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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.

Hard to believe but here the Oklahoma City Thunder are but with only one member left standing from their original Fab Five which Sam Presti drafted piece by piece to make the team a championship contender in a few short years. It makes you fully understand the challenge of sustaining a high level franchise in a small market especially during a time when there’s such an influx of television money escalating the salary cap with little sanity attached.

Sam Presti has a formidable challenge in front of him with Kevin Durant leaving for the Warriors. Only Russell Westbrook and Nick Collison remain from the 2012 core of OKC’s Finals team. Collison is set to step down from playing after next season and I think most would agree it will be tough to keep Russell Westbrook long term.

Jeff Green is a journeyman vet with the Clippers and has had a nice career, but not a stellar one. He was the first to go being sent to the Celtics in the trade which brought Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City.

James Harden was next to go in the infamous trade which sent The Beard to the Rockets in exchange for basically what turned out to be Jeremy Lamb and Steven Adams with some other pieces attached.

Serge Ibaka just recently was dealt to Orlando in exchange for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova, and Domantus Sabonis.

The face of the franchise in Kevin Durant has now moved on to the newest super team in the NBA in Oakland.

And like those Fab Five teams at Michigan at the collegiate level OKC’s Fab Five never won a championship as well. More to the point, unlike that Michigan team which did return to the NCAA Championship Game, the Thunder’s Fab Five never again returned to the NBA Finals.

With Durant’s departure the dream of Oklahoma City ever returning to the NBA Finals is pretty much over. More to the point, Sam Presti will have to roll up his sleeves and pull every rabbit out of his hat to sustain the Thunder as a playoff contender albeit a championship contender.

As I see the Thunder down the immediate road I see a nice young core of Adams, Oladipo, Kanter, Payne, and Sabonis. Maybe Dion Waiters will be retained, maybe not. A team more like the Utah Jazz and the Portland Trailblazers in terms of Western Conference pecking order. If Westbrook would stay, perhaps a notch or two higher.

From Day 1, Sam Presti’s mantra in Oklahoma City has been to maintain sustainability and to date he’s done an incredible job as the Thunder have been the fourth winningest franchise in all of professional sports.

I hope people don’t blame Presti for what has transpired because he’s done a marvelous job in Oklahoma City. I’m of the firm belief even if he kept James Harden this story evolves pretty much the same way except possibly with more ego and trashing like we’ve seen this week in the Howard Beck piece directed at Russell Westbrook.

Again, it’s more of an indictment of the times and our culture than what Sam Presti did or didn’t do.

I hope Presti stays in Oklahoma City long term. He better or else Clay Bennett and his other owners could be in a much tighter spot than they are now.

Oklahoma City as an NBA city will have to come to terms with what just happened from 2009 to the present isn’t likely to happen again. Generational players like Kevin Durant don’t just fall into your lap everyday. Just think what would have happened in Oklahoma City if the Portland Trailblazers  hadn’t selected Greg Oden as the No. 1 pick over Kevin Durant. Think about feeling cheated then.

Oklahoma City was not in anyway cheated. It was a glorious ride for a small market city which made four Western Conference Finals in the past six years.

Who would have ever thought in their wildest dream Hurricane Katrina could have started a chain of events which would put Oklahoma City in the center of the NBA universe for almost an entire decade.

Books will be written. I would suspect an ESPN 30/30 movie will be made.

In no way do I feel cheated. Quite the opposite, I feel like the basketball gods woke me up and whispered into my ear one night, “Enjoy the ride, Michael from Deer Creek, Oklahoma. Enjoy the ride.”

And I made sure I did every step of the way because things like this were never meant to be permanent or a given. But more of a blessing.

I’m good and can’t wait to see what kind of players Steven, Victor, and Cam turn out to be in the next several years.

Life is nothing more than an evolution of rotating cycles. The Thunder’s new cycle pretty much begins now. It won’t be as glorious. The bandwagon jumpers will bitch and moan, but for those of us who love hoops we’ll be okay.

Mike Jackson

 

What we hoped would happen in Oklahoma City.

Literally seems like a lifetime ago watching them in 2012. There was still innocence. Still a hope the Oklahoma City Thunder was the next NBA dynasty on the horizon. Watching this makes you realize it doesn’t take very long for things to change from within a team in a big way and go wrong. People in Oklahoma City never seemed to appreciate how truly difficult it is to get an NBA Finals and then win it all. If this doesn’t put a lump in your throat you’re not really a Thunder fan.