This closing summation from the Frankie Galvin character in the film The Verdict is how I remember my father the most.
I miss my Dad.
I miss the talks, the meals, the sporting events, the fishing trips and just the time we spent together.
A day doesn’t pass when I don’t think of him.
Sometimes a memory will make me tear up.
But you get better every day and work through it. That’s life.
This character Paul Newman played in The Verdict is my father. They both shared the same storyline of personal redemption.
I know he’s in a better place, but still selfishly…I miss him.
My Dad was a people person who loved helping people with their legal problems. He was a street lawyer who helped those who needed help whether thay had money or not.
I know he’s extremely proud of the fact Little Robert Jackson his namesake is approaching his second birthday in less than a month.
Little Robert looks just like Dad and like him never stops moving or talking.
If I were sitting at a karaoke bar with Sam Presti lamenting last season’s 22-50 disaster in which he didn’t land a top five pick. This is the song I’d sing with him.
You know, SP…Kevin Durant jsn’t around this train station anymore…maybe you should take some of my suggestions and we could get serious about the rebuild in Oklahoma City.
A little humility might be good for you.
There would be nothing wrong with you just focusing on ticket sales and entertainment acts for the intermissions. Take a break and let Nick Collison and I handle this.
What a crazy diverse weather week. There are storms all around us out here in Deer Creek but no real precip so far after a blistering hot August day. I thought it was one of the toughest days of the summer.
I literally have not watched one sporting event since Davion Mitchell and the Kings routed the Celtics for the Summer League Championship. Four days is close to a record for me.
I’ve had some great seafood, listened to some music, fed blackberry cobbler to my lab, just hanging out and being very careful of this heat dome which finally caught up with us.
I did however see some Jon Rahm’s highlights from the Northern Trust golf tournament. That young man is in a serious ball striking zone. I would assume he just won the tournament after 54 holes since Huricane Henri should engulf that course tomorrow.
Quite an intersting golf season for Jon Rahm. That dude can hit some serious irons. It’s like in the old days watching Ray Floyd on steroids with his iron game.
Take this advice all you Okie gringos from a non-gringo…be extremely careful in this heat. Hydrate in a very serious manner.
Thirteen days till the Sooners start the season on the road with Tulane.
BOOMER!
The CNN Central Park Concert was weather shortened tonight. So this is for me…one of my all-time favorites.
We all need to organize our Hurricane play lists for tomorrow. With all due respect to Neil Young and Bob Dylan …this Luke Combs song is my favorite.
Kevin Durant just won his third Olympic gold medal in Tokyo. Without Durant carrying the load this team otherwise would not have medaled.
Pop owes Kevin a year of dinners for saving his coaching ass for certain. Player makes the coach. How many times do I have to write this on my blog?
Time is a healer. To me…it seems like a basketball life has passed since Kevin left the Thunder in 2016 to join the Warriors. I feel no angst whatsoever for Kevin traveling the road he did. He did nothing wrong.
At first I was sad. But I feel as if we’ve both grown since then in our own ways.
He has and still is finding himself as a young man of thirty-three years of age. BTW…the exact same age of my son.
My son started his career with Devon and was with them the same amount of time Kevin was with the Thunder. Then an opportunity with a company in Denver materialized which was the kind of dream job he’d been striving for since getting his finance degree and MBA at OU.
He asked me what I thought? I said…”Go for it. This is what you worked so hard to achieve. Besides–Denver has the Broncos, the Avalanche, the Rockies, the Nuggets, and an iconic DI ice hockey program…your mother and I can visit. This will actually be better for me.”
Same thing with Kevin. He’d gone as far as he could with the Thunder because Sam Presti could never get it done as GM and find the right shooting guard to fill the Harden void unless you’re on of those who think Kevin Martin or Jeremy Lamb were an answer.
From a purely professional standpoint Kevin’s decision was a no-brainer. He never would have won anything in Oklahoma City for three reasons:
1 Russell Westbrook can’t even dream about being the pure shooter Steph is. I love Russell, but c’mon.
2 Sam Presti never filled the void at the shooting guard position after trading James Harden.
3 Klay Thompson. If Klay Thompson had been the Thunder’s shooting guard from say 2011-2016 how many rings would Kevin have won in Oklahoma City? I say two. I think the Thunder would hav won two rings in that span of time. Klay before the knee was a defensive hoss as well.
So here’s this video in 2019 with Kevin making an appearance with Serge on the Chef Mafuzzy Cooking Podcast. Kevin has two rings and Serge has one. If you’re a Thunder fan shame on you if you’re not thrilled for both of them.
The booing of Kevin makes you look stupid. Like a group of dumbasses not smart enough to come out of the rain or get vaccinated. Answer me this…is it an infringementof your personal freedom to not put your young children in car seats? Same thing. I thought you Trump evangelicals were pro-lifers who were sanctity of life people.
Grow up. Get your shots, wear a mask in certain social settings, and stop booing Kevin Durant. Because if not for Kevin this city would not have had the glorious decade of NBA ball which drove Sam Anderson to write a NY Times bestseller which took him five years to research.
Nick Collison..I would think you who played with Kevin in Seattle better than anyone would know it’s time for Kevin Durant to have his banner hanging from the rafters of PayCom Arena and put an end to this nonsense in Oklahoma City.
This might be a good project for you to undertake as Presti’s special assistant…. and we both know he’s in dire need of a special assistant given how we didn’t grab high school, NCAA, and now Summer League champ Davion Mitchell with out No. 6 pick.
Given the current news in regards to the U.S. botched exit from Afghanistan this is a book which should be a must read for anyone who wants a historical perspective on the past twenty years from a failed U.S policy take.
This is a great book and was given to me by my friend who is a retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General.
He said, ” Read the book, Mike. Do us a both favor and expand that limited mind of yours.” It’s a long book with a tough subject matter, but once I got into it…I couldn’t put it down.
Jake Tapper is one helluva writer and his research on this book plus his skilled narrative gives the reader a walk through on why the U.S. should have long ago left Afghanistan.
What we’re witnessing today goes well beyond Joe Biden’s decision or even beyond a Democrat vs Trumplican debate.
This book takes the reader on a story of how after Vietnam the U.S. learned absolutely nothing and made even more staggering errors in the effort to capture and kill Bin Laden. Then compounded this by attempting to nation build in a country which doesn’t have a real will to be a democratic nation.
The Smerconish Question of the Week this past Saturday was…Should the U.S. reconsider its exit from Afghanistan?
With 19,000 votes cast the vote went 77% voting hell no and with 23% voting yes.
I would say the U.S. does have a real obligation to get Americans and the Afghans out who helped the U.S cause, but beyond that it would be folly for the U.S. to continue its path in this country. There seems to be no real hunger for democrcy in the country. South Korea is a different story in my view.
If you get a chance read this book. Turn off MSNBC and Fox and read this book about an American historical tragedy.
I think Jake is finishing up on his first novel currently besides doing his thing at CNN….where he is the polar opposite of fuckstick Tucker Carlson.
Davion Mitchell and his Summer League teammates are in tonight’s finals versus the Boston Celtics in what should be a good game.
I’ve greatly enjoyed this Summer League. There was so much to take in on multiple fronts for various teams from both the West and the East.
Not much from the Thunder who didn’t play either of their two first round draft picks very much. But for me in regards to the Thunder there was good news in that they resigned Mikey Muscala as their stretch five shooting ace and this for me lessens the blow of not landing Corey Kispert from Gonzaga.
I was very clear before this draft in that I would have taken Davion Mitchell with the Thunder’s No. 6 pick. I thought he along with Shai and Lu would have given the Thunder a very interesting trio of guards who could play both ends of the floor. Add to the fact the Thunder would still have Theo Maledon and Ty Jerome to round out a very deep, young stable of guards. Much like the Raptors had several years ago.
But not to be as Sam Presti went Josh Giddy in what to me is an overlap or hedge of taking Poku the year before. Do the Thunder really need two guys who do the same thing with the same reach and the same shooting struggles?
I would say no, but I don’t own any equity ownership of the Thunder so that’s that.
Many players have stood out to me this Summer League, but the three who impressed me the most were…. Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green , and Jon Kuminga.
All three are what we thought they should be.
Cade Cunningham being the complete player with a well rounded game and an adult head on his shoulders. A leader who at the age of nineteen was out there directing his teammates on defense. That’s the Cade C… I came to love this past college season.
Jalen Green … pure mercurial offensive firepower which will be something to watch for all lovers of the NBA game.
Jon Kuminga… the diamond in the rough. A virtual steal for Golden State along with Moses Moody. Golden State for me won the draft along with Houston, and Detroit. Take your time coming back, Klay. Bob Myers did his job.
So for the first time in my basketball life…I’m kinda jacked to watch the Summer League Finals tonight on ESPN.
Some Sting, some wine…and the Summer League Finals. What more could I ask for? We all have to learn to not get too emotionally emeshed with the Thunder currently. Nick Collison…we need a rim protector, buddy.
Tramel wrote a relatively soft piece today on how O State is 90-38 in football the past decade which ranks O State at tenth in the nation in the past decade in overall wins.
Here’s what Berry Tramel didn’t write;
Not one time in the past decade has O State advanced to the Big 12 Championship Game. This ranks O State with Kansas, Texas Tech, and West Virginia as the only Big 12 teams to never advance to the title game.
Of the 90 wins one must consider Mike Gundy from the point of the loss to Florida State in the 2012 Kick-Off Classic never again allowed Holder and Boone to schedule another non-conference game against a national Big Boy school. Not one. O State’s upcoming road game at Boise will be their toughest non-conference assignment since the Florida State game.
Texas. Texas has sucked the past decade and much of what O State has done to improve their football image comes from the fact O State has handled Texas, but then again so has TCU which is 7-3 vs. the Horns the past ten yeaars. Should there be outrage in Fort Worth that their Frogs aren’t SEC bound?
Head to Head versus OU. Against some of the historically worst OU defenses the past decade O State is 2-8 and would have been 1-9 if Bob Stoops hadn’t repunted to the most explosive football player in the NFL or world for that matter. Beat OU in Bedlam.
So..in closing here’s what I would say to O State and their Trump socialist fandom … You have a fourth year quarterback who was National Player of the Year in high school. Some called him the next Vince Young. When November 27th rolls around do something special to make yourself more marketable….win at home in Stillwater in front of the Bolsheviks and make your argument to ESPN and the PAC 12.
Quit living off OU and create your own football identity and cash flow.
The end. These were all the things Tramel should have included in his piece.
My wife is on a ten day beach trip at Emerald Beach in North Carolina. So this worked out perfectly as the diva lab Pauli and I have taken in at least two Summer League games every night.
These NBA kids and these games have been superb. The NBA may suck currently in Oklahoma, but elsewhere in the league where other teams haven’t foolishly pissed away their first round picks on physically weak and feeble whites from overseas—the league is on fire.
Can you imagine being a fan in Atlanta where you now have Trey Young nnd Sharife Cooper (War Eagle) on the same club?
Can you imagine being a Houston Rocket fan with Jalen Green and the Big Turk on the same team?
Not much from either of Sam Presti’s two first round picks as Giddy can’t play through a mild ankle sprain and Tre Mann has gone home for an undisclosed reason. Didn’t we just do this with both Terrance Ferguson and Alex Abrines?
This is not what Oklahoma City needed after the disgrace which the Thunder were in 2021. Those two wins against Boston and LA grate at me every time I blog anything about this NBA venture in Oklahoma City.
Apparently…Nick Collison’s role with the Thunder is being expanded this season and he will become the special assistant of Sam Presti moving forward. My suggestion to Clay Bennett is this move should occur immediately and that Nick’s role expands before the Thunder make anymore stupid personnel decisions.
I haven’t gone off yet on Presti passing on the Turkish center with our No. 16 pick. I’m trying to compose myself without even thinking of that piece of fiduciary malpractice. I’ll feature the Big Turk before the Summer League winds up. Once again the Houston Rockets take advantage of Sam Presti.
I’m just loving the games. I stayed up late last night to watch Austin Reaves and Jericho Sims. Then of course the night before I watched the game with Cade and Jaylen Green. Plus…I caught some of Jalen Suggs’ debut with Orlando.
But of course we in Oklahoma City don’t have Davion Mitchell, Cory Kispert, or the Big, Agile, Skilled Turk even though OKC could have had two of the three with the 6-16-18 pick configuration the Thunder had on draft night.
I wonder if Clay Bennett is concerned. His team seems to lack a plan. Their flagship blog the Daily Thunder is worse than listening to Michael. Cage. Homer pissant Little Nick Gallo’s hot takes aren’t much if they ever were.
There wouldn’t be much for Sam Anderson to write about this time around given the state of the Thunder halfway through this Summer League.
But for the rest of NBA fans in other cities this is some very lit stuff basketball wise.
Nick Collison…please save Sam Presti from himself and start putting a team together soon.
So then after you win the late season games against Boston and LA and drop out of the top five you pass on national champion Davion Mitchell who runs like the wind and made Jalen Suggs his bitch on Championship Monday.
Tonight…in Davion’s NBA debut he went for 10 points, 11 assists, and a floor best +16 in a Sacramento win. Best player on the floor.
Another brilliant decision by Sam Presti.
So as I sit here thinking to myself…what is it precisely something Sam Presti has done in Oklahoma City other than being the guy who had the pick after Portland took Greg Oden?
Sam Presti has never won a playoff series in Oklahoma City without Kevin Durant carrying his lunch sack. In the time since Durant left Oklahoma to be on a team with a shooting guard who can shoot—the Thunder are a winless post season team who aren’t even relevant currently in the Oklahoma sports landscape.
You would even have to rank O State football and easily O State basketball as more fan relevant than the Thunder currently.
If I were doing my sports relevancy poll right now in Oklahoma I would have the Thunder sitting in the sixth slot. I would go 1 OU football, 2 O State football, 3 O State basketball, 4 OU womens’ softball, 5 OU mens’ basketball, 6 the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Unbelievable.
Maybe these guys already have another ownership group in another city waiting for this franchise.
Let me edit myself immediately. I owe Sam Presti an apology. When he traded Serge Ibaka to Orlando he got Victor Oladipo, the draft pick which conveyed into Domas Sabonis, and Ersan Illyasova who who was traded to acquire Jerami Grant.
But then of course he traded away all those young pieces to have the Thunder where they are today as a G League team with a ringer on a max contract who in reality will have only three years left on his window in Oklahoma if the Thunder become relevant two years from now down the road.
7th…I’m moving the Thunder down to 7th behind Tulsa Golden Hurricane football. I try to be fair on here. Tulsa went to bowl game last season and had a player drafted in the first round.
I need a music video and a Coors Light to go to sleep. The fact we didn’t take Davion Mitchell will bother me for at least two months.
I love this song. This will put me to sleep immediately. One of my favorite songs by Sting. Have a nice Tuesday night watching Cade vs. Jalen Green.
Here we are in the dog days of August. The NBA’s G-League is underway. I won’t watch all that much of the Thunder’s games since they won those two late season games versus Boston and the LA Clippers and foolishly won two games and missed out on a top five pick.
Josh Giddey’s first game as Thunder lasted five minutes before he fell down and sprained his ankle and was a DNP the rest of the game in what is a developmental league.
OKC behind a very crisp performance by guard Theo Maledon beat Cade Cunningham’s Pistons’ by a 76-72 count.
Cade struggled and was not stellar in this game.
The Pistons play Jalen Green’s Houston Rocket club tomorrow night in what will give us a game featuring the top two picks in the draft. This will be a game I make sure and watch.
I see no reason to watch all that much of the Thunder in the summer G-League because in fact they’re primarily going to be a G-League level team this season for 82 games. The questions in Oklahoma City will be how many games Sam Presti allows Shai to participate in this season and will Lu Dort become a small forward like PJ Tucker?
Shai on this Thunder team will make OKC a G-League team on steroids with a ringer.
The next question in Oklahoma City is if Presti has his overall roster bad enough at this point to stay in the 22-25 win range this season in a non-tanking NBA season.
If I recall..Vegas had OKC at 22.5 wins over/under last season on a roster which started with Big Al Horford and George Hill alongside Shai.
I feel for Shai, but he just reupped on his contract so I’m to assume being relevant in the legue isn’t a thing for him right now. Trey Young reupped, but he’s on a team which just made the Eastern Conference Finals.
Hopefully…in the next Thunder G Laegue game this summer Josh Giddey can keep from falling down and give Thunder ticket buyers a reason to buy some tickets if in fact the Thunder allow fans inside of PayCom Arena this season.
OKC along with Portland and Chicago never allowed fans last season inside of their arenas with their team Covid protocol.
Cade vs. Jalen…I can’t wait.
Moral of the story…when you’re tanking don’t beat the Celtics and Clippers in late season games you needed to lose.
I bet Sam Anderson of NY Times fame like me…thought to himself Operation Bongo never ends in Oklahoma City….does it.