This isn’t meant as an overt diss to out local college media which should be covering Big 12 games instead of the NBA, but when I see this versus how Westbrook deals with the national media it must be noted especially on a blog like mine which I hope tells it like is and leaves the ass kissing to others.
You can either assert Westbrook is rude or he has tired of fielding questions from the Big 12 scribes. I must admit, even though I think Westbrook is being rude, I’d roll my eyes at these people as well.
On this video there were eight questions asked of Russell. In reality, he only answered the three which were asked by Fox homer franchise employed Nick Gallo. The other five questions were in this order asked by…. Erik Horne, Royce Young, Maddie Lee, Berry Tramel and Erik Horne.
Westbrook did not even make an attempt to even somewhat address Tramel and the other four questions were not answered in a serious way.
Westbrook does not do this with the national media. Only with the Big 12 media playing grownup with the NBA Thunder.
Again, I think it’s rude and if were on the other side of this I’d say something and be expelled immediately and probably be without a job. But I post this today because on several fronts this to me says various things about Westbrook, the Thunder and the media in Oklahoma City.
Trust me here, I’m not defending Westbrook’s petulant behavior, but I think in a different city he wouldn’t get away with this.
I won’t usually put much baseball on my blog until October, but being my favorite MLB player, Nolan Arenado, just this week signed a record deal for positioned players I think this warrants an exception especially since the Thunder are getting ready to experience a massively tough stretch these next twenty-one games.
Like I wrote on here earlier, I was a decent baseball player and third baseman up until my junior year in high school when I was switched to left field in order to get another good bat in our lineup. There was no DH back then so I gladly embraced the switch to the outfield to make our team stronger offensively. I’ve always had a place in my heart for third basemen. Of course, as a kid, it was for me Brooks Robinson at third and Roberto Clemente in right field who were my two favorite ball players. They still are my two favorite players at those positions.
One of the great things about MAPS in Oklahoma City was the construction of the baseball park in Bricktown. It’s excellent and was actually modeled after Camden Yards in Baltimore. OKC’s affiliation with the LA Dodgers top AAA team has been perfect for me. The Dodgers, who have been in the last two World Series, have run quite a few of their current major league players thru Oklahoma City. I even almost caught a home run ball hit off Clayton Kershaw in the left centerfield grass area when Kershaw made a one game rehab appearance. A little kid dashed in front of me before I could get my hands on it. Unlike Westbrook—I didn’t lecture the kid. Nice moment for him.
With my son now living in Denver it was perfect for me as a baseball fan to now have a close venue to go see some games with my son at Coors Field in downtown Denver. My favorite contemporary third baseman is none other than the Rockies Nolan Arenado so does it get any better for me.
Nolan just this week signed an eight year deal to reup with the Rockies for $260 million and he has an option after the third year. So, again, perfect for me.
Nolan has finished in the top five of the MVP race in each of the last three seasons. He’s a .290, 40 home run, 110 RBI guy who just basically wins the Gold Glove every season. Even Brooks Robinson never puts up these type of numbers.
My son took me to Game 162 last season on the last day of the season with the Rockies battling the Dodgers for the division title. On this day though it was the Washington Nationals at Coors Field playing what my son and I knew would be Bryce Harper’s last game in a National’s uniform.
Just an epic day. The Rockies won the game 14-1 to force a one game playoff with the Dodgers the next day, Bryce Harper hit two massive doubles, and Nolan Arenado hit two of the most towering home runs I’ve ever witnessed. Just a perfect day with my son.
I can’t wait for this season to begin and I hope to at the minimum to make at least three trips during the season to see Nolan and the Rockies play at Coors Field.
This was nice to take a break from the Thunder. Baseball is such a different experience and to me completely a part of American culture.
In a distant, almost surreal sort of way…it was a Battle of the Sams. One in the flesh with Presti and one in ghost form with Hinkie. There was this absurd streak of the Thunder with Westbrook somehow coming into this game with nineteen straight wins over the same franchise which gave us one of Wilt’s championships in the 60’s– and another one with Moses and Dr. J in the 80’s. Somehow, someway, this franchise with so much history and lore attached to it arrived at the Peake with the ghost of Hinkie still clinging to it… yet ended the dubious streak with a rather easy 108-104 win over the fading Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night inside the Peake.
These Sixers were without this generation’s version of Wilt in Joe Embiid and were without their second center as well in Boban M. But it didn’t matter because the Thunder were without serious MVP candidate Paul George…and to be frank… these Thunder for the most of the night looked lost without Kevin Durant’s successor to being Russell Westbrook’s enabler.
You could look at this in two different ways. You could look at this game as a serious endorsement of Paul George’s MVP resume or you could view it as validation for Kevin Durant leaving on July 4th, 2016.
It’s your choice.
It was a prime example of why Russell Westbrook is probably never going to win a ring unless someone eventually gets inside his head and explains to him this is basketball .. not a one-hundred yard dash. It’s a game which requires nuance and a change of pace here and there. It’s not a game of always leading with your face like Rocky Balboa.
In 2012, Scott Brooks still hadn’t gotten this across to Russel Westbrook, but he slid James Harden over to the point in a somewhat masked version of co-pilot point guards. It worked enough to get the Thunder to their only Finals before losing to the Heat in five games.
We’re now in the year 2019 and Durant is in Oakland with two rings, two Finals MVP trophies and at the least the self awareness he made the right choice even if some hate him for the decision he made.
If I were Durant, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’d keep working hard and the legacy will take care of itself eight years from now. I would however try to mend my fence with Westbrook and not be a dickhead moving down the road.
As far as Westbrook…not winning anything from a team standpoint doesn’t apparently bother him. He’ll go down in history as the triple double king of all-time with one regular season MVP, two All-Star MVPs, a regular season scoring title, and one appearance in an NBA Finals back in 2012 when the basketball world thought a dynasty was on the horizon for the Boom Town Thunder.
As Sam Anderson all so well knows…this is a saga which is Oklahoma oil field to the core. Boom or bust. Yet with Presti—you can’t say even with Durant gone it’s bust in Oklahoma City… you can just cling to the comfort of the Doctrine of Sustainability and the feeling in your gut the Thunder aren’t ever winning anything until Russell Westbrook can nuance his game and seamlessly shift the pace gear shift when needed.
Scott Brooks and Kevin Durant never crossed this bridge with Westbrook . We have twenty-one regular season games left to see if Billy Donovan and Paul George can cross this bridge with Westbrook in the 2019 regular season.
I’m not holding my breath. Change is a hard thing. The Thunder in San Antonio tomorrow night.
Both Joel Embiid and Boban M will not be available tonight for the Sixers in Oklahoma City. Jonah Bolden is the starter tonight for Philly at center. He was drafted in the 2017 draft in the second round as the 36th player taken. He played at UCLA from 2014-16 then played overseas before joining the Sixers.
Given how poorly OKC’s defense has been of late it will be interesting to see how this goes tonight in Oklahoma City for both teams. He’s obviously very athletic with some real upside potential. This should be a very intriguing game for different reasons moving forward. Don’t look, but the Portland Trailblazers have almost caught the Thunder for the No. 3 slot despite going on the road recently for a tough run of games.
I watched maybe half of the Michael Cohen- Godfather/Reservoir Dogs Congressional hearing yesterday. It was about what I thought it would be. I mean, what did we really find out that we didn’t already know?
I already knew Donald Trump was a racist, a con man, and a cheat—so it wasn’t like there was that jaw dropping moment for me. I thought the Mark Meadows moments were a new low in contemporary American history.
Like I’ve written on here, I’m not an ideologue either way. My lane is pretty close to the middle. I would think the written-signed checks by Donald Trump will be a significant problem for Trump in that they were signed eight months after he took office…i.e., obstruction of justice.
Here’s the thing though, the one thing Trump has always been right about. His base isn’t leaving him even if shoots someone in broad daylight on the streets in Manhattan. He could kill people. He can insult anyone or say anything. He can behave like the most spoiled forth grader on the block. He could even make new campaign ball caps which say…A Racist, A Con Man, and A Cheat 2020…and his base would embrace it. It doesn’t matter to them…even the evangelicals.From a political standpoint, the Solid South has never strayed from the GOP ever since LBJ passed sweeping civil rights legislation. Even Richard Nixon didn’t change the electoral map in the South. It isn’t changing.
But for a day, the world saw what it’s like inside the Trump inner circle.
I was actually surprised it was as mild as it was.
To me, the most underachieving teams in the NBA this season are ironically my favorite two NBA teams… the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Philadelphia 76’ers. What makes it even more fascinating is both teams were shaped by the two basketball Sams… Presti and Hinkie.
My son once had a group lunch meeting with Hinkie at an OU School of Business gathering with all these little MBAs grouped together. Hinkie was an OU business major undergrad then went on to get his MBA at Stanford.
My son was floored by the guy. Claims he was one of the smartest people he’s ever talked to in a business setting.
Philly is coming to Oklahoma City tomorrow night with a streak of losing 19 straight times to the Thunder.
The Sixer starting five of Embiid, Simmons, Butler, Reddick and Tobias Harris is probably the best starting five in the NBA minus the Warriors.
Yet, we’ve still to see The Process completely validated with a deep playoff run in the post Hinkie era.
Did it work?
I would say it did although the fans in Philly went thru three brutal seasons of losing from 2013-2015.
Such an interesting matchup tomorrow night as you’ll see the trail of players affected in both Philadelphia and Oklahoma City by Sam Hinkie’s process with the Sixers in this video.
You have to watch closely to understand how both teams got to where they are in the back side of the process.
This was not an upset in Denver on Tuesday night. Vegas knew going in who was the better team. The smarter team. The more polished team. The team most likely not to beat itself in the last three minutes of the game. Vegas had the Nuggets as a 4.5 home favorite to beat the overly hyped underachieving Oklahoma City Thunder for a third straight time this season and in essence lock up the No. 2 seed in the West unless there is a complete and utter meltdown in the Mile High city in March and April.
This is precisely why I posted the Mike Malone video. Little things. Winnings things in clutch time which separate winning teams and losing teams. Mental things. Taking care of the ball. Grabbing defensive rebounds. Not committing boneheaded fouls. Those kind of things.
You can only witness this so many times and not sit there waiting for the Thunder to find a way to beat themselves.
Such was the case on Tuesday night in Denver as the Nuggets made all the plays in the final three minutes to break open a one possession game while defeating the Thunder by a count of 121-112.
The math is simple. Denver stands 42-18 while the Thunder drop to 38-22. Denver now leads the season series 3-0 and has the tiebreaker in its pocket if its needed after 82 games.
This was huge for the Denver Nuggets and was probably the biggest win for the Nuggets since the better days of the George Karl Era back when the Nuggets were relevant. It was a great sports day all around in Denver as the Rockies signed the best third baseman in baseball, Nolan Arenado, to an eight year– $255 million dollar deal making him the highest paid position player in MLB history.
But the biggest star in Denver on this night was Nikola Jokic who came within one rebound from notching a triple double with 36 pt, 9 rebound, 10 assist night. Jokic was simply magnificent and the best player on the floor. Steven Adams could not handle Jokic defensively and it was obvious. It wasn’t Perk obvious, but it was obvious.
Billy Donovan finally changed things up defensively in the second half using Jerami Grant and Nerlens Noel on Jokic, but after the Thunder came all the way back from eighteen points down to take the lead….Noel committed his sixth foul in 17 minutes of play. All told, Adams, Noel and Grant committed 15 fouls trying to handle perhaps the most versatile big man in the game today. But Noel fouling out was the biggest play in this game from my view.
This wasn’t just a statement for the Nuggets, this was a statement for Nikola Jokic…as in why aren’t we mentioning him in the same breath as Giannis, Harden and Paul George for the MVP award. On this night…it’s not crazy talk to think he climbed into the race.
In closing, this is what I take with me, in back to back games, Sam Presti’s Thunder have lost big games to the Kings and the Nuggets and are a combined 1-6 against these two teams who did not make the playoffs last season.
And you know what, if you’ve been reading my blog you know I pretty much felt the Thunder were going to lose both of these games on the morning of the games. It’s not in any way that I’m psychic or anything. It’s just the feeling that when it really matters the Thunder will find a way to beat themselves.
The Thunder host the equally underachieving Philly 76’ers on Thursday night inside the Peake.
So moving forward in Oklahoma City the goal is to hold off Portland, Utah or Houston for the No. 3 seed in the West.
This video is great. My son is the young man in the white Westbrook jersey with white long sleeves on the second row literally sitting behind Mike Malone. Ha. I was watching him almost more than the game itself when OKC came back from 18 points and took the lead.
I think it’s a big game for Denver for sure because they can pretty much put a strangle hold on the No. 2 seed in the West with a homecourt win over the still underachieving Oklahoma City Thunder. Just look at the Western Conference standings and there you go. This doesn’t require a DaVinci Code savant skill set. The Nuggets are three games up on the Thunder and if they hold home court tonight at the Pepsi Center the Nugs are four full games up on the Thunder with just over twenty games left on the slate.
This is clearly a put up or shut night for the Thunder in the Rockies against a team which has been the polar opposite of the Thunder so far this season. These Nuggets are one of the feel good stories so far this season under Mike Malone. Unlike the Thunder, they have no superstars unless you consider Paul Milsap a superstar. I don’t. What these Nuggets are is a group of nice role players playing within a system of doing little Nick Collison things which don’t win them any individual awards, but as a team gives them a chance every night.
The closest thing to a superstar on this Denver team is Nicola Jokic with numbers of 20.4 pts, 10.8 rebounds, 7.7 asts and a PER of 26.8. I almost and sometimes even do confuse Jokic with Portland big man Josef Nurkic so that in itself says something about the no-name nature of these Nuggets.
Listen to this recent Mike Malone post game interview and notice the emphasis to detail on little things. Things like winning the little one on one battles. Winning loose balls. Winning the boards. Winning the points off turnovers battle. Little things night in and night out. Mike Malone coaches more like a DI college hockey coach than an NBA coach with contractual prima donnas. He got fired in Sacramento and last year his team in Denver faded down the stretch. But if his team wins tonight in Denver you would think they’d be in fairly decent shape for the No 2 seed in the West.
Tell me who saw this coming in September when everyone was drawing up their Daily Thunder Western Conference Seeding Contest bracket. I sure didn’t. I had the Nuggets at the No. 8 slot and barely holding on to a playoff spot
Coming into tonight my Coach of the Year voting goes… 1 Mike Budenholzer, 2 Mike Malone, 3 Dave Joerger and 4 Doc Rivers.
So an interesting matchup tonight in Denver where my son will be sitting low at midcourt with his Russell Westbrook jersey on. I’ll be looking to see if I can spot him. I’ll also be looking to see if the Oklahoma City Thunder can reach deep down and win a big road game which would justify some of the hype being thrown their way with only twenty-three games left in the regular season.
Look at this video. Mike Malone doesn’t even look or sound like an NBA coach. He looks more like your local State Farm agent. But so far this season the State Farm agent has a 2-0 season series lead over the college coach from Florida. Big game tonight in Denver for the Nuggets.
Kudos to Doc Rivers and the LA Clipper fans last night for a classy Dirk sendoff. I hope the Thunder do something like this for Dirk on March 31st.
If you didn’t see this movie already you must take the time to see it. It was tough to watch at times, but very much worth the time. You feel like you’re climbing El Capitan right there with Alex. I never relaxed once I sat down in the theatre.
Actually, for the first time in three years, I enjoyed the Oscar show. I like it better without a host. I like that they went straight into the show with We Are the Champions. I’m glad Kevin Hart didn’t do the show. We see enough of him at the NBA All-Star Game. He’s wearing thin on me. I want the focus on the movies and for the most part this show wasn’t too political except for Spike Lee. But I’m even okay with Spike because BlankKklansman was my third favorite movie of the year and I had him for Best Director.. I had Green Book and A Star is Born in a virtual tie so I can easily live with Green Book being best pic. It was such a good movie with a wonderful message. Even my Trump friends were all over this movie.
My favorite movies of the year were in this order:
1a. Green Book
1b. A Star is Born
2. BlackKklansman (True story set in Colorado Springs in the 70’s.)
3. Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Free Solo ( This film won best documentary—stunning movie.)
5. The Mule
6. Vice ( Christian Bale’s performance as Dick Cheney was scarily good and I had him second on my best actor list.)
These were my favorite movies this year and other than The Mule each won at least one Oscar.
I’m glad at the end they picked the right movie and didn’t go all politically correct just to piss with Trump. We get enough of that every day. Feature the movies is what I say…and that’s pretty much what they did.
Rami Malik was superb as Freddie Mercury and I had him with Christian Bale for my best actor pics..
Marsharali Ali was my pick for Best Supporting Actor.
I find Olivia Coleman extremely annoying and went with Lady Gaga for Best Actress.
I also missed on Best Supporting Actress as I’m a huge Amy Adams fan. She was great as Lynne Cheney.
But in the end, Green Book won best Pic. Free Solo won Best Doc and Shallow won Best Song. I have nothing to bitch about. Be sure and see some of these movies if you get the chance since it’s supposed to be very cold next week-end. I didn’t see Roma so I can’t comment on the movie. I don’t like the fact it was in the Best Pic category instead of Best Doc…but that’s just me.