Month: January 2019

I’ll try and work in a recap on the Thunder’s win over Portland maybe tomorrow. I know this a Thunder blog, but when they continually never showed up and loafed … I thought I might start paring down my Thunder coverage on here some and follow other stories more than I usually do during the Thunder season. It was a nice win over Portland and they tried …so that’s a good thing. There’s so much going on in the world of sports and politics you can’t stayed glued to a perennial underachiever too long. Plus, the Oscars are coming up. I’ll try and find some space for the Thunder on here though.

For the first time in the history of the Thunder I didn’t watch the Thunder play a game either live or on the delay. My sports heart just wasn’t interested. The underachieving Thunder evidently beat the pathetic NY Knicks rather easily, but the game held no appeal for me. I watched a couple of Martin Luther King historical videos and finished Michelle Obama’s book then took the diva lab for a walk instead.

I noticed Kamala Harris got into the presidential race along with a slew of other Dem women. Here’s what I would warn the Dems not to do…don’t steer yourself too far left just reacting to the Empire of Caligula. Presidential elections in the Electoral College are precarious creatures. In two out of the last five presidential elections the Dems won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.

If I were the chairman of the DNC this would be what I would have circled in red:

FLORIDA, NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, MICHIGAN, AND WISCONSIN…. as in making sure I win at least five of these states. Because if the Dems don’t win five of these states then they probably lose the White House again would be my guess. Please explain to me how a politician from San Francisco finds wide appeal in these states if say Nikki Haley somehow ends up on the GOP ticket. I’d also make sure both of the Obamas are on board given the fact they’re the two most admired humans in this country currently. Funny how that worked out for Trump.

Another thing… I wouldn’t assume Caligula will be the GOP candidate. I would think if at any point Mitch McConnell could drown Caligula–he will. McConnell has gotten what he needs already from this dubious person. Namely, a tax cut and two Supreme Court justices. At this point, Trump serves no further purpose to the GOP. I’m sure what McConnell is doing is hoping for the right moment to in a word put Trump in some form of a political box where he can’t run again per the Mueller findings.

So…let’s say that happens amidst this whirl of diversity and women of all kinds are determined the next president is a woman…which btw I think would be a good thing because women are inherently smarter than men. Not even close. Are you kidding?

But again — I wouldn’t go too far left. Always remember the middle. The middle is where the election will be won, not the far left nor the far right. I wouldn’t discount the Nikki Haley scenario or another GOP woman being on the ticket. And I’m not talking about some sort of nut job GOP woman like Sarah Palin, but one who has a resume and can actually speak without frothing at the mouth.

So on this MLK Day… I felt more like being Nate Silver than a Thunder blogger. Easy choice. The Thunder have become a boring beat minus the Miracle in Philadelphia and wondering how Russell will mix his blouse and pants color schemes. But I won’t fret because I’m certain Little Nick Gallo and Low Energy Royce Young had it covered. Erik Horne will be fine because Tramel will rein him in if he gets too far into the rough.

I’ll do tonight’s game versus Portland. This should be a good game if the Thunder can find it within themselves to focus enough to win another somewhat meaningful game after Philadelphia.

This is a day for all Americans to reflect or at least it should be. A day when you reflect on what it is to be an American. A day to reflect within as to what we’re seeing every day in our country magnified on a Twitter account. How each of us can do things which make us better as a people and as a nation.

To close your eyes regardless of party affiliation and simply live the Golden Rule with your actions.

To give of yourself to make your small corner of the world a little better.

I finished Michelle Obama’s book. It was excellent. I understand why it’s still the No. 1 bestseller on the NY Times non-fiction list. I understand why two years after leaving office both Barack and Michelle Obama are the two most admired people in America.

Watch this video and then close your eyes and think about what you’ve witnessed these past two years. Or think about how proud Martin Luther King would be that we got the opportunity to know who Barack and Michelle Obama are…but that we might not have really come all that far given that the Birther movement was the catalyst for Donald Trump’s presidency.

I would think Martin Luther King would be somewhat conflicted today.

I only moved yesterday to take the diva lab Pauli outside for her walk. Otherwise, I didn’t move except to infuse myself with some food and liquids to keep me going through the epic doubleheader. This may very well have been the best day of NFL football I’ve witnessed in my life. Maybe it has something to do with the voices which came to me at the end of the Thunder-Sixers game. Maybe my time is near and the Big Dipper is being especially nice to me.

For starters, I loved Jimmy Buffet singing the anthem. I have no take on the microphone drop, but I thought he sang the anthem
very nicely.

There were so many huge plays on this day, but the one which will linger for me the most is when Rams coach Sean McVeigh fake punted down 13-0 in the first half on his side of the field. I thought it was the biggest play of the day minus the blown interference call and then the coin toss in overtime of Game 2. The Rams looked ready to be knocked out before halftime, but instead fed off that play and in reality I thought played the best football on both sides of the ball for the remainder of the game. Fitting that the game ended with a game winning 57 yard field goal in overtime to put the Rams in the Super Bowl. As far as the blown call which allowed the Rams to have that last game tying field goal — obviously the refs blew it. It was clearly pass interference. The NFL needs some tweaking to their replay rule as well as their overtime format.

In the nightcap it even got better. It was epic. Brady versus Mahomes on Mahomes’ home field and in the end it will go down as one of the greatest games or at least second halves I’ve been blessed enough to see. Add to the fact…Tony Romo in the booth was incredible in giving the audience insights to play calling and pre-snap sets which you would think should make him the obvious choice to be Andy Reid’s next defensive coordinator. He knew exactly what the Pats were going to do on most of the plays excluding the one fourth down play where Burkhardt got stuffed on fourth and one.

What a game! But the overtime format has to be changed. We ‘needed’ to see Mahomes with a chance to answer in overtime. As much as we treasure Tom Brady as a national icon…I at least wanted to see Mahomes with the ball and Andy Reid I’m to assume going for two if the Chiefs had scored.

Great, great, great games!

So we now have the Rams vs. the Patriots in Atlanta for another New England Super Bowl. This doesn’t grate on me like watching the Warriors repeat year after year simply because the Pats have never stacked their teams. What they’ve done over the years is ride the massive shoulders of the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time to continue the longest dynasty in the collective bargaining era. Plus, Belichik manages his roster year in and year out with more smarts and nuance than anyone else ever has in the history of sport. It is breathtaking to observe. If only our government were run as well as the Patriots. Trump couldn’t even run a USFL team, business, or a government as he has showed, but seeing the Patriots running the government might be interesting. Belichik would be tough on Putin. Brady would be the Golden Child Vice President in await while Gronk would be a Secretary of Defense who’d really kick Isis’s ass. Given what the GOP gave us in 2016–tell me how that wouldn’t be an upgrade.

CBS has the call in Atlanta. Tony Romo will have an encore performance. My wife loves Tony Romo. This will be the first Super Bowl without the Dallas Cowboys she might actually watch. It will be hard for that game to measure up to what we witnessed yesterday. Young Jared Goff who played like a seasoned veteran himself in the second half versus Tom Brady and his Pats.

How can you pick against Tommy Brady?

My mother had never seen me like this before. She never in person had seen what Russell Westbrook does to me at the end of a basketball game. My father, my wife, and my son….yes, but never my mother. I had intentionally shielded her from this part of me.

I came so close to getting thru this game versus the Sixers in Philly to not losing my mind regardless of what Russell Westbrook did on the floor. It was as if that Big Basketball Dipper in the sky was testing me to see if I was ready to go to the next level of Westbrook Zen.

Fifteen seconds. I was within fifteen seconds of zen-like inner peace. It was surreal. I was there. It was like in Jonathon Livingston Seagull when the state of perfection in flight was at my finger tips. It was flight and it was beautiful.

Voices were beckoning me from above.

And then with fifteen seconds left and the Thunder leading the Sixers by three… Russell Livingston Gull for some reason fouled Joel Embiid shooting a three point shot and fouled out of the game as well. I was stunned…wanting to curse as if I were Todd Monken running an O State practice. But then the voice said, “Michael, he fouled out. You might actually have a chance to win with Russell on the bench.”

‘Yes,’ I thought to myself…’with Russell banished to the bench the Thunder might actually win this game’.

Donovan called a timeout after the first two made free throws by Imbiid in what one is to assume was an effort to freeze the mighty big man. But, of course, he made the third as well. Those who follow basketball then assumed Donovan would call his last timeout to move the ball up court and run a play for the last play of the game with the ball in Paul George’s hands.

But no….the college coach from Florida instead opted to allow a play on situation and Dennis Schroder turned the ball over and Jimmy Butler turned the idiotic play which never should have even taken place to be turned into the go ahead basket for Philly with six seconds left.

The college coach then called time out ten seconds late.

I was ashen. My blood was boiling simultaneously livid at both Westbrook and Donovan for blowing the game which the rest of the team had worked so hard to win. Somewhere in all of this… Terrance Ferguson hit a clutch three which could have been the storyline albeit the normal dysfunction of the Thunder at the end of games.

I snapped. I ran out into the soggy backyard and screamed, “Fuck me running!!!”

Harold next door asked from behind the fence, “Mike, are you okay?”

I answered, ” Yeah, I’ll be okay. We’re a first round exit again this year, but I’ll be okay. It’s just a game. Jalen Hurts is coming at least.”

Then the Big Dipper whispered softly in my ear, “He’ll make it.”

So I go back in and pretend my mother didn’t hear me and sit in my chair waiting to see if the Thunder can run a play and make a shot.

Just before the ball was inbounded–the voice again whispered in my ear, “He’ll make it.”

Paul George caught the ball, squared himself from just beyond the top of the key, elevated…and swish. He made it.

The voice said, “You must believe, Michael. You must believe. There are things which we cannot control.”

I might never be the same again. My inner conflicts with Westbrook will seem petty compared to what I just experienced. This was a spiritual experience of sorts. I wonder if others in Oklahoma were beckoned by the voice or if it was just me. It’s a good thing not many people read this blog or they might think I’ve lost my mind. But I had to write this down somewhere just in case I don’t wake up tomorrow morning.

The Thunder at the NY Knicks on Martin Luther King Day.

This might be relevant for the MLK game since Muddiay plays for the NY Knicks.

I’m not one of these guys who has to see a win every night. I look more for incremental improvement in a team as more of a sign of good coaching than immediate wins. I look for a well coached team to save its best ball for the goal achieving part of the season.

But one thing I do not tolerate from any sports team I watch play is lazy and stupid play on a repeated basis. Do not insult my intelligence.

Don’t float the usual company line about this and that. I don’t want to read Royce Young or hear Little Nick Gallo justify this bullshit any longer. Step up or I will not take you or the Thunder seriously. And trust me…I want to take the Thunder seriously because I am a very passionate guy about basketball and how it’s played.

Step up and play hard with some basketball intelligence attached. Don’t continue to make Charles Barkley look smart by describing the Thunder as ‘a pretty woman who’s too dumb.’

Quite frankly, I view the Thunder’s credibility on the line starting with today’s special matinee performance in Philadelphia. The Thunder stink right now on multiple levels. Since the win in Portland they have played like a collective group of punks. Any parent who saw their child play sports with this much indifference would strongly suggest to the child that perhaps competitive sports wasn’t meant to be for them. It’s one thing to spend a $146 million plus tax and still not be in Golden State’s class, it’s another thing to not be able to beat the Wizards, the Hawks, or the Lakers without LeBron and look bad in the process.

To look like a bunch of dimwits who should have Nick Young as their team captain.

Putting Charles Barkley aside, this team loafs and the head coach doesn’t seem to be fazed by it.

In Thursday night’s game Luke Walton undressed his team on the national TNT telecast for lack of effort against the Thunder as they played without LeBron. His team responded and came back from a 37-20 deficit to eventually win on the road against the overrated Thunder. Maybe the next time these two meets Luke Walton could challenge the Thunder as well and give Sam Presti a bit of pro bono help.

The problem here is simple, the Thunder don’t play hard or with any basketball moxie for significant portions of games. They loaf. They make stupid mistakes. The same ones. They appear to be either stupid as a team or indifferent to competition. Somebody told them they were special, but they’re not special. They’ll not only never be the Warriors—stop with the notion this group of guys could ever be thought of in that realm.

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned Paul George in relation to MVP consideration any longer. You know why? Teams on which Nick Young could be captain don’t produce MVPs.

When someone calls you as a team both lazy and stupid and you don’t respond then there’s one conclusion which might be drawn. You could ACTUALLY be stupid and lazy and misguided in your arrogance as to how good you are as a basketball team. This where the Little Nick Gallo and Royce Young enabling comes in and the lack of a real market media minus Tramel comes into play. This is why you need at least one real sports journalist asking the tough questions when the others won’t. Erik Horne needs to step up as well. He should know better.

The Thunder are on the cusp of becoming a joke. They’re on the cusp of validating every thing Kevin Durant insinuated about them even before he became Cupcake.

Think back to those Durant Thunder years. It was very rare when the Thunder didn’t play hard. They might have had a stinker here and there, but it was very rare when you didn’t see effort on back to back games.

So when the Thunder take the court today in Philly for me their credibility is on the line. This has nothing to do with winning the game against a Philly team which one would think should be at the least be a Vegas seven point home favorite today. It has more to do with simply playing with some heart and some brains.

Sure their bench is having issues right now. Abrines for whatever reason is done and Noels had the nasty fall. But that’s when Billy Donovan as a coach has to be smart enough to: (A) shorten his rotations, and (B) be something special as a coach instead of appearing to be a Sam Presti friendship hire.

Enough already. Either step up or be quiet with this noise you’re still an elite franchise.

You were with Kevin Durant. You haven’t been close to elite without him.

Truth hurts—it always does.

And therein lies a very unpleasant truth to date about the Oklahoma City Thunder as a basketball team regardless of how many nice things MAPS has accomplished for Oklahoma City.

The Thunder versus Philly this afternoon. I’m making a point of watching the game with my mother so I won’t set some sort of North American record for dropping F bombs during a forty eight minute basketball game. I would never do that in front of my mother.

Nick Collison, phone home, buddy. Your city needs you.

The people who wrote House of Cards are rolling their eyes. How could any of this be non-fiction? It’s somewhere between Reservoir Dogs and The Godfather II. What will really upset Trump is the knowledge he won’t be able to personally monetize the ratings from Cohen’s televised testimony.

This was before the game last night. Pretty cool to have your dad working with you before his NBA game. It made me think of my son the first time he was on skates with a hockey stick. My son is Russell’s age. I can’t stay mad at Russell. I do think however, Clay Bennett and his group should get rid of the luxury tax and put that money into a MAPS 6 dolphin park so as Noah can go see the dolphins after practicing with his dad. I don’t know how active dolphins are in January in Oklahoma, but I would have to guess they’d show more energy than the Thunder basketball team has of late. Who would have known the season would end in Portland with the best win since Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors.

I need to call David Holt next Monday with my thoughts on the dolphin park. To see if Trump’s shutdown would make this impossible.

One of the best books I ever read was ‘Fathers, Sons, and Hockey.’ If I can find it I’m going to give it to Russell Westbrook. I love giving books away. Maybe we can talk a bit about Michelle Obama’s book.

Again, I think Billy Donovan is about as swell of a human being as you could possibly find. I don’t write this as an internet smart ass. Because we live in a time when a premium should be put on people who conduct themselves like Billy Donovan.

But…….

How do I say this and not come across as a bad person?

There is a classic Barry Tramel line of all-time which I’m going to invoke at this point. It was written when John Blake’s tenure at OU was coming to a merciful end.

It goes like this…”Just because you worked at a Taco Bell doesn’t necessarily mean you should manage a Taco Bell.”

I think you get my point without me wasting an entire page.

I’m not on Clay Bennett’s ownership board and if I were I’d propose this Nick Collison idea or start working on the MAPS 6 dolphin park. Because what you’re doing right now is nothing more than pissing into the Oklahoma wind.

This loss against the Lakers at home on TNT doesn’t even deserve a recap.