Author: Mike

First off…I want to apologize to Parker McCollum for incorrectly spelling his name six times on my blog yesterday. There was no intent there. I was just tired from the 1,300 miles of driving in the previous five days. That was a new record for me as far as miles and incorrect spellings.

As far as the Thunder it was a good night in Game 33. They lost by six. They covered the Vegas spread which had the Kings at -5.5. And most of all they got themselves back on track to losing somewhere between 55-60 NBA games this season.

Plus… I really thought Aaron Wiggins took a step forward in becoming a rotational piece in the Thunder’s future. I really like Aaron Wiggins. El Prez is bullish on Aaron Wiggins. I’d buy me some Aaron Wiggins stock while it’s still relatively priced low. Imagine an Andre Roberson who can actually shoot a basketball.

Win, win, win, win.

The Thunder now stand at 12-21 after 33 games and despite the better play since the historic 73 point loss at Memphis aren’t all that far off track on being right there in the hunt for Paulo Banchero when March melds into April.

When you’re tanking…and make no mistake Sam Hinkie-Presti is tanking this season…those last twenty-five games of the season define your on court futility.

I think what has happened since the historic 73 point loss at Memphis is that the organization realized that losing with some dignity is better than being perceived as human sex traffickers.

I mean…the Thunder are still right there as one of the five worst teams in the league. Plus…you have to think Presti has promised Shai’s agent he will give Shai every opportunity to make the All-Star Game for the first time in his career.

The Thunder play Phoenix tonight and play four games this week in a six day span. If the Thunder play this right they could very well be 12-24 after their first 36 games. Keep in mind, the Thunder were 16-19 after 35 games last season before they pulled George Hill, Big Al Horford, and Shai from the rotation.

Little Nick Gallo…bless his heart. I actually tried watching this game while I was reading the last hundred pages of The Appeal by John Grisham. I’ll say one thing for that worthless little motherfucker…if Tucker Carlson ever leaves Fox Network ….Little Nick Gallo should send those cats his resume.

With six minutes left in the second period or so…Little Nick Gallo said, “If the Thunder can hold on tonight and win they’ll only be one game behind San Antonio for the 10th seed in the West and in the hunt.”

My diva lab Pauli was curled up next to me on the sofa. She knew what that statement could potentially do to me. She put her head on my knee and with her eyes basically said, ” Mike…put the remote down. You know you shouldn’t throw it thru the flat screen. It’s just a game.”

And I was okay. I muttered… ” Fuck me running”– several times and then backed off of the ledge.”

Thunder at Phoenix tonight. If the Suns win as they should…they’ll tie the Warriors for the best record in the NBA. Tyler Herro scord 32 points last night in a Heat win and the surprising Memphis Grizzlies are the 4th seed in the West.

Everything in Mike’s NBA World is in a very nice place on December 29th, 2021.

Caleb needs to have him a night in San Antonio tonight if the game actually gets played.

BOOMER!

This is the guy…Sam Hinkie-Presti. You screwed around and lost those two late season games last season to Boston and the LA Clips and in essence took yourself out of play for both Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley. What clueless dumbass in your Thunder inner circle suggested winning those two games I ask aloud on my award winning underground blog?

If the Thunder are really serious about this ‘Sustainability Bullshit Doctrine’ they’re doling out to their Triple AAA level fan base this is the time when you go big or go to Las Vegas in my view.

Here’s the question I ask myself…if on Draft Night like Kevin Costner in Draft Day…would I give up Shai if that’s what I had to do to have the pick to select Banchero?

Or maybe you could package Giddy and some other assets and possibly pair Shai and Banchero together. Things to sort out since Thunder Nation still has fifty regular season games left to suffer through this season.

Do you really need Giddy if you have both Shai and Banchero keeping ball usage in mind?

I’m thinking about it, but of course Clay Bennett has given this responsibility to Sam Hinkie-Presti.

What if I was able to dangle Little Nick Gallo to the team I was trading with in this deal as well?

That plus acquiring Banchero would give the Thunder instant credibility.

There’s a multitude of ways for the Thunder to use their first round pick plus some other assets to possibly get to the No. 1 spot in this draft.

Sam Hinkie-Presti needs to either play his chips on this draft or move the team to Las Vegas where a team could actually sign a free agent now and again.

The Thunder at Sacramento tonight…pfffft. Does anyone really beyond Little Nick Gallo and those lost souls at Pay.Com who are still cheering for the team to win at this point really care?

I don’t think so.

Hopefully…we have some real teams playing tonight in the TNT Showcase.

Parker McCollum is in town on Thursday night at the Pay.Com Arena. I don’t have tickets as of yet, but I’m still trying. This should be a great event in Oklahoma City since the primary tenant of Pay.Com is only allowed by Sam Presti to win .300 of their games for the second season in a row.

Other than maybe the Laker games in OKC where the Lakers have more fans in the building or those rare occasions when a rising star like Tyler Herro frequents the ‘House That Kevin Durant Built’ this is a rare opportunity for me to visit Pay.Com this winter.

You see…Parker McCollum doesn’t tank. He won’t be dogging it on 70% of his songs because he has some anal manager tell him he has to lose on 70% of his songs at his concerts to be relevant again.

I wonder how Shai feels about only be able to win .300 of his games two seasons in a row. Shai is an All-Star talent being shackled by Hinkie-Presti. I sure hope all this losing translates into Banchero or something close. A frontliner. Another star. I think Giddy is a nice piece, but I’m not sure about the star part just yet. Giddy is actually better than I thought he would be…so that’s a positive.

I hope Shai’s chances of making the All-Star Game aren’t diminished by him playing for a very bad team for the second season in a row.

NBA basketball is a night of a disposable entertainment dollar being spent by a consumer. Most consumers minus those still at the Thunder games still cheering for wins despite the obvious tank demand value for their hard earned dollars.

Support and loyalty are good things. But I want to see after this second season of tanking the restoration of genuine NBA games being played in Oklahoma City. Given the fact LeBron is almost done and there is in a sense relative parity in the NBA…it shouldn’t take more than two seasons of tanking to put a group around Shai who can play a real NBA season. Plus–it’s time for Presti to start monetizing some of those draft picks he has stored up.

I’m totally good with rebuilding. Sometimes you have to lose to learn how to win. But not for three straight seasons.

To me…this would be like shareholders demanding value for their stock at some point. It’s what made Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn famous.

Clay Bennett knows he can get away with this to a certain degree because his ticket buyers are for the most part novice level NBA followers.

Parker McCollum doesn’t need Paolo Banchero in the NBA draft this summer because he’s a bonafide star on the rise. He doesn’t need Little Nick Gallo lobbing softballs at him in a post concert presser.

You know why…because Parker is a star who takes pride in giving his fans a genuine night of entertainment. By the same token…I think Shai has given his best when allowed to have the better players on the Thunder team out there on the court with him.

How do you think Parker would sound with a guitar player next to him who missed every other chord?

I hope I’ve made my point.

Hope you have your Parker McCollum tickets for Thursday night. Clay Bennett, …it’s a hot ticket. Value is a precious commodity. I hope there is some value attached to a Thunder season starting next October.

I just got back from our Christmas trip to Denver visiting the grandkids. Robert is now two and Aubrey is 14 months old. Had a great time hanging out with them. Robert is now calling me Pops because he’s doesn’t want to call me Mike. So that’s cool.

Just like my father…he never listens to anyone, is in constant motion, is constantly talking, and seems to be able to go through mood swings in a heartbeat. But he’s adorable and a great kid. Literally…never a dull moment. It’s like sitting at the breakfast table with my father as he jams blueberries and pieces of kiwi into his mouth between verbal declarations.

It’s like that movie The Art of Racing In the Rain…in that I feel like my father has come back as my grandson.

Aubrey is the grand-daughter I never had as a father. This will be good for me. It will soften me some. She’s very beautiful and smart like her mother…so she will in my estimation be able to handle Robert’s constant motion and non-stop chatter. She’ll be his balance. I see them being somewhat inseparable.

Just had a great time in Denver. Hanging with the kids, reading, listening to music, and eating some great southern Xmas cooking.

Found out about an iconic book store in downtown Denver called the Tattered Cover. That will be a must stop on our next trip.

I did not watch one single basketball game…NBA or college. I haven’t to date watched one college football bowl game. I did watch the Cleveland Browns vs. the Green Bay Packers and I would have to say my NFL quarterback rankings held up. Baker Mayfield in a hurry needs to stop throwing interceptions. He’s killing his team. Literally killing them. If you’re hurt that bad…you shouldn’t play.

We had intended for me to sneak into the Bob Dole Museum in Russell, Kansas while my wife would give me twenty minutes in there, but what happened instead was we got side-tracked at beautiful Lake Waconda in west-central Kansas and fell in love with the lake. The migratory birds were incredible. Simply amazing. I had no idea out there in the middle of the Kansas plains this beautiful lake existed.

On the video this guy is bow fishing. I don’t bow fish, but I do fly fish and spincast fish. So I now have a lake in west Kansas to start fishing on some of these treks to Denver. It’s evidently an excellent walleye and sand bass lake. I can’t wait.

I still want to go through the Bob Dole Museum…so maybe I can work that in on another trip.

Hope you had a great Christmas. Mine was excellent and I feel like I’ve reset myself in that another thing I didn’t do the last four days was watch one single minute of cable news. Not one.

I feel a calmness has overtaken me.

Of course…I didn’t watch the Thunder either.

Peace.

This is practice for the Alamo Bowl at Howling at the Wind. I could do this one. I used to sing this with my grandmother Maureen.

Christmas a few days early for us Sooner fans as Missouri tight end just committed to the Sooners in the portal. Parker in the portal…that has a nice ring to it. With Austin Stogner now at South Carolina and Jeremiah Hall headed to the NFL this was a key signing for Coach Venables. I still feel in the end Brayden Willis will come back as well to improve his NFL stock.

Daniel Parker a Sooner and the Thunder Girls last night without Covid masks on. I had no idea how beutiful this version of the Thunder Girls actually are. It was so nice to see them without masks.

All we need now is for the Thunder to start playing real basketball games and if not make sure and land Banchero. Don’t let me down on this Sam Hinkie-Presti.

Great way to get this Christmas rolling.

That’s it for me.

I’m taking a Christmas break from the blog.

Merry Christmas!

Okay, here’s the thing…Oklahoma City easily beat the injury decimated Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night at the Pay.Com Arena by a score of 108-94. The Thunder in fact actually led by 23 points at one juncture which represents their biggest singular lead this season in any game.

Jamal Murray, Michael Porter, and Dozier were DNPs in this game. This Denver team isn’t a contender of any sort without Jamal Murray. As in none.

Denver is a team virtually absent of any defensive rim protection.

Shai was magnificent with a 27, 11, 12 triple double and a +19 rating. Best player on the floor which is saying something since the reigning NBA-MVP Nicola Jokic was on the floor for awhile in this game.

It was the Thunder’s third straight win and elevated their record to 11-19 after thirty games. To keep that in perspective the Thunder were 16-19 last season after thirty-five games before Sam Hinkie-Presti closed down the season and started his Death March tank going 2-23 in the last twenty-five games of the season.

The Western Conference minus Golden State and Phoenix isn’t what we thought it was going to be. Utah is a fake tough guy and every other of the remaining twelve teams in the West are fatally flawed one way or another.

This is what I’ve been writing on here all season…why tank if even if you hit the lottery …why tank if you weren’t going to ante up in 2013 and keep your top three players in tow. What would be different now?

The Thunder have an All-Star in Shai. They could have a unique player in Josh Giddy. They have an alpha sled dog in Lu Dort that Jack London would be proud of. They have plenty of potential depth on this team despite the fact Sam Hinkie-Presti tried to construct this team to be so bad that someone like me wouldn’t be writing this thirty games into this season.

The three vets…Kenrich, Muscala, and Favors are all functional.

So here’s what I’d honestly like to see happen.

I’d like to see Little Nick Gallo and Low Energy Royce Young announce Sam Hinkie-Presti is going to have a special press conference on January 2nd. The theme of the press conference will be for Sam Hinkie-Presti to tell Thunder Nation what he’s learned from the standpoint of team construction in Oklahoma City during his tenure here.

Little Nick Gallo will point to me and say…”Mike Jackson—okcthunderground.com first question.”

My question will be, ” Why tank if you and ownership aren’t committed to putting a championship team together and keeping it together for at least a four year window? What did you learn from trading James Harden and losing Kevin Durant which tells you in your heart Oklahoma City could win an NBA championship even if the Thunder won the lottery three years in a row?”

Get to work Little Nick Gallo. Let’s have a Jan. 2nd presser before the Death March II gets into full swing in the quest to win the NBA ownership rights to Paulo Banchero.

Sam Hinkie-Presti what have you learned which might indicate you need a shooting guard who can shoot to win an NBA ring and a stretch five who can do the same. If we haven’t figured that out…then why tank?

Green Bay fans own their team. I’m assuming they can ask questions like this. Let’s have some people minus Little Nick Gallo and Jenni Carlson asking the questions at your pressers.

Next up…the Thunder at Phoenix and I’m taking a four day blogging break.

I’ve been giving this a serious rethink since I hastily dropped TB to No. 3 on my QB rankings after the abysmal 9-0 loss to the New Orleans Saints.

Here’s what I’ve rethought…since the fabulous Tom Brady didn’t lose to either Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers why would I drop the most iconic player in NFL history two spots below them for just one bad game.

Plus…I needed some time to recalibrate my No. 7 and No. 8 on my list.

I love the fact Tom both destroyed several tablets and also collectively told the Saints bench to go fuck themselves.

This my friends is NFL quarterback leadership.

My revised list…

1 Tom Brady

2 Patrick Mahomes

3 Aaron Rodgers (those four combined games vs. the Bears and Lions still bother me) I honestly view Aaron and the Packers like a typical soft Big 12 team once they reach the NFC Championship Game. We’ll see.

4 Matthew Stafford

5 Josh Allen

6 Lamar Jackson

7 Justin Herbert

8 Mac Jones

If I were going to go deeper on my list…

I’d have Jalen Hurts at No. 17 and Baker Mayfield somewhere around No. 19. Baker hurt himself playing injured. Stefanski should not have allowed him to play with his shoulder injured. Plus, Baker needs to keep his wife off of Twitter. Sigh.

These are my Top 8. It’s a QB driven league for certain. So I want to see how many of my Top 8 make the overall quarterfinals in the NFL Playoffs.

I’m almost ready for Christmas break here on the award winning blog. Even Wolf Blitzer and Dan Patrick takes a few days off for Christmas. Just saying. I need an intern sub like Traber has now and again.

Merry Christmas.

Gonna be eighty degrees in Deer Creek on Christmas. I better reset the Christmas theme music on here. Hopefully… the Trump climate change deniers won’t be offended or pissed off and insurrect any buildings or assault any police officers over the Christmas break.

We would also hope urinating and defecating inside the buildings unless you’re in a restroom isn’t another holiday reset from last January as well from these courageous freedom fighters.

We clearly live in different times.

Literally saw two truckloads of Edmond youth yesterday in Edmond, Oklahoma with ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ flags streaming out of the beds of their pickups.

Even the Needham Twins from Fort Worth wouldn’t have done this in a Dan Jenkins’ novel.

But this is where we find ourselves historically and culturally.

Sigh.

Are you kidding me? Good lord.

We have to rise above this and try and keep the conversation civil if nothing else.

Have a great Christmas!

It was like watching A Star Is Born on TNT last night. Literally. Tyler was Lady Gaga and in the second game Russell Westbrook was a washed up Bradley Cooper.

I must admit I’m conflicted and sad for Russell and LeBron. It’s a Greek tragedy for Russell to be exposed like this in front of the basketball world and its an equal tragedy for LeBron to be pissing away one of his last seasons in this manner.

I’m sad for Russell. What else can I really say. Even Allen Iverson wasn’t exposed to this degree. I don’t know if this changes things with the Thunder fans who still boo Kevin, but at least one would think these Kevin haters would have to admit the Thunder weren’t winning anything even if Kevin had stayed after the 2016 Western Conference Finals.

And for Berry Tramel, whether he wants to admit it or not, it’s a validation of sorts for him. For him pushing the two Sam Presti employees… the two make believe journalists in Little Nick Gallo and Low Energy Royce Young to the side in those post game pressers…and being that one professional adult journalist in the room willing to ask the tough questions. Trying to find out why it was Russell wasn’t evolving as he should have been as a veteran point guard on a max contract.

And that is why Berry Tramel year in and year out is awarded the Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year Award.

You can’t win championships playing stupid. And if you’re a stupid team…then it should be pointed out why your team plays dumber than a poorly coached YMCA U-10 youth team.

On the other hand…it was a glorious night for Tyler showing all of us hoops lovers the form he displayed in his rookie season when he was a big part of the Heat advancing to the NBA Finals.

The Heat after losing in the Finals to the Lakers did this…they didn’t trade away one of their best three players ala James Harden. Instead they fortified their best three players by bringing Kyle Lowery, PJ Tucker, and a slew of hungry blue collar role players on board to make them a very serious threat to get back to the NBA Finals after last season’s disappointment in the first round versus the Bucks.

You see…this is what serious GMs and serious owners do when they’re serious about pursuing an NBA championship.

Tyler Herro…you are on the cusp of becoming a star. Young man… don’t let it go to your head. Bear down and help Jimmy Butler win a ring if you can.

I feel for Russell though. He brings out that Holly Hunter side of me of which I wish I could control, but sometimes can’t.

Berry Tramel…you just got a helmet sticker. And btw…who’s to say it wasn’t Clay Bennett who called Berry Tramel to ask Russell those very tough questions because ownership was getting tired of watching that shit night in and night out. You have to ask yourself why did Sam Presti and Clay Bennett allow Berry Tramel to do that repeatedly with Westbrook? And the answer is their own paid for reporters weren’t tough enough to get it done. That’s why.

Merry Christmas!

I actually like this version a little better. Lady Gaga can be a bit much. This is a little more understated…which I like.

Even though we all know the Thunder need to lose enough to be in the Banchero Sweepstakes…it’s nice for just a day to be on the right side of a score with the Thunder.

Per Jim Traber today on the Sports Animal…with last night’s win over the No. 4 seed in the West the Memphis Grizzlies…OKC is now on a trajectory to win 29 games.

Per Mike Jackson on this blog…the chances of this Thunder team winning 29 games are two-fold… as in slim and none.

Once the Thunder get to 15 wins or so…Sam Presti-Hinkie and Coach D will turn it into tanking overdrive like they did last year when the Thunder were 16-19 in their first 35 games.

I’m fairly certain Sam Hinkie-Presti is reading my blog. Since he bought my previous blog the Daily Thunder and turned it into an unreadable homeresque piece of junk I’m fairly certain he’s following me over here.

I don’t do Twitter…so this where he has to follow me to get some provocative adult thoughts on his ball club.

I’m not on the record saying he privated messaged me that tanking info on the blog…just a feel on my part that 24 wins is still a safe over/under Thunder wins threshold. Shai goes out…the team becomes virtually unwatchable.

Coach Venables signed three more defensive recruits. Imagine USC paid Joe C to take Lincoln off his hands and we’re going to have a defense in the forseable future.

A little music before the TNT Showcase would be nice. Have a great Tuesday evening.

Actually…Blake mentored Danielle on The Voice and she won it all as a teenager. So whevever I think of Blake …I then think of Danielle…or vice versa.

This is my Thunder inspirational song moving thru the death tank. This is a good one to sing in the whirlpool or with Alexa. Alexa…play Potential by Danielle Bradbery. My little MAGA Trump neighbor loves when I sing this one with Pauli out on the backyard.