Author: Mike

Like the super sleuth Columbo…I stalk the shadows of Wild Thing. Trying to calibrate this new metric I’ve created which is so far fucking superior to anything Nick Gallo or Royce Young ever talk about it’s literally laughable.

Literally laughable.

Jenni Carlson doesn’t even remotely know what I’m trying to communicate. Tramel gets it. He understands my brilliance. He smiles to himself knowingly. He envies me.

It’s my new metric…the Wild Thing Factor or to be brief….the WTF metric.

It’s how I calibrate various factors which to my trained eye tell me if Russell Westbrook will go all werewolf, start growing fur under his Thunder jersey, have his fingernails expand six inches… and start playing basketball like an out of control U10 player at your local YMCA.

Nick Gallo in his wettest dream only wishes he could write something like this just once. He can’t. He’d be fired before the words finished leaving his mouth.

Royce Young knows his millennials couldn’t connect the dots. They struggle with the abstract.

Like tornado forecasters… how do we predict a Wild Thing occurrence? I love the weather. Like Gary England in Boom Town…it fascinates me. I could have very well been one of these guys who chases tornados. I would love doing that for a living. I really would.

The Thunder play the Nets tonight in Brooklyn. Bad team, middle of the week, not much hype for the game, the Thunder are on a roll, everything is going well. Does the Wild thing appear from a dark cloud bank?

I study my charts. I glaze intently into the screen on my Wild Thing Dopler Radar. I recheck and triple check the Wild Thing Jetstream flow. I see no reason for a Wild Thing storm tonight. Not even a 20% chance. I’ve studied Westbrook. If he were smart he’d pick me to be the one who writes the NY Times bestselling nonfiction book on his basketball life. I’m not sure he’s this smart. We’ll see.

It was eerily surprising on Monday night in Detroit as to how easily the lengthy Thunder dispatched of the Pistons. This was supposed to be a test for Clay Bennett’s $145 million dollar basketball team. But there was no test on this night as the Thunder rolled over the Pistons by a count of 110-83.

Six different Thunder players scored in double figures. The Thunder are 6-0 when this happens. The Thunder pounded the Pistons on the boards. There was suffocating defense as well as the Thunder limited the Pistons to 33% from the field and 18% from beyond the arc. If ever there was a game which showed it is a myth Andre Roberson is the only player who can make the Thunder click defensively it was this game. The Thunder were a defensive monster with fangs. They looked every bit like a team which could be something in April other than just another first round exit.

Wild Thing never really materialized. Instead we saw in Russell Westbrook in the second half a point guard who made some basketball sense. A point guard who punished the wispy and annoying Reggie Jackson with his physicality. We saw a Westbrook who was actually exerting effort on the defensive end of the floor like he cared. A point guard on a mission for at least the third straight game after the meltdown against the Nuggets.

This is the Russell Westbrook who Sam Presti can’t trade. This is that player. The question is how does Billy Donovan control Wild Thing when the basketball calendar turns to mid April?

The thing though is that right now Paul George is the best player on the team night in and night out and there’s an argument to be made Steven Adams could be the second best player on the team. This is what a good point guard does….he makes his other options better players.

I have no idea if Russell Westbrook can control his Wild Thing inner demons for prolonged periods of times. We’ve seen these periods of repentance before in WT, but then he reverts and does things which you don’t see in a U10 youth game at the YMCA.

How will we ever know if and when Wild Thing has crossed the bridge?

We won’t.

It’s like being a werewolf. Certain moons turn Russell Westbrook into a point guard for the ages, then other lunar moons turn him into Wild Thing. I have no idea what Maurice Cheeks whispers into Russell’s ear on the Thunder bench. No idea whatsoever. I don’t want to know. Billy Donovan doesn’t want to know. Just roll with it and hope you can mitigate it as best as possible must be the private Thunder mantra. Even Wild Thing sweetheart Nick Gallo prolly isn’t privy to the Wild Thing code.

So here the Thunder sit at 15-7 in the topsy turvy West. What should we think? What are realistic expectations? You want to believe. You really do.

But in the end I can’t.

I’ve seen this shit before.

But on this night in Detroit the Thunder looked like a team which could maybe do a thing or two this season.

I think they did.

Some will say Georgia is clearly one of the best four teams in the nation. They very well might be, but they lost by three touchdowns to an offensively pedestrian LSU team and then choked at a home site arena against Alabama in a game where it was clear from the start Tua Tugavailoa was never healthy. When it mattered, Georgia basically cratered to Alabama with Jalen Hurts closing the game at quarterback.

So tell me why does Georgia deserve special treatment? Does Georgia deserve special treatment just because they had a banner recruiting year attracting five stars?

Yeah, on paper, Georgia is right there with Alabama and Clemson. No doubt. But winning does kind of matter or at least it should.

Both Oklahoma and Ohio State should have been above Georgia in the final ranking. If Ohio State would have been ranked above OU it wouldn’t be a big deal to me. I could live with that. The Buckeyes only lost one game. They won their conference. They pummeled Michigan when they had to win. They beat Penn State on the road in an early season game which I thought was one of the better games of the college football season. If any fanbase should be pissed…it’s Buckeye Nation.

The OU-Alabama matchup will give the nation a chance to see a historic offense with a Heisman finalist trying to derail another Crimson Tide national championship. It’s a compelling matchup.

Kyler Murray versus Tua Tugavailoa.

Is Georgia better than OU on paper on both sides of the football? They probably are better defensively, yet this Georgia team to me isn’t as talented as the Georgia team OU should have beaten last season in the Rose Bowl. It’s not like this Georgia team deserves any special consideration. They played three virtual tomato cans in U Mass, Austin Peay, and Middle Tennessee in non-conference games. In crossover games against the SEC West they went 1-2 with the only win over a bad Auburn team which might be firing Gus Malzahn as its head coach later this month.

I mean, we all know the Golden State Warriors have the best roster in basketball. But they still have to win twelve playoff games to reach the NBA Finals. They have to win games. Even the Golden State Warriors have to win games.

Throw out the loss to Alabama. Circle Georgia’s three touchdown loss to LSU and you should have your answer as to why the committee didn’t get it wrong by omitting Georgia from the college football playoff.

In hindsight, if Georgia fans want to vent, they should be venting at their head coach Kirby Smart for the dumbest coaching decision on a punt since Bob Stoops repunted to Tyreke Hill.

So none of this is clearly perfect, especially if you’re a Ohio State fan this morning, but at least the committee did the right thing in not giving Georgia a bye to the national semis and instead have given college football fans the Kyler Murray vs. Alabama matchup.

For Georgia, it should be simple. You should be like the rest of the college football world. If you beat Alabama then you either advance or win a big trophy in the final game of the season.

The very easy part of OKC’s schedule concluded on Friday night with the Thunder coasting to an easy 124-109 win over the rebuilding Atlanta Hawks. It was a game which was supposed to be a big deal in that it marked the return of Trae Young.

No big deal was evident though as Trae Young to me looks like a player who a generation ago before ‘one and dones’ should still be in college learning how to play basketball and developing his body. It is what it is. This is the basketball universe we live in.

This was one of those outlier shooting games for the Thunder in that they went 19-41 shooting threes against an atrocious Atlanta team which pretty much has a nerve charging its fans full ticket price to watch this piece of junk team. I’d put this Atlanta team right there with Phoenix and Cleveland as the worst the NBA has to offer in 2018.

Frilly Alex Abrines went 7-11 shooting threes with easy open looks whenever he wanted them and I guess was the player of the game if you really want to designate such a thing in a game which was boring from start to finish from a competitive standpoint.

To me, the most compelling moment of the night was when Russell Westbrook got into a shouting match with Hall of Famer Vince Carter near the Hawk bench and double techs were issued by the zebras.

Patrick Patterson finally made a shot after going 0-19 shooting threes in a string of recent games.

On a positive note, Hamidou Diallo was cleared to play but was a healthy DNP-Coach’s decision. On a sad note, Andre Roberson has had a six week setback on his return. On an even sadder note, Bush 41 passed away which leaves me even sadder because it reminds me how far we’ve fallen culturally in the past two years as a nation.

Russell Westbrook went 2-4 shooting threes which means in the last two games he’s a collective 4-9 shooting threes after going into a 1-12 full Wild Thing mode in the home loss to the Nuggets. I have no idea whatsoever what this means as far as calibrating my Wild Thing metric meter on the always mercurial Russell Westbrook. I have no idea how this happens two games in a row and then all the sudden there will be a Wild Thing relapse come back out of the blue. Don’t ask me why, but I think a Wild Thing spotting could be in the offing on Monday night in Detroit. But, hey, 4-9 from Russell shooting threes in two games is what you’ll take every time. Of course the problem is you don’t play teams like Cleveland and Atlanta in the Western Conference Playoffs.

The Thunder improve to 14-7 and now start the part of their schedule where they will start playing better basketball teams on a night to night basis.

Steph Curry is slated to return for the Warriors in the next couple of days and one would think the Warriors will get back on track as the best team in the league. I found it kind of refreshing to see the league without Durant and Curry paired together as the league is basically one with parity when those two aren’t paired with Klay Thompson.

The Thunder play at the Detroit Pistons on Monday night in a game which should be more to fun watch than what we’ve been seeing with the games against Phoenix, Cleveland, and Atlanta of late.

If you ever get a chance you might want to read the book ’41’ which is 43’s account of his father’s life. In a time when you might need a positive historical read, it fills the bill as a son explains his love for his father.

My favorite 41 memory. I loved his sense of humor. A president has to have a sense of humor and be able to laugh at himself.

Any real big surprise the LA Clippers have turned their culture around since the Jerry West hire as special executive director to owner Steve Ballmer? None from me. Obviously… I’m not picking the 15-6 Clippers to win the West, but they will be a team I watch very closely this summer as several super stars relocate.

Jerry West just wins. He won as a Laker. As a player, as a coach, and as a GM. He won as a GM in Memphis. He helped turned the Golden State Warriors into what we see now in as I mean the good parts. And now Jerry West is with the Clippers because evidently Steve Ballmer became weary of pissing his money away on an under achieving team.

Clay Bennett should call Jerry West. He really should and at least try to pick his brain if he can’t hire him at some point. The one glaring weakness I see in Sam Presti is his inability to hire a coach who in essence might challenge him for alpha status within the organization. I see that as the glaring weakness in the Thunder as to why the Thunder with all their MVP’s have never won anything. A strong coaching voice would never have allowed Russell Westbrook’s bad habits to stay in place this long. I would love to hear what Jerry West would do with the Thunder. I would. I know what I would do. That being, I’d trade Russell Westbrook at the conclusion of this season if the team doesn’t make the Western Conference Finals and get as much in return as I could. I’d love to know what Jerry West would do.

Even with Kyle Korver the Cavs are a horrible basketball team, without him they’re borderline unwatchable. So with Kyle Korver being traded to the Utah Jazz there really wasn’t much to watch as I now can stop wasting my time wondering if Sam Presti would somehow acquire Korver for his three point shooting challenged Thunder.

The Thunder shot 22% from threes in this game but it didn’t matter because arguably the Cavs and the Phoenix Suns are the two worst teams in the NBA currently. In case you haven’t noticed five of OKC’s thirteen wins so far this season come against these two horrible basketball teams. Otherwise, OKC is 8-7 for the season with one of the easiest opening twenty games of any NBA schedules this season.

I’m ready to see OKC start playing good teams. I’m bored. But to OKC’s credit they are 2-2 against the Clippers and the soap opera Warriors. The West is an absolute mess right now so in reality the Thunder being 13-7 and the No. 4 seed is one of the few signs of normalcy in the conference. I’m not sure what to make of the West as Houston even without Carmelo is currently at No. 14. The Rockets shouldn’t be this bad without Carmelo. LeBron and his Lakers are about what I thought they would be. So we’ll see.

Russell Westbrook notched his 107th triple double in this game tying Jason Kidd for third on the list of career triple doublers. I’m almost certain Nick Gallo won’t be able to sleep tonight and will be all amped up wearing his Russell Westbrook footie jammies. Games like this bore me. Actually, the 15 minutes played by sub Deonte Burton were to me the most compelling minutes of the game with Diallo still out with an injured ankle. Burton is interesting. He has a unique body type for the Thunder. Fragile Alex finally returned and promptly went 1-8 shooting threes. Equally frilly Terrance Ferguson is still hurt. My first observation twenty games in is that Sam Presti may not be able to depend on either of these two guys as the season moves along. Maybe Donovan should roll with Diallo, Roberson, and Burton and at least get some athletic toughness from the shooting guard position.

The Korver trade was the one I was hoping Presti would make….Abrines and Ferguson for Kyle Korver. But it didn’t happen and now Korver gives the Jazz another nice piece as they need to get their season untracked as well. Four teams need to get untracked league wise…the Celtics, the Rockets, the Jazz, and the Spurs.

OKC plays another bad team on Friday with a game against the Atlanta Hawks at the Peake then their season finally starts getting interesting with a game against the Pistons. From that point forward we should start finding out a little more about this Thunder. But really, they appear to me to be what I thought they would be…. a fourth place team which will probably have trouble getting out of the first round in the West unless they shore up their three point shooting woes.

I’m ready to see some basketball after the college football playoff is set. I wonder if Deonte Burton could play safety for Lincoln Riley. Just a random thought. OU regent Clay Bennett should check into that for the Sooners.

It feels kind of funny with this not being in early October. It also feels odd in that for the first time in my life OU and Texas will play each other twice in the same football season.

When this new ten team Big 12 evolved after Nebraska, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Colorado left the conference this matchup is what many expected to be an annual meeting of sorts. But it’s taken awhile for this to happen as Texas struggled with its program before finally showing some traction this season in Tom Herman’s second season in Austin.

The Big 12 needs this matchup if the conference is going to remain viable. These two iconic programs have to lead the Big 12 in football. Oklahoma has more than kept its part of the deal. The Sooners have been to two Final Fours and with a win in this game will probably make their third appearance in the college football playoff since its inception. If the Sooners win this game it will also mark their fourth straight Big 12 championship. No team has ever done this before.

From a conference standpoint this is a huge game with national implications. Historically, this could be where Texas draws a line in the sand and proclaims its intent to get back to yearly national relevance. Same thing could be said in the SEC championship game as Georgia continues its climb back to national relevance a year after making the national championship game against Alabama.

Notre Dame at 11-0 will be in the field. Alabama is in the field even if they lose against Georgia. Clemson is in if they beat Pitt in the ACC championship game. Nobody cares what the PAC 12 does on Saturday for the second straight season. OU and Ohio State are on the bubble while Georgia is only in if they beat Alabama.

If you’re a college football fan this is your favorite week of the season bar none.

If you’re either an OU or Texas fan this is new ground. This is something different having a second Red River Rivalry twice in a period of less than two months.

But this is what the forefathers of this ten team Big 12 envisioned as the saving grace for a football conference with ten teams where you play everybody at least once and if you’re lucky you get to play someone a second time in late November.

OU vs. Texas for an encore. The purists will say they hate it. I think it could be the saving grace for a conference which needs a brand boost in the worst way.

I didn’t think OU had a chance, but given the way Michigan lost to Ohio State on Saturday there appears to be a path for OU to be Final Four bound for the third time in four years.

Here’s the first thing, I’m not sure anybody in college football is all that good defensively. I mean, Michigan was supposed to be the best defensive team in the land and they were just torched by an Ohio State offense which is good, but not as good as OU’s offense.

And who has Alabama really beaten? What’s their best win? The SEC West minus Bama was dogshit this season. LSU just lost their third game. Auburn lost five games and Malzahn might get fired. A&M even with Jimbo Fisher lost four games. Arkansas is horrific. Both Mississippi schools aren’t much. So…really what has Alabama done? Not all that much. Who’s the best QB they’ve faced?

Yeah, if OU beats Texas… I think they’re in the Final Four.

The committee wants good games. They want TV ratings. They’ll remember last year’s epic national semi-final with Georgia beating OU in overtime. They’ll want the best player in the nation in Kyler Murray in their tournament. The football world has been talking Patrick Mahomes more than any other player this season. Second on that list would be what Kyler Murray has done this football season before becoming an Oakland A. Mahomes was previously drafted by the NY Yankees. What great duel storylines this football season. Have you noticed a theme here? That being, minus what Drew Brees is doing this season the next three most talked about QBs this season are Mahomes, Mayfield, and Murray. That’s why five star defensive players stay in the SEC. That’s why.

Does OU have a defense issue? They do. But I’m pretty sure any team which plays in the Big 12 is going to have an issue on the defensive side of the ball because five star defensive high school players in the South who want to play in the NFL don’t risk their NFL draft stock by playing in the Big 12. That’s why OU should have joined the SEC when they had the chance, but that’s another story.

Google which states per population per capita produce the most NFL players and it goes…Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Just imagine this OU offense paired with a defense with a couple of SEC five stars anchoring their defense. It would be scary.

I don’t think OU can win the national championship, but I do think they now have more than a punchers chance of getting to the Final Four thanks to what Ohio State showed the committee this past Saturday. That being, there aren’t any great defenses out there except maybe Alabama and they haven’t played anyone to date. Not even Purdue. Know what I mean?

The Cleveland Browns handled the Bengals on the road today to improve to 4-6-1. It was the Browns second straight win and technically speaking the Browns are still alive for a wild card berth. The Browns have three tough road assignments with five games left so I still think a six win season in Cleveland should be the realistic goal in Baker Mayfield’s rookie season.

Since the coaching change Mayfield has been very good and the Browns have also gotten healthy for the first time since the season opener.

Mayfield was excellent on Sunday throwing for four TDs, no intercepts, and but yet seven incompletions. Since the coaching change his completion rate has been slightly above seventy per cent.

To me…if you want to compare Baker to a contemporary QB…it’s Drew Brees. The size, the mobility to buy time, the smarts, the competitive drive, the accuracy, the generally good decisions with the football. Plus, I like his surrounding cast with Chubb, Johnson, Landry, Calloway, and the big tight end who’s name I can’t spell. Next season if they stay intact—the Browns should have a very solid offense. If I’m Dorsey, I’m looking for a home run threat receiver, another offensive lineman or two, and some more physicality on defense. I like their future.

Quite simply, the Browns need stability from their ownership and just some time together to learn how to win big games when it matters.

I like their future if ownership doesn’t screw it up.

The Browns have a very tough road assignment next week in Houston against a very good Texan team. But if the Browns play with some poise it wouldn’t shock me if they pulled off an upset.