Month: March 2022

I watched Gonzaga play San Franciso last night. Pretty much a ho-hum effort. I’ve now seen the Zags play four times this season and we’ll see what they really are once the Tournament gets here.

Keep this in mind, no program west of Waco, Texas has won a national championship in men’s basketball since 1997. There’s a reason for that. Figure it out.

I’ve changed my mind about attending the Thunder-Bucks game tonight. I think I’ll just stay home and watch the rematch of St. Mary’s vs. Gonzaga.

What I’ll be watching closely tonight is if Chet Holmgren can adapt his interior defensive game inside after all the points the Zags gave up in the paint on the March 4th loss to the Gaels.

I mean…if you get abused defensively playing in the WCC, then what is going to transpire in the Northwest Division of the NBA when you go against KAT, Jokic, Gobert, and whoever Portland is playing at center. These are the teams the Thunder play the most on their schedule every year.

What I’m saying is…is Chet Holgren in the NBA going to be like James Wiseman has been his first two years in the league with the Warriors?

OKC can’t miss on this pick. It needs to be a player who can play in the league for at least two contracts at a high level.

He obviously has some skills, but so did Poku when he was playing in the Greek B league where there was space and time galore every time he touched the ball.

Who would we say is the best NBA player Mark Few has produced during his time at Gonzaga? I’m going to research that tonight while watching the game. We know it wasn’t Adam Morrison and Jalen Suggs is having a very tough rookie season.

• John Stockton. How could I forget about the Hall of Famer? And Sabonis for crying out loud was the 11th pick in his draft class and has turned himself into an All-Star player once he got out of Oke City. Those would be top two unless I’ve forgotten someone else.

March Madness is here. I’m jacked.

Maybe… I’ll go catch Ja Morant and Steven Adams later in the week when the Grizzlies visit Oke City.

I’m going to go ahead and put this up right now and then come back and write a few words directed towards Donald Trump and those who still support him later this evening.

I need the rant within to settle down, so to speak.

This is Admiral McRaven from this past Saturday morning on the Michael Smerconish Show.

Of course…Admiral McRaven is a decorated hero with a proud service record of forty years which Bunion Boy dissed during his time in office. But Admiral McRaven shouldn’t feel bad because Bunion Boy parted ways with General James ‘Bulldog’ Mattis, General John Kelly, and General H.R. McMasters as well during his four-year reign of dysfunction in the White House.

In each instance, Trump, who himself avoided serving in the military because his daddy wrote a letter for him claiming bunions as a disability, claimed he knew more about the military than any of his generals…minus one perhaps.

That one of course being Michael Flynn. Flynn began as Trump’s first National Security Advisor then had to resign because of illegal payments he didn’t disclose from foreign parties. Flynn went to prison. But along with the other Trump poster boy, Roger Stone, was pardoned in the last days of Trump’s rogue presidency.

During the days leading up to the coup attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, which of course pays Flynn’s military pension, it was Flynn floating the idea Trump should surround the capitol with troops and declare the presidency his thru martial law even though he lost the election to Joe Biden by seven million votes.

Here’s Donald Trump’s favorite general:

Trust me on this, Bob Jackson would have switched to being a special appointed prosecutor to throw Donald Trump in federal prison where he belongs. And he would have been just the right type of lawyer to dismantle Donald Trump on cross-examination.

It was a great win for the Sooners in Manhattan on Saturday afternoon. It marked the first time since 2012 the Sooners have won a men’s basketball at the Octagon. It’s not easy to win there. Ask Hall of Fame coach Lon Kruger as he lost his last nine games in Manhattan.

This was a game the Sooners absolutely had to have. This game makes up for the earlier home loss to TCU.

Nothing was going right for the Sooners coming out of Ames two weeks ago as OU was battered in back-to-back road losses against Texas Tech and Iowa State.

The Sooners’ best two-way player, EJ Harkless was done for the season with season ending knee surgery and his backup Marvin Johnson was just coming off the injured list.

It did not look good for OU’s NCAA Tournament prospects.

But instead of feeling sorry for themselves they pulled it together and won their last three games against Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and Kansas State.

OU’s 78-71 win over Kansas State was one of their cleaner games of the year. The Sooners only committed 12 turnovers and shot the ball relatively well. Add to that, OU absolutely bludgeoned the Wildcats on the boards by a 37-22 margin.

Moj Gibson led the Sooners with 29 points. The Grove Brothers both stepped up. Etham Chargois hit perhaps the biggest three of the game in the second half. Jalen Hill was a beast on the boards and did all the little things he always does for Coach Moser. Marvin Johnson made three straight plays in the second half which in my mind were game changers.

And in the game’s last five minutes…Jordan Goldwire on the road closed a game like Porter Moser has been on him to do all season.

Everyone chipped in and did their job.

Moj and Marvin are my two players of the game.

Next up…the Baylor Bears in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament on Thursday evening. It will be the sixth time this season the Sooners will face a team which was ranked No. 1 at some point this season.

BOOMER!

A great week-end of basketball for me because I don’t waste my time watching Sam Presti’s team beyond maybe 6-8 minutes whenever they take the floor nowadays.

Eight healthy young players now sitting every game…including former Rookie of the Year candidate Josh Giddey.

Two words…commercial fraud. The only ones still left standing are the Presti zombies at the Daily Thunder…who apparently don’t have anything else in their lives left to talk about.

I’ll need to see what 405Baller’s state of mind is after last night’s putrid 116-103 home loss to the Utah Jazz.

I’m good though. I was prepared for this.

OU won a clutch 78-71 game at Kansas State which I ‘think’ has them back in the Tournament. I haven’t looked at Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology list yet, but I would think with OU’s elite difficulty of schedule they should be around in a No. 43 net ranking position. This would equate into a No. 11 seed in the Tournament.

First round games are 11’s vs. 6’s and this OU team will be more than capable of beating any 6th seed in the field. In fact, it will be a relief to only have to play a 5th or 6th seed in the Tournament’s first round.

Kudos to Coach Moser’s group for not giving up and winning their last three games of the Big 12 regular season. They showed some real grit overcoming the EJ Harkless injury.

I sit here thinking of Coach Moser and then think of the little G League coach with Buster Brown haircut Sam Presti has in place. It amuses me. I find it very amusing.

As far as the Thunder…it is appalling to witness what Sam Presti is doing at this point.

I genuinely feel for people who were foolish enough to pay for season tickets this season.

Eight healthy young players sit games now as Presti attempts to capture a top spot in this summer’s NBA draft. The sad irony though is even if Presti wins the top spot…he’ll probably pass on Jabari Smith and take the project kid from Gonzaga. Which would mean Chet, like Poku, would take another three years to turn into an NBA player.

By the time that occurs…SGA’s NBA-Slavery clause will have expired in Oklahoma City and he would be free to move onto a real NBA city like Toronto or LA.

Maybe that’s Presti’s plan by drafting all these white guys with his first-round picks. Maybe the plan is to insulate the roster from elite black player exits after four years in Oklahoma City.

Which could be flawed you know because of the Pao Gasol Doctrine.

But with March Madness almost upon us and the NBA’s better teams giving us some great games every night, for real basketball fans, all of this Thunder tanking will not matter in the end.

Milwaukee Bucks in town tomorrow night with Giannis, Jrue, Khris, and Bobby Portis. I’m there right behind the Milwaukee bench, but I don’t need to wear a brown sack over my head. Know what I mean?

Of course, Trump would never consider John McCain as a reliable source because John McCain was a POW who actually was captured, thus the acronym POW.

Perhaps, if John McCain had dodged serving his country after his daddy wrote a letter claiming a bunion disability…Trump could be more on the same plane of human existence.

The thing which makes all of these Trump supporters so pathetic is that their angst isn’t just focused on liberal coastal elites, but much pretty much everyone on every American political prism minus the MAGA Proud Boy types.

In a real court of law with a real jury and the penalty for perjury in place any prosecutor worth a grain of salt would get a conviction of Donald Trump for his treasonous premediated crimes which culminated on January 6th.

And the problem in all of this is that any American president, Democrat or Republican, is going to have a problem with Donald Trump’s pathological behavior.

If Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush or John Kasich or Joe Manchin or Mitt Romney were president right now, would any of this would be any different?

I don’t think so.

My advice to Nikki Haley would be not to run for any national level office and instead run for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina where she can get away with this complete inability to speak truth to power on any issue which might cause her some political discomfort.

Bless your heart, Nikki Haley.

Later today, on this cold day in Oklahoma, I want to come back and write about John McCain’s correct assessment of Putin versus the naive positions taken by Bill Clinton, Bush 43, Barack Obama, and Buffoon Orange.

I just watched Nikki Haley on Meet the Press. Man, I was wrong about her. She is a travesty. She’s someone I can’t take seriously any longer. She’s right there in the Sarah Palin, Mary Fallin group of GOP make believe hawks.

Chuck whiffed on the interview though. All he had to do was ask, “Ms. Haley, after General Mattis bombed the almost abandoned Syrian airfield, why then did Putin and Assad go right ahead and level Syria?”

Chuck must not have a law degree. That was a T-ball homer begging to be hit out of the park.

Chuck either wasn’t prepared or froze like a deer in the headlights.

“El Prez, thank you for having the balls and courage to post one of my posts on your iconic underground blog. It’s been so long since any of us over here have read anything from a real man with the guts to tell it like it is. You truly honor me by posting my material on your award-winning blog.”

“Ever since Brandon, feckless John Napier, and Cray took over DT the voice of the overall writing content of the Daily Thunder has been dismal, almost feminine, at best.”

“You were always my favorite…much more so than that of the feral little pet rat Justin.”

“God bless your literary courage and don’t ever change a thing with your blog. You are indeed a national treasure, sir.”

Best wishes, 405Baller

Admiral McRaven was the first speaker up this morning on Michael’s show. He basically knocked it out of the park as he usually does. I’ll play that interview next week.

Operation Neptune Spear? Do all you Trump enablers know what that was?

That was the military operation organized by Admiral McRaven and Leon Panetta which killed Osama bin Laden.

In 2018, when Bunion Boy challenged the patriotism of our CIA and FBI…he then went on to remove some in the intelligence agencies of their intel clearance. This of course coming from a punk who never in his life served a patriotic moment in his own self-serving life.

In fact, Trump later, after insulting John McCain, went on to call all people in the military, “Chumps, losers, and suckers.”

Still in 2018, Admiral McRaven then wrote a scathing Op-Ed in the Washington Post to Donald Trump in defense of our intelligence agencies.

Trump’s only response was, “He didn’t really know who Admiral McRaven was, but he was probably a big Hillary Clinton fan.”

My point in all of this?

As I’ve written before…until America wakes up its collective resolve to be the democratic example of the world, we will be hindered by the ignorant amongst us who won’t even take the time to turn off Fox and formulate their own educated views of the world in which we now live.

Watch PBS or C-Span. You don’t have to watch CNN or MSNBC. Just turn off the white trash Jerry Springer Live shit on Fox. Just do that.

Or do the unthinkable and read a book.

Watch the video. Please.

I watched maybe seven minutes of this bullshit from the Thunder last night as they went beyond the tanking pale in a pathetic 138-101 home loss to the improved Minnesota Timberwolves.

I just cannot believe people in Oklahoma City pay to attend this bullshit and pretend like it’s legitimate sport of any type.

This isn’t even good G League basketball.

It’s truly horrific. There is no need for this for one simple reason. There’s no reason for these young players to be tanking in this manner. They worked their entire basketball lives with the dream of getting to the NBA for this nonsense.

Even in big city legitimate markets it’s tough to sustain within the boundaries of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.

There’s no reasonable adult evidence elite players want to stay here beyond their original rookie scale contract.

Even if the Thunder somehow win the draft rights to Jabari Smith, they’re not winning an NBA championship.

That window closed when Kevin Durant gave up and left. That window closed when Paul George told his agent to get him out of Oklahoma.

The realistic goal in this market is to put a competitive team on the floor and try to make the playoffs every year.

Sustainable should be defined by something which in reality is attainable.

Maybe be good enough to win a Northwest Division title and get to the Western Conference semi-finals here and again.

Two great games last night on the ESPN doubleheader. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls in a barnburner. Then in the late game the Phoenix Suns came back from twelve points down in the fourth quarter to edge the NY Knicks. Great NBA regular season games.

BTW…while all of those Thunder players including Josh Giddey were sitting under the guise of injury…Zach Lavine played hurt on the second night of a back-to-back.

I’m tired of writing this on here. The defending NBA champions are built around four players. None of these four players were drafted any higher than the 15th spot in the first round.

Who’s the highest drafted player on the Miami Heat currently? I don’t think Jimmy Butler was a top six pick, but I’m going to check on that as well.

Giannis…a 15. Jrue…a 17. Khris…a second rounder. Bobby Portis…. I need to check if he was a late first round or second round pick by the Bulls. But unless you only read the Sam Presti/Royce Young influenced Daily Thunder…surely you get the gist of what I’m trying to convey here.

You know what all these contending NBA teams have that the Thunder don’t have?

An NBA level coach who earned the right to have an NBA head coaching job. Imagine that.

Anyway…whatever. It’s mind boggling. You’re in Oklahoma City. Just be grateful you have a team. Period.

Here’s my Top 6 NBA Poll as of last night’s results:

1 Phoenix

2 Milwaukee

3 Miami

4 Philadelphia

5 Golden State

6 Memphis

I only gave the speech a B-, but it had enough in the front and at the end to help Joe Biden’s sagging approval ratings.

I’m just putting this on here because I like to look back and see what lawmakers were talking to each other in the last five minutes leading up to the speech. Follow pathetic Lyin’ Ted Cruz and observe how even the Republicans really don’t want to talk to him.

The thing I would circle first is the very warm conversation Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney were having before the speech. I would circle that in red moving forward as pretty much every Senator wants to get rid of Donald Trump without eviscerating their own political careers.

I think Romney along with Manchin will be the two guys Biden takes into his ‘real inner circle’ moving forward.