I have to admit, I smiled when I heard Ted Cruz and his family visited the White House so Donald Trump could smooze the American Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives in relation to the new Trump Care Health bill which was just made public. Donald Trump now needs Ted Cruz—it’s that simple and one might hope Cruz is at least smart enough to know he should be getting something back in an obvious quid pro quo. If not, at least it gives the rest of us proof we’re at least smarter than one Harvard Law School graduate.
And what’s truly hilarious is that Trump coined the phrase Lyin’ Ted Cruz, called his wife a pig, and then went on to claim Cruz’s father could have been involved in the assassination of JFK. Yet, there’s Lyin’ Ted Cruz like a wet puppy with his tail between his legs at the White House with Caligula Lite. To me, this is right up there with Trump telling Chris Christie to get on the airplane and go home. Both are equally priceless, but in the World of Trump it’s just another day and another gesture of where we’re at as a nation currently.
So, if we’re having an Oscars for most pathetic GOP moments encapsulating the Election of 2016 and the governance so far—Cruz taking his family to the White House wins Best Picture going away. But there were other strong nominees for Best Pic as well.
It’s been a tough year for Mark Cuban with Trump winning the White House and his team struggling, but this was a nice moment for the game and the league. Congrats, Dirk.
It was a tough game to watch as the OKC Thunder lost its fourth straight game and in the process lost its season series against the Portland Trailblazers by a 3-1 count. From an entertainment standpoint it was okay, but if you bleed Thunder basketball it was painful as the Thunder dropped to 35-29 and seem headed to a very short stay in the NBA’s post season tournament.
Two things stand out in this game,(1) namely OKC couldn’t play much of any defense and allowed Portland to shoot 55.3% from the field and 47.8% from threes, and (2) Russell Westbrook took 39 of his team’s total of 89 shots to score 58 points.
Combine no defense with no trust in each other as a team and this isn’t a good sign moving forward.
Victor Oladipo returned and played decent scoring 16 points and was 4-5 from three land, plus he hit a very big shot which kept OKC in the game until the very end. But in the end it was a distorted, disjointed Thunder team which in these last four games is winless against sub .500 teams.
I look at it this way, as ball as ball distribution–that being, OKC’s better offensive players didn’t get enough touches in this game against a Portland team which is a poor defensive team. Enes Kanter only got 6 shots, Steven Adams only got 5 shots, Alex Abrines 5 shots, Doug McDermott who ostensibly was brought here to shoot the ball–attempted one shot.
It’s as if when Oladipo went out Russell in an effort to keep the boat afloat got lost in his own game so to speak. The real measure of a great point guard is making the tools around him better. Russell has shown he can do this, but he needs to get back to it and his teammates need to finish when he shows trust in their games.
In all candor, I have not been impressed with Billy Donovan of late. It is a coach’s job to leave his imprint on his team. I’m not seeing any imprint on this team currently other than Russell trying to do too much. If I’m to assume Oladipo is back for good now–then OKC as a team needs to take a deep breath and reset itself somehow against the Spurs on Thursday night at home.
The goal for OKC right now is to find itself as a team and learn how to play with one another.
For those of you who voted for Donald Trump and think there’s going to be a pivot, it isn’t happening. This is who he is and how his presidency will be for however long it lasts. I think it would be fair to assume he in his own mind never thought he’d be elected and the joke is on not just the people who voted for this clown, but for the entire country.
Again, I’m to assume if Donald Trump slit Mike Pence’s throat on national television it would in no way alter the way Trump supporters view all of this. Somehow, someway, we as a country have produced this in the wake of the Economic Collapse of 2008, the Palin phenomenon, and the fact a majority of Americans feel left behind due to globalization and other factors. Or more the point, many Americans feel the American Dream is a thing of the past.
It’s extremely sad and depressing when you think about it. You wonder at what point the ‘GOP shadow government’, the one with Pence, McConnell, Ryan, Priebus, Mattis, Kelly, Pompeo, Comey and others will say enough of this and do the right thing. It’s not just Jeff Sessions, it’s not just Steven Bannon, more to the point it’s the fact Donald Trump is in no way qualified for the office and even more concerning is he operates on a maturity level of a fourth grader.
Here’s Joe Scarborough this morning sharing his thoughts. Keep in mind, he’s not part of the ‘liberal media’ out to get Donald Trump. He’s a former GOP congressman who’s a staunch conservative Heritage Foundation type of person. Conservative talk show hosts and conservative columnists all across this country are saying the same things pretty much and have been doing so for several weeks now. Chris Wallace, George Will, Kathleen Parker, etc have expressed their concern for this president’s stability and whether he’s too emotionally unhinged to be POTUS.
It was a night of hope for the once last place Dallas Mavs as they easily dispatched of the road reeling OKC Thunder by a score of 104-89 on Sunday night inside American Airlines Arena. Don’t look now, but the Mavs are now but two games out of the eighth place seed in the West after battling their way back from a horrendous start of this season.
Dirk started at center and it in no way hampered the Mavs as Billy Donovan never really seemed to figure things out against one of the best coaches in the NBA business who goes by the name of Rick Carlisle. For Dirk it was a night when he scored 18 points and added 12 rebounds. But more importantly, Dirk is now 20 points away from becoming the sixth player in NBA history to score 30,000 points in a career. I’ve always liked Dirk and as an NBA fan appreciated his loyalty to his city and to Mark Cuban. It’s rare. We don’t see all that much of this in any pro sports nowadays, so I felt the need to highlight Dirk rather than the abysmal playing and coaching performances by the Thunder on Sunday night. The Mavs next three games are in Dallas, so it’s nice that he’s going to set the mark in front of his home fans. Congrats, Dirk. You’ll forever be my favorite German power forward.
Now to the Thunder. They were horrific both on the floor and on the bench. OKC was completely outclassed in every regard of this basketball game. Heart, effort, execution, smarts, poise, …everything. At one point in this game OKC trailed 81-54 or something like that against a team which started a thirty-nine year old power forward as center. Think about that. For those who to date have maintained Billy Donovan has a coaching flexibility which Scott Brooks never had you might want to burn the tape of this game and pretend it didn’t happen.
Let’s start with this. Victor Oladipo missed his sixth straight game due to mysterious back spasms. In turn, the Thunder have now lost seven road games in a row dating back to January 25th when the Thunder won in New Orleans. The Thunder are now 12-20 and once again are headed absolutely nowhere except the 7th seed in the West and a first round exit in the playoffs.
That feel good, warm glowy feeling after the Utah home win has now become the cold reality that this team doesn’t have the maturity to win on the road in situations which require some mental toughness and smarts. The only thing possibly worse than the Thunders’ performance was the one which was given by Brian Davis and Michael Cage doing the Fox telecast. I usually let this pass because it’s a homer broadcast by design, but on this night their degrees of brutality on the call had to have set some sort of Thunder mark for inane homerness. The sound went off in the second period in this one for me, came back on briefly in the disastrous third period, and never returned for the remainder of this game.
Russell Westbrook struggled in this game. It wasn’t that his line of 29 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists was awful, it’s more to the point he became as unhinged as Donald Trump on a tweetstorm in the third period. Westbrook suffered both a technical and a Flagrant I in the period and the game was essentially over.
But I can’t really blame Westbrook because I would think he’s tired of not getting enough help from his teammates–especially those who start. Sabonis, Roberson, and Abrines went a combined 2-11 from the field and Abrines did not score a point. More to the point the most important stat in this game was the fact OKC as a team shot a wretched 2-22 from beyond the three line. I’m not even sure that gets the Thunder a win on the road against the Russian owned Brooklyn Nets who by the way are the Thunder’s next road opponent on March 14th. Don’t think for a second I won’t be throwing around Mikhail Prokhorov Russian spy innuendo stories leading into that game. I might even start tonight.
But on this night in this Year of Westbrook, it was telling that a Curry not named Steph, but rather named Seth torched the Thunder along with Dirk.
OKC drops to 35-28 and is now once again four games back of the Utah Jazz in the Northwest. But to be fair, we now know what March and beyond holds for this Thunder team and it’s not the answer we were hoping for after the win over Utah.
The Portland Trailblazers are in town on Tuesday and we hope Victor Oladipo is somewhere around to be seen.
One of the greatest MVP performances I’ve seen in the NBA Playoffs. Dirk 2011.
Here’s the problem with Jefferson Sessions which goes beyond him possibly being a racist. The problem is he’s not a very good lawyer and one would think the top dog in the U.S. Justice Department might actually need to be a good lawyer rather than just a racist pawn for Donald Trump and Steven Bannon. Trust me, I know lawyers. I was raised by one who graduated No. 1 in his law class and in his prime would have eviscerated Jefferson Sessions with not a great deal of effort being exerted. He’s just not a good lawyer. He’s a simpleton, not a great or profound thinker.
But more than that, he doesn’t seem all that interested in representing ‘all’ 330 million Americans, just the ones who are primarily white. Not that that (double that’s–never done that)) might be fine in New Confederacy states such as Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama–but a real attorney general needs to be able to empathize with ‘all’ 330 million Americans without regard to race, religion, or ethnic origins. That in essence is why we have that big statue in New York and the constitution which accompanies it.
This is great. I’d never seen it before. So, in a way I need to thank Jeff Sessions for being a racist simpleton or else I would never have seen this.
As I witness this ‘thing’ pertaining to Trump’s cohorts colluding with the Russians to hack and release DNC e-mails, I must admit I’m somewhat perplexed this is viewed as some sort of detective drama of sorts. I mean, this in no way is like Columbo connecting the dots on the DaVinci Code.
Here’s ‘our’ president back on July 27, 2016 actually openly encouraging the Russians to hack the DNC and release as many of the Clinton e-mails as possible.
This is not complex. This is Trump on July 27, 2016 pleading for any Russian out there to hack the living shit out of the DNC server. It vexes me to no end that Trump ‘followers’ act as if all of this is some sort of concoction by the far left. No–it is not a concoction. It is crazy, but no concoction.
Let’s do the math again. There are 330 million Americans or so. Sixty-three million voted for Hillary Clinton. Seven million voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Rumors have it, even some voted for John Kasich in of all places locales such as Oklahoma and Alabama. Go figure.
Okay, Sixty-million voted for Caligula Lite. If one is to believe the polls only about 45% of these people are what I call the Trump Trekkies who love to scream “Lock Her Up’, ‘Build the Wall’, or ‘Birthers Rock’. So, this means less than thirty million people in this country out of three-hundred and thirty million people believe his rogue hustler bullshit and will believe it do the bitter end.
How did we get here as a nation? How did this happen? I’m firmly convinced Sarah Palin has something to do with this–which means in essence John McCain is an accomplice in the dumbing down of the American electorate. I actually kind of like McCain, but in historical retrospect, McCain by naming Palin as his VP nominee gave the Trump Trekkies the gas and the spark which puts us where we are today.
Let’s see for ourselves if perhaps this is plausible.
It’s one thing to lose to a struggling Portland Trailblazers team on the road, it’s somethings else to lose to one of the worst teams in the league which is ostensibly in tank mode along with the LA Lakers to garner the worst record in the West. But on this night, this is precisely what the OKC Thunder did in losing to the Phoenix Suns by a count of 118-111 on the second night of a road back to back.
To me, the most symbolic gesture of Thunder ineptitude on this night was the final minute of the game when twice Jerami Grant missed wide open threes which would have given Westbrook an assist and another triple double. It was symbolic of how bad the Thunder were in a game which they never should have lost and additionally cost them a chance to pull into a tie for the sixth seed and stay two games behind Utah for the fourth seed.
Losing to Portland stung, this loss makes you wonder if the Thunder minus Westbrook have progressed any as a team.
Westbrook’s line was 48 points, 17 rebounds, and 9 assists. It should have been a triple double, but wasn’t because there was no one around him hitting threes minus Alex Abrines. Doug McDermott was awful going ofer from beyond the arc. Same with Jerami Grant. But beyond as a team going 9-35 shooting threes, the performance was bad all around as the Thunder couldn’t defend the rim.
For the fifth straight game, Victor Oladipo did not play because of mysterious back spasms. For the second straight game, Steven Adams in no way played like a dude getting payed $25 million to be this team’s second best player. Way back when this started it was clear that for this team to realize its potential both Adams and Oladipo had to consistently play like the team’s second and third best players. But none of that is happening right now as Oladipo isn’t even playing and Adams’ level of play isn’t what this team needs from him.
Plus, there’s the road woes of this team. The Thunder are 12-19 on the road and these young players look like a completely different team on the road versus what they look like at home. The inability of this team to knuckle down and play better on the road is not a positive barometer for the Thunder’s chances in post season play.
The Thunder have another road game in Dallas on Sunday night. It won’t be easy even against the worst Dallas team we’ve seen in quite a while as the Mavs aren’t sure if they’re tanking or have an outside chance of somehow sliding into the 8th seed.
I know it’s the year of Westbrook, but these guys around him need to toughen up mentally and play tougher, smarter ball on the road.
Steven Adams and Victor Oladipo, your team needs you, pretty much now.
I’m as much of a history junkie as I am a basketball fan. I never had any intention of doing this much on Trump on this basketball blog, but then again I never in my wildest dreams imagined 60 million Americans would cast their vote for this con artist. It’s like driving and not being able to take your eyes off a car burning on the shoulder of a road.
The comparisons to Nixon aren’t totally fair. Nixon was extremely qualified to ascend to the presidency with a resume on a par with Bush 41. Nixon was perhaps the most learned contemporary president in regards to foreign policy and completely understood what China was going to become.
In this regard, comparing Trump to Nixon is completely unfair to Nixon in that Trump isn’t qualified to hold any office, let alone the presidency. In all candor, I wouldn’t want Caligula Lite serving on my HOA Board of Directors. Trump’s true political calling would have been perhaps being the President of the Atlantic City Strip Bar Owners Association. This would have been his wheelhouse. But then again, we all should have been alarmed when Sarah Palin garnered the GOP vice-presidential nomination in 2008. That was the engine light going red, we as a nation just didn’t heed the warning. I’ll get to her in a day or two in between Thunder games because I think the Palin experience is completely relevant to Trump. I cannot imagine Richard Nixon’s reaction to Sarah Palin, well, actually, I can, but I’m not in a mood to litter half a dozen F bombs on here this morning.
Clearly, as every layer of the Russian thing peels off like an onion, it’s hard not to think of Nixon and Watergate.
Nixon was always a fascinating interview. Always articulate and the complete polar opposite of the rogue idiot Trump.
Here’s a bit of Nixon on Cross Fire in 1982 talking about a myriad of topics. I find the latter part of this to be most interesting as Nixon discusses Eisenhower and the chain of command and falling on the sword.
For those who think I might be going a little too tough on Trump, it’s real simple–he needs to show his tax returns as a starting point since every president since Gerald Ford has done as much. Not a complex thing if you have nothing to hide.