds for a community like Oklahoma City.

But an NBA championship contender?

No.

Isn’t it odd the most talented quarterback in the NFL and the most athletic point guard in the NBA both lead teams this season who aren’t going anywhere of consequence this season in Green Bay and Oklahoma City. How odd these two small markets with marquee players at their sport’s most important positions aren’t going to figure to be relevant beyond the regular season for the second straight season in Green Bay and the third straight season in Oklahoma City.

The Nick Gallos and the Royce Youngs of the Thunder Universe will try to spell it differently, but in the end they won’t be able to because it’s a truth which makes you gulp with a sense of partial sadness attached.

In the end this is Sam Presti’s Doctrine of Sustainability in Oklahoma City. To be respectable on the court, but to be even better in the surrounding community in Oklahoma.

To do good things from a human standpoint to show the good in the human condition. To show the sense of empathy to others that the world doesn’t see from the current POTUS.

In the big picture of all things make this clear, I’m not railing at anyone by writing up the Thunder’s Christmas game in Houston in this manner.

I love what the city leaders have done downtown with all the MAPS projects. I’m proud of how they’ve transformed the city. I’ll always love the Thunder. I love the baseball park downtown which is a replica of Camden Yards and hosts the LA Dodgers’ AAA team. The Riverwalk is awesome. What they’ve done with the Canadian River in turning it into a national rowing attraction is a miracle. I can’t wait for the new Oklahoma version of Central Park even if it won’t be Washington Park in Denver. Just to have the vision and civic will to do it impresses me.

Clay Bennett and the people in Oklahoma City have performed a sequence of miracles in Oklahoma City which have made the county a tolerable place to live even if you can’t ignore the rest of the dumpster fire state for its lack of vision.

So as I sit here the day after Christmas I do indeed realize there’s quite a bit of good things going in Oklahoma City even if the Thunder aren’t a viable championship contender.

In current millennial parlance this is what is described as a scheduled loss even though the foe at home was the passive Minnesota Timberwolves who still at times seem to be in a mode of funk following the Jimmy Butler fiasco which would indicate they’re one of the teams in the West a contender shouldn’t lose to at home.

The Thunder just found a way to lose to the Wolves at home by a count of 114-112 on Sunday night at the Peake.

Granted, the game in Salt Lake was a barnburner which felt like a playoff game, but this is one of those games where a legitimate championship contender which should have the biggest team chip on its shoulder from last season finds enough within themselves to not lose to a Wolves team which didn’t have either Jimmy Butler of Jeff Teague on the floor from last season’s playoff team.

This is a prime example of why despite Paul George’s MVP like December and the improved play of both Steven Adams and Jerami Grant … I still don’t view the Thunder as a team with anymore than just a 40-50% chance of getting out of the first round in the West for the third straight season.

The Thunder remind me of a Mike Gundy coached team. They’ll show you a flash here and there, but when push comes to shove they never win the games a team needs to win to win in their own division let alone the big enchilada come springtime in the NBA.

I’m not calling them chokers per se even though they do possess the league’s highest payroll, it’s just something I see in them which indicates to me losing doesn’t kill them. It doesn’t seem to matter all that much. They don’t seem to get sick to their stomach when they kick a game away or don’t show up in the first period for a game like this one against a lesser foe.

Gundy himself says it a millennial thing with his players at O State. Like me, he doesn’t think his players bleed after a loss. This Thunder team to me has never after the departure of Durant had the mindset that a season is a failure with anything short of a Western Conference Finals appearance. They don’t seem to care collectively all that much. It doesn’t seem to at all obsess them like it does with Steph, Klay, Draymond, and Steve Kerr.

Those cats bleed when they lose. Sure, they’ll struggle at times like anyone in an 82 game marathon, but you can tell it matters to their COMPETITIVE INNER PRIDE. The only time they haven’t won the championship in the past four seasons was when they exhausted themselves winning 73 regular season games. Does anyone who watches the Thunder think they could drive themselves like that to set even a regular season standard?

I don’t. Because I think hating to lose permeates from your head coach. It’s in his soul, in his DNA as the leader to subtly thru nuance handle each player in a manner which clearly says…’Ownership has put enough here for this team to be a championship contender. Put up or shut up. Fucking show me.”

That’s how I feel. I fucking hate underachievers. It drives me crazy. I want to be around people who wear their hearts on their sleeves. I don’t see that in this Thunder culture. They want to talk it, but they don’t walk it and that’s just my gut feel on this organization. Too much babysitting.

The math is simple. The Thunder without Durant are 3-8 in post season. They haven’t been relevant team wise in any sort of championship contending type of role. Like it or not for a team which is run by Clay Bennett the OU alpha regent—his NBA basketball team looks the competitive equivalent of Gundy’s O State football program which always wilts when it matters in the end. But that’s okay because Gundy talks to his team like they’re children on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Tell me I’m wrong and I have this wrong, but I see the same thing with the Thunder in that despite the league’s highest payroll they seem okay with end results of mediocrity as far as championship aspirations. Yeah, I get the sustainability part of the equation, but at some point you would hope there’s the collective mindset that winning the big enchilada is why you aspire to play the game at the highest level.

I don’t see that in Oklahoma City.

What I see is a great deal of folksy niceness like you see in Stillwater. Like you see in bowl season when O State plays in the Taco Bell Chalupa Bowl while the Sooners go play a relevant game. That’s what I see.

No one more than me wishes this isn’t what’s there, but I just see a bunch of really nice guys who are okay with underachieving.

And on that note I’ll close with Andre Roberson’s incredibly touching gesture of donating $7,500 dollars of his own money to a local family so they can adopt another child. It made me cry in a good way. I love Andre Roberson.

Such a nice young man. So many nice guys on this team. If this were the United Way or Goodwill they’d be my pick to win the NBA.

Know what I mean?

We all have Deplorables in our orbit of family and friends. Christmas probably isn’t the time to point out their misguided ignorance to them. Yes…it would be correct to point out to them it’s no longer 1930 and the fact Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover are in the rear view mirror…so to speak. But X Mas isn’t the time to tell them such things.

Tell the Deplorable(s) in your life simply….Merry Christmas and I love you.

This was a completely bizarre basketball game. It had everything you’d want as a fan. The feel was like a playoff game from last spring which could have taken place if the Thunder had extended the Utah Jazz to seven games. The only thing missing was Russell Westbrook not punking Mitt Romney and the GOP for cowering to Donald Trump. Otherwise, the ending of this game had absolutely everything as the Thunder somehow won in Salt Lake City with a stunning 107-106 road win.

I’ll start with Westbrook. It was vintage Wild Thing as he shot a horrific 3-17, committed six turnovers, missed a questionable three late, and yet at the end of the game made a defensive play on Donovan Mitchell at the rim which in essence won the game for the Thunder. Think about what I just wrote…that being, for most of this game Westbrook played like shit and was -12, but in the end made the play of the game on the defensive end.

These are our New Thunder.

Berry Tramel won’t even know how to write what I just wrote.

It wasn’t pretty, but in the end this New Thunder made gritty plays. Winning plays. Gut check plays. Plays that sent my TSN meter shaking off the lab table… and it wasn’t just Westbrook.

Terrance Ferguson made a long two near the end which would be clutch and it would be his only basket of the game. Tell me with a straight face you can visualize Andre Roberson making that shot. You can’t, I won’t let you…so don’t.

Dennis Schroeder after burning the Thunder’s last timeout late on a side inbounds play, turned the ball over, then busted his ass and stole it back from Donovan Mitchell to set up Westbrook’s three point miss which he never should have taken because Paul George was the guy who should have taken that shot.

Tramel…don’t even try this, dude.

That’s how goofy the ending of this game actually was in that Paul George was the best player on the floor on a 43 point, 14 rebound game and I really didn’t notice him late except for him getting his ass burned by Donovan Mitchell on that last fateful play when Wild Thing bailed him out with a defensive play at the rim which made you realize Russell Westbrook really is a defensive stud when he wants to be. Just a stunning play, and BTW I didn’t think Wild Thing fouled the beleaguered Mitchell who in no way looks like the player who took the NBA by storm last spring in his rookie campaign.

This is where I write Donovan Mitchell looks like overrated shit right now…as in lost. You can’t do this, Barry Tramel. The Daily Oklahoman doesn’t allow it.

What a game and what an ending! Consider this as well… the Utah Jazz had 35 assists at home and still lost. I’m to guess that
has never happened before when they hit the 30 assist plateau at home and lose. I bet when Nick Gallo read that stat he literally got a boner and wanted to kiss Russell.

You wonder if these two teams are once again going to meet each other in the first round come this April with say the Thunder at No. 3 and the Jazz at No. 6. It only seems right. They hate each other. Joe Ingles is a punk and seems to always be in Westbrook head, as does Little Ricky Rubio…who knows, even by the this spring Mitt Romney might find his balls and be that Howard Baker dude the GOP is so sorely missing right now. If Caligula is being impeached and the Thunder and Jazz hook up again with Romney taking center stage…I’d have everything in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs a guy like me could ask for. Hell… I wouldn’t even know what was the storyline.

So… amazingly enough, this New Thunder emerge from the smoke at 21-10 and tied for first in the West with Denver and Golden State.

The Thunder host the soft Minnesota Timberwolves tonight at the Peake.

Merry Christmas

The New Patrician GOP. Somewhere in hell…William F. Buckley is laughing his ass at these clowns.

We really don’t have a newspaper in Oklahoma City other than the sports section of the Daily Oklahoman which has some decent stuff pertaining to the Thunder and the Sooners. The rest of the paper is worthless. Letters to the editor which aren’t worth reading and no real intellectual curiosity in the Op-Ed page. So this is what you get when you don’t have an informed or educated readership. That being a not so bright state which languishes near dead last in education.

Here we are several days before XMas with a shut down government, no Secretary of Defense, no real Attorney General, and an interim Chief of Staff by the name of Mick Mulvaney who already has the look of a guy planning his exit. Of course the states with the greatest plurality of Trump voters are in Oklahoma, Mississippi, and West Virginia. And of course these three states all rank near the bottom in education. You think there’s any possible correlation to this at all?

Quick, who’s the current Secretary of State? Hint—he didn’t get fired or quit this week. It would be the unfortunate soul named Mike Pompeo.

See what I mean?

Now the last guardrail of defense to protect the Constitution from Caligula’s worst instincts in General Mattis will soon be gone. I wonder if the GOP senators will at all take the current state of affairs as a sign of things not quite in place as they should be. I wonder if Lindsey Graham will be golfing his balls with those of Caligula today after the pullout in Syria. It was all Deep State by General Mattis. Fake news. This is on him, Hillary, and Obama.

Maybe Caligula on his own will order the bombing of a vacant airfield in Syria.

Does Mitch McConnell even care? He got his tax break for America’s wealthiest and two Supreme Court Justices. Mitch McConnell could care less, he got what he wanted for those who own him lock, stock, and barrel.

So are we lower now than we were with Richard Nixon in the days leading up to his resignation?

I would say yes because this president will not resign. He’ll drag this country through the mud and slime no matter hell or high water. It is the Roy Cohn in him. It is his DNA. My guess is if you took a poll in Oklahoma this morning Trump would still be trending at 70% approval rating numbers. You see, when you have no public means of intelligent discourse or debate this is what you get… a dumb Republic and one spiraling even dumber by the day. I have no idea how Kendra Horn somehow won in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District.

It seems like a lifetime ago in which we were only concerned with Sean Spicer fibbing at White House briefings. It seemed quaint, almost innocent, and funny.

Think of that and how far the train has fallen off since.

How far will the train have fallen by this time next year?

We’re past the part in Watergate where Howard Baker goes and has a talk with Nixon, because there is no Howard Baker in sight. John McCain might have been, but he’s no longer amongst us. There is no Howard Baker. Lindsey Graham isn’t Howard Baker as he tingles being thought to be relevant and golfing his balls next to those of Caligula’s.

History can teach if you take great care in studying it and learning from it.

Remember when it was funny watching Sean Spicer lying for Caligula at the press briefings. It seemed so innocent. So harmless. But when you have no veracity whatsoever attached to your government it becomes anything but funny in the end.

Are we close to the end?

I don’t think so.

There will be some very dark days ahead which will make Nixon look like an angel.

This is why you must have a smart press and a free press and why in places like Oklahoma it doesn’t change. Why stupidity lingers. Because if you have no starting point for an intelligent discussion you in essence have nothing.

You do have history though, only sometimes the ending isn’t what you’d hoped it would be.

This is great. It’s so much fun being a Cleveland Browns’ fan. You think you’d ever see a Thunder player do a Sam Presti impersonation?

From the Home Office in Deer Creek, Oklahoma

# 10 Make sure all Trump escorts are screened for STDs

# 9 Pledge to set the democratic world back at least seventy years

# 8 Set out to have Birtherism taught in all tax funded public school systems

# 7 Mail out inspirational photos of Roy Cohn to Boy Scouts of America

# 6 Have Keith Schiller take care of Michael Cohen and Jeff Sessions

# 5 Launder at least another $20 billion in Cypriot bank

# 4 Use Scott Pruitt to inflate energy stocks then short the living shit out of oil

# 3 Set in motion mechanisms to have Mike Tyson replace Mike Pence on the 2020 ticket

# 2 Blame Low Energy Jeb Bush and Little Marco Rubio for initiating whole climate change hoax

# 1 Master the art of the deal by lying your ass off every time you open your mouth

McMaster…gone. Kelly…gone. Mattis to be gone in February. The generals can’t handle Caligula, but Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the American Freedom Caucus can.

It is what it is.

More to the point, the continued dumbing down of America halfway thru the presidency of Donald Trump. I wonder what the markets will do tomorrow on the heels of what they’ve done this week?

We’ll find out if the markets are bullish on banana republics led by television reality people.

I have no idea why this is so difficult for Russell Westbrook to grasp. None. And this is what makes Westbrook vexing to the ultimate degree. It truly is. When you see this Russell Westbrook play like the one I witnessed in Sacramento on Wednesday night you realize you’re watching a generational player of the ages for the ages. The player we know he can be if only he’ll put the Wild Thing bullshit in the closet and leave it there. The Russell Westbrook who could lead a team to something come April when games start meaning something. This Russell Westbrook.

The Thunder won in Sacramento on Wednesday night by a score of 132-113. They did this without both Dennis Schroeder and Raymond Felton who were both suspended by the league because they got off their feet and somehow got quasi involved near the Thunder bench when Robin Lopez lost his mind after realizing his career has careened to this low point of playing for a team as bad as the Chicago Bulls circa 2018. Very weak and unfair by the NBA , but in the end it didn’t matter for the Thunder on this night.

Westbrook tripled doubled with a 19 point, 11 rebound, 17 assist night. For good measure he threw in six steals. I know Maurice Cheeks felt good watching this. I’m pretty sure Billy Donovan smiled to himself as well. I smoked a cigar on my back porch in the forest of Deer Creek. This wasn’t Wild Thing, this was the best player in the NBA on this night in Sacramento showing what he can do when he really wants to do it.

Paul George didn’t suck either in scoring 43 points on 27 shots as he closes in on winning the NBA Player of the Month for December. Paul George may not be Durant as far as generational offensive numbers, but like me he loves to fish and he’s a complete player on both ends of the floor. He’s blue collar to the core and right now he’s in the hunt for the MVP given the way he’s been playing this season.

Steven scored 20 points and added 23 rebounds against the Kings. In an age of NBA basketball where centers don’t seem to matter as much, Steven has evolved as perhaps into the best in the league at his position. In his book Steven says how hard in practice he works on the Euro step and his three point shooting. I’m ready to see a three point shot by Steven.

Jerami Grant scored 22 points on an uber efficient 9-11 shooting night. Since moving into the starter’s role his game has taken off while Patrick Patterson’s has dropped off the edge of the world. I hope for Patrick Patterson’s sake he doesn’t find himself sitting on a bench with Robin Lopez after the trade deadline. But then again, the Bulls don’t have anything Sam Presti could use right now.

Terrance Ferguson had one of his better nights as a modified version of Andre Roberson. Terrance had 14 points and is getting better every night. It’s starting to make sense. He needs some more upper body muscle but you can see where his game is going.

Alex Abrines went 3-7 shooting the three on this night and that’s exactly what Sam Presti needs from him on most nights. As in pulling his link on the chain and giving the Thunder an additional three point shooter they can count on coming out of the bullpen.

Diallo got a technical and had one of his less productive games, but I’m guessing he’ll snap back in Salt Lake on Saturday.

The Thunder improve to 20-10 and head to Salt Lake on Saturday night for a return visit to where their season ended in April last season. Those fans will be ready for Westbrook. Joe Ingles and Jae Crowder will be talking some shit I’m sure. Ricky Rubio will try to bring out Wild Thing from Russell Westbrook’s inner basketball closet.

We’ll see.

But on this mid December night in Sacramento there was no Wild Thing sighting, just the best point guard in the NBA along with Steph Curry showing us what he can be when he wants to be it.

When you really think this thru does it make any real difference. I don’t think so because Russell Westbrook and Paul George combined make around sixty million something dollars a year and they enjoy having Billy Donovan as their head coach. As well it’s obvious Sam Presti has a strong relationship with Billy Donovan so this doesn’t seem like a jaw dropper even if the Thunder exit the playoffs in the first round for the third straight season with what is right now the league’s highest payroll.

If you look at OKC’s schedule to date nothing has been validated because the schedule the Thunder has played so far has been the league’s easiest. So you would think this year’s performance has nothing to do with the decision to retain Billy Donovan for his fifth year as the Thunder head coach.

Here’s what I think…if you want to take the Thunder to the next level then you as a head coach will have to nuance some change in Russell Westbrook’s game. This will have to occur. To date except for maybe these past few games after the 1-12 clusterfuck in Denver… that hasn’t happened with Billy Donovan as the head coach. It appears though Westbrook is currently trying to play defense and limit his three point chucking addiction. Step I of Twelve Steps Basketball wise … Play some defense and stop chucking the dumbass threes.

I don’t own the team. It’s not my money. I have no skin in this game so if Clay Bennett and Company want to make Mike Gundy their basketball coach that’s their call. But make this clear I think Billy Donovan was an excellent college coach at Florida winning two NCAA titles at a non-basketball school per se. That’s not an easy thing to do. Those usually go to Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, and Villanova as of late. So winning two championships at Florida is a formidable thing.

I like Billy Donovan. If my son were a DI hoops player good enough to travel that path…then Billy Donovan would be at the top of my list as to who I’d want influencing my son’s life for four years as a young student-athlete.

Clay Bennett of late has a pretty good track record of helping to name head coaches in that he’s an alpha regent on the board at OU. I loved the Lon Kruger hire at OU even though I genuinely liked Jeff Capel. The manner in which Bob Stoops stepped down and Lincoln Riley was elevated to head coach is perhaps the smoothest transition I’ve ever witnessed from either a blueblood football or basketball program. So what I’m writing here is Clay Bennett has a very strong record of late in helping to make head coaching decisions at both OU and to a lesser degree with the Thunder.

I write lesser degree on Billy Donovan only because I’m still not sure if he can help Russell Westbrook contain his inner basketball demons. If I did let Donovan go…then my short list for his replacement would be headed by Nurse Ratched. I’m thinking at that point Nurse Ratched is the only living human who might help Russell Westbrook come to terms with his basketball decision making at times. But then again we all saw how that ended with McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) in the end.

In hindsight it’s really only fair because for any basketball coach to not lose his mind coaching Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook on the same team for an entire basketball season should result in some sort of punitive damages settlement for the coach.

And that’s what I think this is in the end… a human/legal settlement of sorts for Billy Donovan getting thru this for four basketball seasons.

Billy Donovan 2010 University of Florida Presser on upcoming game with South Carolina: