Month: December 2018

LET’S GO BROWNS—BEAT CINCY!

It was a great sports night for me. It was dueling sporting events as LeBaker led his Browns and the city of Cleveland to a pulsating last play of the game 17-16 win over the Denver Broncos in Mile High Stadium. My son was there with a group of OU people and kept calling during the game in excitement.

So I asked, “What jersey are you wearing…Von Miller’s or LeBaker’s No. 6?”

He never would tell me. Some bullshit about hosting some oil and gas people. But I could detect in his voice this night belonged to Baker Mayfield and America’s team…the Cleveland Browns. With the win, Cleveland improves to 6-7-1 and has a date with the dysfunctional Bengals next week-end in Cleveland. I would think it will be standing room only as these (our) Browns are still in the hunt heading into Week 16 of an NFL season.

This isn’t a fluke no matter how much Jim Traber wishes it was. Cleveland is loaded with good young talent. John Dorsey is a proven GM. The last hurdle in Cleveland is for ownership to get out of the way and stay out of the way. In essence to become invisible ownership. To allow Dorsey to run the franchise. Now you can say you can’t overcome weak ownership. That is a valid argument. But as we’ve seen with the Steelers, the NY Giants, the Green Bay Packers, the 49’ers, and the Denver Broncos of late just having solid ownership doesn’t make you immune from going through down cycles. It’s a tough league. Albeit the Browns didn’t just down cycle before Baker…they basically died and stayed dead until this past summer’s draft.

There were Cleveland jerseys sprinkled throughout Mile High on Saturday night. It was in essence a playin game for the winner to stay alive in the race for a wild card berth. Cleveland won and it was on a night when Baker Mayfield wasn’t at his sharpest.

Big picture wise I had six wins for Cleveland this season to fight their way from out of the abyss. With a win over the dumpster fire Bengals next week they improve to 7-7-1 with a Game 16 remaining versus the Ravens in Baltimore.

I should invite Mark Rodgers to come over and watch the game with me. Winner moves on…loser has his season end.

I can’t wait.

On the Thunder front…Paul George continued his excellent play of late in leading the Thunder to a 110-94 win over the gradually descending Clippers. The Thunder improve to 18-10 and host the Bulls on Monday night. The Clips biggest drama will occur this trade deadline where we see how much cap space they create for this coming summer.

So… I wonder what the hottest jersey is in Oklahoma right now… Kyler Murray, NBA MVP candidate Paul George, or LeBaker Mayfield’s No. 6?

I know which one I was wearing Saturday night.

Jim Traber…get over yourself and put on that Baker Mayfield jersey. Have some fun with yourself for a change.

Baker talks big win in Mile High, Pepper’s huge sack, and Kobe Bryant. Note to Russell Westbrook… this is how as a star you conduct yourself with the local media. You’ll notice their wasn’t one jock sniffer question from a Nick Gallo type during the presser. Get rid of Nick Gallo and show the world you’ve transformed yourself into a real iconic sports figure like Kobe. You know, as in the player you idolized while growing up in LA. The fourth grade level shit has become a bore. Ascend, Russell… this comes from a fan.

As the Thunder start playing more and more teams other than Phoenix and Atlanta the reality of this team with Billy Donovan coaching them appears to be surfacing. With the schedule now littered with decent basketball teams the Thunder can no longer feast exclusively on bad teams. A team’s true character will manifest itself as each week gets tougher and tougher. If you want to see tough go google the Thunder’s last 14 regular season games of the season. Pretty tough. Like you hope the Thunder make the playoffs… tough.

On Friday night in my soon to be secondary homeland of Denver–a Nugget team without Paul Milsap, without Will Barton, without Gary Harris, without Isiah Thomas, and without rookie Michael Porter basically toyed with a healthy Thunder team for a 109-98 win. Nikola Jokic and Jaamal Murray led a Nugget team which pretty much made plays when they needed them as they now hold a 2-0 season series lead over the Thunder.

I have no idea what Billy Donovan is doing. He needs three point scoring in the worst imaginable way and yet the three dudes who beginning the season who were to provide this took but five combined shots in over fifty minutes of playing time on Friday. Patrick Patterson, Alex Abrines, and Terrance Ferguson played plenty of rotational minutes, but for some reason I cannot decipher Abrines and Ferguson took a combined two shots. Two shots. And this after the game where Billy Donovan ran a last second play which had Abrines shooting for the game in New Orleans. Both Abrines and Ferguson didn’t score on Friday night while Patterson hit one three.

Paul George and Steven Adams kept the Thunder in the game with solid offensive games. PG scored 32 points while Steven double doubled with a 20, 12 night. Jerami Grant and Dennis Schroder struggled. Russell Westbrook was once again semi-awful going 5-15 from the field and then looking foolish at the end losing his composure with Jaamal Murray

If you want a sign of how poor Westbrook was on the night…consider he only got to the free throw two times…TWO TIMES. If that doesn’t send up a flare I don’t know what would. Maybe he’s just worn out from the twins. Having three young children all the sudden isn’t the easiest thing. I have no idea. We don’t even see Wild Thing anymore… something must be up. Shit…even seeing Wild Thing at this point would be good versus Russell the Zombie.

The Thunder were brutal from the line once again going 17-29 from the free throwline. 17-29. And without Andre Roberson. Are you kidding? High school team don’t do this.

OKC managed but 14 assists to 13 turnovers and for the second straight game and got beaten on the boards.

I’m not going to go crazy on here, it serves no purpose given the turbulent times our Republic finds itself in at the present. Another one quit in Caligula’s inner circle this morning with Sec. of Interior leaving for proposing a fracking scheme on Mount Rushmore. Just kidding…kind of.

So, I guess in this game between the Thunder and my new secondary homeland of Denver…there was no way I could lose.

Billy Donovan only wishes he could make that claim.

Patrick Beverly and the Clips in OKC tonight to face the 17-10 Thunder.

So I’m to assume Caligula couldn’t quite pull the trigger on Chris Christie in that Christie put Jared’s father in prison while he was a federal prosecutor. I guess that would have made the White House Christmas a little uneasy. Who would believe this shit if it were on House of Cards? Who seriously would believe all these pathetic people actually exist?

Not yet thru with his second year in office and Caligula has his third Chief of Staff. Gone is Priebus the anointed one from the GOP mainstream. Gone is General John Kelly who has basically torched his once impressive reputation.

Mick Mulvaney….you absolute dumbshit. Do you not have a wife, a parent, a child or a friend who told you not to do this? I’ll put the Mulvaney over/under at four months from today in that the tension and stress will be amped up even more as the Dems nudge this towards the impeachment stage.

On the General Mattis over/under departure date I’m going six months. If the bags under his eyes deepen anymore he’s going to start stepping on them.

I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve literally been on his cabinet wading through all this human debris.

Who would have guessed Omarosa was the Secretariat of the bunch? Come back, Omarosa… come back.

I love to read great stories. I have a certain place in my heart for skilled storytellers. Movies are great, but in book form you find the real essence of a great human story.

I’ve read some great books this year. But in the end this is my winner for book of the year.

It’s The Soul of America by Jon Meacham. Hands down the best book I’ve read this year amongst some truly very good books. One good thing about Trump is that I hope in most of us it’s directed us towards probing deep within ourselves and finding deeper more profound answers than why perhaps Alex Abrines got that last shot in New Orleans the other night.

I have a history degree so I mean this book is in my wheelhouse. But I would hope more Americans start taking the time to understand their own country and why it is significant from a world view.

America will survive the seedy reality show president I feel confident in writing. But what America will not survive is an uneducated electorate. The world is changing every day. Literally.

I don’t see Trump as the real challenge of America, but more to the point the real challenge is challenging more Americans to take the time to learn about their own country and their own constitution.

Here’s the PBS book tour interview on The Soul of America. America only survives if it gets smarter. It’s very simple. Dumb countries don’t lead the world at some point. But here’s the glass half full view, even thru Trump the world still hungers for America to lead.

Of the half dozen or so Trump books I’ve read…Insane Clown President by Matt Taibbi was the best by far.

Originally, the book was intended to be a dark comedy just about the Trump campaign given that no one including Donald Trump thought he could possibly win the presidency. Taibbi followed Trump for the entire campaign up until the morning after the election when we were all stunned to be living in a country with Donald Trump somehow left standing as the president elect.

Truly amazing. The darkest of comedies turned to be the most brutal of reality television shows.

Taibbi said the day after the election there would be multiple rabbit holes each and every day. He obviously knew what he was talking about. So as we near the two year anniversary of Caligula’s second year in the White House…I thought I might start checking in on Matt Taibbi and see what he’s been doing.

I assume he’ll be doing this again in 2020 since House of Cards will by then be a distant memory.

I’ve moved beyond the Nixon comparisons. Even Nixon wasn’t this wretched. We got it all wrong. This isn’t like Nixon. This is more like The Godfather, The Departed, Goodfellas, or Reservoir Dogs. Probably Reservoir Dogs and The Departed being the better comparisons.

If you’re going to tell me we live in an era of metrics then by all means convince me you know what you’re doing with them… last night being a prime example.

How in the world you could grind for 48 minutes on the road and still with a chance to steal the game at the end draw up a play for an Alex Abrines who quite frankly has the look of a guy who in his own heart knows he isn’t going to make the shot—end up taking the shot is beyond me.

I don’t get it. Paul George is 7-12 shooting the three in these last two games. Those are numbers, right?

I find it vexing.

Ride your bell cow. But on a positive note it was good to see Russell execute the play and not instead chuck a one-legged three from just inside half court. Good play. Wrong shooter.

I’m old school. I genuinely am. Call me Mini Gran Torino is you will. There are certain axioms in the NBA I’ll always adhere to even in the Golden Age of Millenials. When I have two stars who are both making more than $25 million a piece and I have a chance to steal a road game with ten seconds left on the Smoothie King Center clock I’m drawing a play for one of those two dudes.

Given the fact Paul George of late has been playing better than pretty much anyone in the NBA minus perhaps Anthony Davis… as a coach I’m not drawing the picket fence play from Hoosiers. I’m looking square into Paul George’s eyes and saying this is what we do after you make the shot. Buddy isn’t taking this shot. I’m just that way.

But this wasn’t Hoosiers. This was Billy Donovan reminding us why it’s very rare for college coaches to make it big in the NBA. Ask Fred Hoiberg, ask John Calipari, heck—ask our own Lon Kruger.

Instead what Billy Donovan did was run the Chaos Play with Russell Westbrook executing it perfectly to get the most disappointing player on the Thunder roster the last shot on the road to try and remain atop the West.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a beautiful play. Only problem is the guy who got the open look didn’t really deserve this opportunity. Coming into tonight Alex Abrines was 31-97 (32%) shooting the three. He was 1-4 on the night before the miss. So what I’m saying here is why would I take that leap of faith at this moment in this situation. Why? It would be one thing if I looked at my bench and saw Big Shot Bob Horry. Not to be cruel…but Alex Abrines isn’t Big Shot Bob. Not even close.

Of course the shot clanked and then the Pelicans hit two free throws to ice a win which makes them a .500 team.

I could go on and on about how the Thunder were outrebounded 56-39 or how they committed 18 turnovers of how they shot 63% from the line. I could do all those things and they would be valid points as to why the Thunder lost this game. But in the end here’s what I know…Paul George didn’t shoot the ball on either of OKC’s last two possessions of the game. That somewhat bothers me because PG scored 25 points on the night going 9-17 from the field and 3-7 from behind the arc yet didn’t get a shot on those last two possessions.

On the other side, Anthony Davis was brilliant with a 44 point, 18 rebound double double. Billy Donovan allowed Jerami Grant to get in foul trouble trying to handle this impossible matchup. What I would have done is try Nerlen Noels on AD some. Why not? Why not give it a try. You can’t really go small with Davis and Randle paired together so why not give Noels some real minutes against the Pelicans. But again, this isn’t the SEC, these aren’t the Florida Gators. Just saying.

So in one fell swoop the Thunder fall to 17-9 and back to 3rd in the West only a half game out of 6th place. Such is the nature of the beast which is the NBA’s Western Conference.

Great game to watch. But in the end more evidence to support the notion this Thunder team won’t be dancing deep into the NBA’s playoffs if they can’t learn the basic axioms of what it takes to win an NBA championship.

If you want to read a great basketball book during the holidays this is one you won’t go wrong with.

I heard the author Gary Pomerantz promoting his book on the radio and bought a copy. I’m glad I did. It’s one of the very best basketball books I’ve ever read and in these times of societal racial turbulence the book will question all of us as to how we’ve dealt with racial issues in our own lives.

The book focuses on the relationship between Bob Cousy and Bill Russell during the Celtic glory days when under the guiding rule of Red Auerbach the Celts won eleven NBA championships in thirteen seasons. Never in professional sports since has there been a dynasty such as those Celtics.

It’s not only a story of basketball, but more of a story of how Bill Russell was permanently affected by the racial implications of being a black star living in Boston during his playing career and for two additional seasons as player/head coach. The book delves into the relationship between Bob Cousy and Bill Russell and why they were never able to fully connect on a friendship basis during their time together with the Celtics.

Pomerantz basically tells the story through the narrative voice of Cousy who made himself available for fifty-three interviews as the book was being written.

As Cousy has gotten older (now 90) he’s come to the realization he never reached out enough to Bill Russell during those turbulent days of overt racism in Boston in the 60’s. From Cousy’s perspective he blames himself for never reaching out to Russell on a more personal note. You can tell it haunts him to a certain degree and in a sense the book is a mea culpa from Cousy to Russell explaining why he didn’t do more. How his own personality prevented him from reaching out more to the troubled Russell.

The Last Pass is Cousy’s one and half page letter written at the age of ninety sent to Bill Russell (age 84) making a last ditch effort to explain his actions and to a sense come to terms with himself as he nears the end of his life.

You won’t go wrong reading this book.

Interestingly, Cousy in the book lists his five greatest point guards the NBA has seen and one Russell Westbrook makes the list. Russell Westbrook also made Cousy’s list of the twenty greatest NBA players of all-time. Suffice it to say as a hall of fame point guard himself, Cousy is very much intrigued by Russell Westbrook.