From what I’m seeing in and around Oklahoma City people have pretty much resolved this. Life is moving again in the streets. People realize there are other things to contemplate regarding life and so on. I love this song. Should be a fine addition to the KDCS.
Maybe I shouldn’t do this, but you know what, when you have a small rogue blog this is one of the perks. You can actually be honest here and there. It is what it is. Maybe an Oxygen Channel movie on Kevin and Draymond will be in the works after their first championship together.
Amid the basketball world being riveted with the new super team in Oakland, Tim Duncan quietly retired yesterday. To my knowledge, no big press conference, no open letter on the Players’ Tribune, no farewell tour like we witnessed with Kobe Bryant, no estrangement with his only pro team like we just observed with Dwayne Wade. From what I understand he just quietly called Pop and said it was time.
How beautiful and fitting for Tim Duncan to end his illustrious NBA career in this manner.
Most regard Duncan as the greatest power forward to ever play the game. He stayed in the non glamour city of San Antonio and won five championships along side Greg Popovich. He seldom drew attention to himself like we see so often in today’s world of sport. Just did his job and carried his team like the genuine superstar he truly was.
As a player he did everything well. Good shooter, good rebounder, excellent passer, and a good defender. There wasn’t a glamour factor to Tim Duncan, but he did everything well and morphed his game with his teammates.
I have Tim Duncan as my seventh or eighth greatest player of all time on my top ten list. His career ended in the Spurs’ Game 6 loss in Oklahoma City this spring. He had a tough series, but in Game 6 he had 19 points and his best game of the series.
Unlike so many stars in pro sports he didn’t hang around too long. He didn’t extort his franchise to the point of making them non-competitive. He was the quintessential professional in an age of sports which makes you want to cry at times.
If you’re crying for Tim Duncan today, it’s a good cry. One with a mixture of joy, gratitude, and thanks.
Okay, that’s enough closure music. He’s gone away with his inner growth spiritual guru. F–k the both of them. BTW, one week into the Durant Era in Golden State and his spiritual mentor Draymond Green is involved in a bar altercation where police were called…sigh.
As you might decipher closure has taken hold with me.
Let’s pivot and move on. I love watching Rachel Nichols talk—so really I’m playing this more for that than the Durant discussion. But I thought to be fair there should be a rebuttal of Barkley on here of some fashion. I love the way she talks. Clearly, my favorite ESPN chick.
This one is for me. It would have been one thing if he’d left to go with Pop or with Brad Stevens and that young core at Boston, but what Kevin just told us is he values Draymond Green more than he valued the time he spent in Oklahoma or more importantly– his teammates. Which is fine…I guess.
I was born in San Diego. I’m Cali born. I consider myself a Del Mar Okie. This culture isn’t foreign to me. I kind of laugh in a sad way thinking of all this.
Call it what you want, I’m calling it whoredom. So sad. I wonder if Kevin with all his talk of style and things being organic has even realized his soulmate just caused his team an NBA championship when he got suspended for his bullshit stunt in Game 4 of the Finals against LeBron.
Klay Thompson kind of surprised me in all this. I think he’s a helluva player (maybe their best) and a no nonsense guy. I’m a little surprised he was on board with all of this.
Anyway. We all work on closure as it relates to our own personality and character.
I’m not writing anymore about this for a few days. Maybe some Kevin Durant closure music, but not much else. You get to a point there’s not much more you can say. Hope you enjoy the music. Get ready to drive the bus Steven and Victor. You’re still young and innocent. Drive the bus, boys. Drive the bus.
This one is for Tramel. He seems almost as heartbroken as Traber.
From what I’ve observed this week in Oklahoma City it’s going to take some more closure music for the masses…especially Jim Traber. He may never recover from this. This is for Traber. Dude….he chose Draymond Green over us. That either says some really bad things about Kevin or about us. I’m know my act is together—so I’m assuming it’s Kevin with the problem. Let it go. Russ is the new bus driver. If he doesn’t want to drive the buss then it’s Steven and Victor as our new bus drivers. He didn’t want to be here. That’s why it’s called free agency.
The simple truth is this for those who are defending what Durant just did—if the NBA had a legitimate collective bargaining agreement and like the NFL had a franchise player tag—Kevin Durant would still be in Oklahoma City as Aaron Rodgers is still in Green Bay. In theory, that’s why you have collective bargaining agreements so as all the teams have a chance to be competitive. So players cannot conspire within their own circles to construct their own teams.
Kevin Durant didn’t just leave a team which was three minutes away from the NBA Finals in the Oklahoma City Thunder, he left to go to the only team in the league which he felt would give him a better chance to beat LeBron James. Pure and simple. I’m not going to call him a competitive coward or anything like that. But what he did was basically calibrate the odds to best serve his chances of beating LeBron at some point in his career because of his body and skill set it’s debatable whether he can do this himself being the best player on a team. Some of these ESPN and national guys can talk all this shit all they want, but I watched the guy for a year at the University of Texas and for his entire professional career. I doubt his own father has watched him play as much as I have.
The end.
War Eagle!
Unless Sam Presti gets a strong commitment from Russell Westbrook and his agent there’s no reason to prolong this. OKC in no way can allow Russell Westbrook to just walk without getting something in return.
Russell’s family lives in LA. He went to UCLA. Grew up a Kobe-Lakers fan. Married his UCLA sweetheart. OKC with its young bigs and promising guards in Oladipo, Payne, and Roberson have a nice core to build upon. OKC desperately now needs a long small forward to replace Kevin Durant and I’m not talking Kyle Singler.
Presti should explore the possibility of trading Russell to the Lakers for Ingram and another draft pick or two. Unless Westbrook’s heart is into being the franchise player in Oklahoma City there’s no reason in prolonging this. Get with it. Face the reality of the situation and begin the rebuild now instead of a year from now. As a fan I would be totally good with this—Ingram and some picks.
This entire debaucle since the Game 6 meltdown versus the Warriors needs a change of direction. Obviously, you hate to lose another top five player, but if Westbrook doesn’t have his heart into staying in OKC get the best deal you can and rebuild with what I see could be a very interesting team with a core of Oladipo, Payne, Ingram, Adams, and Kanter. Maybe you sign Waiters and keep him as the sixth man under this scenario. Maybe not. Plus, the picks would be significant as well considering how well Presti drafts.
It would actually be fun to see all these young players evolve as we did with the previous group. Except this time around we’ll have one of the league’s best centers playing in Oklahoma City instead of going with Nenad and Perk.
The mistake Presti and Bennett have made in OKC is thinking they could copy the San Antonio template. Perhaps, they have to create their own template now and realize this is a different market where players might not stay beyond their second contract. I assume that’s one of the reasons Presti brought in a college coach in Billy Donovan.
One thing Presti and Bennett always need to remember is that at the heart–Oklahoma City is still somewhat a college market.