Author: Mike

So…as I’m sitting there watching the OKC Tre Cupcakes on Saturday night in a do or die game against the league record best Houston Rockets–I’m thinking to myself what the has gotten into these guys?

I mean…for seventy-nine game they’ve played like the biggest competitive pussies I’ve ever witnessed in a lifetime filled with playing sports, coaching sports, and watching sports. So really what got into these guys on Saturday night?

I don’t actually know. Maybe they got fired up watching Patrick Reed and Rory going toe to toe–chin to chin during an epic third round of the Masters. Maybe Nick Collison pulled them aside and said some things challenging them as men. Or maybe Russell Westbrook watched some film of what Maurice Cheeks looked like playing the point guard position in 1983 when Mo led the Dr. J, Moses Malone, and my Sixers to an NBA Championship.

I’m going to go with No. 3 in that despite all the negative things I’ve written of late in regards to the OKC Tre Cupcakes at heart I’m an optimist. I’m going to assume Russell Westbrook took a piece of Maurice Cheek’s basketball heart and finally decided within himself that to date this OKC Thunder season has been absolute bullshit and couldn’t take it any more.

I’m going with No.3.

In a game the Thunder absolutely had to have in order to avoid being tabbed as the biggest joke of the basketball season–OKC’s Thunder finally showed up.

And it was beautiful in that they competed like a bunch of junkyard dogs with a collective chip on their shoulder.

It was a collective team effort, but most of all it was Russell Westbrook being Mo Cheeks shutting down James Harden with his lockdown defense. It was like watching Westbrook back at his days at UCLA when he was one of college basketball’s best defenders instead of a pretty boy triple double stat boy. In a word..it was like watching Maurice Cheeks in his prime.

Russell Westbrook stepped up and shut down James Harden in the fourth period. Do you know what something like that does to a team when they finally see the team’s star take that approach on defense? It makes them want to play at that level as well. That’s what it does.

And lo and behold… the Thunder followed Westbrook’s lead on a night when the team showed some grit, showed some passion, but most all showed a competitive heart.

Even Carmelo showed it. Paul George showed it. Jerami friggin Grant had it pouring out of his veins. And my frilly Euro boy Alex Abrines continued to snarl, to scratch, to claw, and to bleed a little bit. Who would have thought back in December I would fall in love with Alex Abrines as a basketball player, but strange things can happen to a man when he has to watch 79 games of bullshit to finally witness a ‘possible’ sliver of light at the end of a tunnel of shit.

So this win means the Thunder will probably make the playoffs. That’s it. I have no idea if the Thunder Tre Cupcakes can embrace this as a game to game thing moving forward.

Only Russell Westbrook and his father would know. Because there is an option No. 4–that being Russell Westbrook’s father challenged his son to step up.

Why would I even guess something like this?

Because as a father who has a son the exact same age as Russell Westbrook — I could have seen myself telling my son ..step the fuck up or shut up.

Russell Westbrook stepped up.

The Thunder at the Miami Heat on Monday evening.

These last twelve games of the Thunder’s regular season were supposed to be the last stand. This string of games in when OKC would show what they’re made of and define their season as contender over pretender.

As we wait for tonight’s game in Houston the Thunder are 3-6 so far in these twelve games. It all started beautifully with a home win over the Clippers and a rousing road win over the Raptors. But from that point forward, the Thunder have lost six of their last seven and are losers of five games in a row.

Pretenders…I would say.

With the next two games being on the road against Houston and Miami there is the very real possibility these pretender Thunder could be 3-8 heading into the regular season’s home finale versus the tanking Memphis Grizzlies.

The Thunder now sit precariously perched as the No. 7 seed in the West and face the very real possibility of not making the playoffs with this Sam Presti Super Team.

I’m not even sure how I feel about it truth be known. Even if they make the playoffs there’s no way I’m going to spend money on playoff tickets to watch this team in person any longer this season. This will mark the first time in the Thunder era in Oklahoma City I haven’t attended NBA playoff basketball in person.

And let me be clear–my attitude isn’t based merely on the Thunder’s record, but more to the point…their attitude. I have no respect for this Thunder team. I have no respect for their competitive or shall I say non-competitive approach to this basketball season.

Quite frankly, they appear to not give a shit at times. Plus, I’m tired of the two and a half stars and their repetitive bullshit as to when this season might actually kick in at some point. Clue to the Thunder Big Three…the Masters golf tournament is going on this week-end and apparently your season still hasn’t begun.

In all candor, this Thunder team doesn’t deserve to be playing in the playoffs. They are not worthy of advancing. They just aren’t.

This is a Thunder team which is 5-11 against teams from its own Northwest Division. This is a Thunder team which is the 29th ranked team in the NBA in shooting free throws. This is a Thunder team which has lost games against Dallas twice, Orlando, New York, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Sacramento.

But as I wrote before and what to me is the most glaring sin is their non-committal effort to their craft while as a group drawing a salary of 134 million. Note to Clay Bennett—you could have given that money to Oklahoma teachers and actually done something worthwhile for the state. You should have saved some coin and gone 47-35 again with Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis instead of trying to win a pissing in the wind Super Team contest with the Warriors.

How many teachers in Oklahoma could you pay with Carmelo’s salary of $26 million this year? Based on the new teachers’ deal which they should of course take — I think that comes out roughly to 520 Oklahoma school teachers for Carmelo Anthony’s take for this season of play… but which of course still hasn’t started as of the Master’s golf week-end.

That very first Thunder team which went 23-59 is in fact one of my favorite Oklahoma City Thunder teams. They were young. They were innocent. They worked their asses off for Scott Brooks and gave me a good feeling in my heart. My heart aches for that team right now even with just 23 wins.

But this team does nothing for me.

Absolutely nothing.

I’m a fair guy at heart. I was tough on Alex Abrines earlier this season as I called him frilly and soft. I said he wasn’t worthy of being in the rotation.

But I was wrong. Since that home court disaster loss to the Milwaukee Bucks–Abrines has worked his tail off and become what I would call a viable NBA player.

His defense has become worlds better. His lateral movement has improved markedly. His overall defensive toughness has gone from a soft Euro to a decent NBA player.

But even more importantly—he’s been scoring the ball as well.

Alex Abrines deserves to be in Billy Donovan’s nine man rotation as the Thunder enter post season play. It’s time for the rookie Ferguson to sit and time to reward Abrines on with minutes since this team is such a horrid three point shooting team and needs shooting.

Alex Abrines is trending and in a good way.

Donovan should shave some of Carmelo’s minutes and start giving them to Abrines, Jerami Grant, and Pat Patterson depending on who’s hitting shots on a given night.

Carmelo should be given 22 minutes a night. If his play warrants it—then he gets fed more minutes. Carmelo is not an elite NBA player. He was an elite NBA player and it’s time either a coach or a general manager explain this to him in a subtle private setting. But again, on those nights when he’s able to move and be an asset.. feed him minutes. If not–limit his exposure.

My nine man rotation goes in this order…1 Westbrook, 2 Paul George, 3 Steven Adams, 4 Carmelo Anthony, 5 Corey Brewer, 6 Ray Felton, 7 Jerami Grant, 8 Alex Abrines, and 9 Pat Patterson. An NBA coach has to orchestrate 240 minutes of playing time in a regulation game. Little league at the Girl’s North Edmond Soccer League time is over. Billy Donovan needs to tighten it up and get with it.

Some of the Thunder fans were still booing Kevin Durant last night in a 111-107 home loss to the Golden State Warriors. Shame on every one of them. Seriously.

This was a night when some booing might have been in order, but if a person sitting inside of the Peake was going to boo their boos should have been directed at various Thunder players or a head coach or maybe even a general manager.

But to continue to boo Kevin Durant is beyond stupid because every time you watch this Thunder team play another game this season it validates Durant’s decision to leave OKC as fairly smart from a basketball standpoint.

In a regular season of NBA play in Oklahoma City marked by massive underachievement, this game may stand upon others as a prime example of a franchise which has itself viewed as being much, much better than it is from multiple standpoints.

Who would I have booed first if I were actually in attendance last night?

I would have booed Billy Donovan first for being stupid enough to allow Carmelo Anthony to have 36 minutes of playing time on a night in which he couldn’t have hit the Pacific Ocean if he were standing next to it.

I then would have booed Carmelo Anthony for not being a stand up guy on this team long ago and having helped Billy Donovan understand his role on this team should be much smaller.

I would have booed Paul George for playing like he was already back in Los Angeles in this game and in essence leaving Russell Westbrook by himself to keep this game as remarkably close as it was.

On a night where Golden State didn’t have Steph Curry, Iguodala, or Shawn Livingston—Sam Presti’s two big pickups from this summer went a combined 9-35 from the field and a combined 3-18 shooting threes. Carmelo was especially feeble in going 0-9 from distance.

What’s next for Sam Presti? Maybe trading Westbrook for Ginobli and Tony Parker this summer?

But I’m not going to boo Russell Westbrook. Because Westbrook played his ass off on a night when in reality you might have to say Alex Abrines of all people might have been the Thunder’s second best player on the floor.

I’ve never booed Durant and I will never boo Russell Westbrook. Period.

So some of you dumbasses who attend games at the Peake and who probably never followed the NBA much at all previous pre-Hurricane Katrina need to rise above your limited NBA exposure and smarten up NBA wise.

Because if you’re going to boo at least be smart enough to boo the appropriate parties.

As I wrote yesterday before the game it doesn’t matter where the Thunder end up seeding wise because they’ll beat themselves eventually, but it’s extremely unlikely they will beat a viable playoff contender four times in a two week period.

You know, the Thunder host the Golden State Warriors tonight and I’m honestly not stoked all that much. I hope the OKC fans don’t evoke the Cupcake chant and have come to terms with things so to speak.

The reality of the Thunder is they’re just not that good. Consider this, this is a team which lost Andre Roberson for the season and yet somehow became an even worse team shooting free throws than they were last year.

Consider the enormity of the above paragraph and you have this Thunder season in a proverbial nutshell.

It might have been iconic OCU coach Abe Lemons who once uttered this basketball proverb, but regardless of the source, it is a golden platitude of post season basketball at any level.

It states: “Teams which can’t make free throws are like dogs who play in the street–neither last very long.”

So as we near the sentencing segment of the this Thunder basketball season those Abe Lemons words I will hold close to my basketball heart knowing this group of Thunder out patients aren’t long for this basketball world being they’re the 29th worst team in the NBA in making free throws.

I’m not even at this point interested in which seed the Thunder fall in as in I don’t think it matters because the Thunder are their own toughest team on the schedule every night.

Seriously, if you divided the Thunder into two teams and they played each other do you really think either team would be able to win four games in two weeks?

Hell, Barry Tramel would be inside Chesapeake waiting until August for that to happen.

Way back early in the season I compared this team to Little Miss Sunshine, but thinking at some point they would grow beyond their dysfunction and that Billy Donovan would earn his $6 million and somewhat display the presence of a coach in a charge.

I was wrong. None of that happened.

These people have worn me out even almost as much as the Trump people except for the fact Thunder fans can’t affect the U.S. Treasury or start wars.

Anyway, Golden State at OKC tonight, but Toronto is at Cleveland as well at the same time.

Know what I mean?

By pure accident, I once ran into Abe Lemons in his front yard of all places, with him wearing his white bath robe trying to fix the tiny hose on his windshield wipers which squirts out water. He asked me to help him fix the hose and I did. One hour later–I had experienced the funniest conversation of my lifetime with another human being.

I did actually have Villanova winning the national championship on my bracket sheet. Only thing is…I had them either playing Virginia or North Carolina in winning their third national championship.

Villanova was the one obvious pick and Jay Wright’s squad held true in routing Mo Wagner and Michigan by a 79-62 count on Monday night in San Antonio.

The Big 12 was a little bit better than I thought they were in getting four teams to the Sweet 16. I had three Big 12 teams getting there, but not K State. I had Kansas getting beat in the Elite 8 game versus Duke–so I thought it was a good tournament for the Big 12.

The PAC 12 was horrific. The ACC had a bad tournament with Virginia, North Carolina, and Duke all torching. The SEC wasn’t much. To me, the storylines were Villanova, Sister Jean, and the Big 12 showing itself as the most balanced conference in this year’s tournament.

But Villanova was the one constant and they won their third national championship in the modern era on Monday night with relative ease as Donte D stole the show over Mo Wagner with an epic 31 point performance.

It was Easter. The Thunder game in New Orleans was not one of my top priorities as family and personal reflection took center stage over the basketball game.

I’m not suffering anymore with this team. This is their team and their legacy as players. I’ll watch, but I won’t be venting and ranting anymore.

This isn’t life or death. These guys are pro basketball players and it’s not like they do meaningful things for society like teach, nurse, or protect society from harm. You would hope a collective pride would manifest itself, but I’m not holding my breath anymore.

Anyway… a relatively big win for the Thunder on Sunday afternoon on the road in New Orleans by a 109-104 count which snaps a three game losing streak.

The Thunder improve to 45-33 with four games remaining and are currently clinging to the No. 5 seed in the West. You would think these guys would do everything possible to avoid a first round matchup with either Houston or Portland.

Oddly, and this may sound crazy, but I actually think a first round series against a Warriors team without Steph Curry could possibly be interesting.

In this game Westbrook, George, Adams, and Melo combined for 84 points. Jerami Grant played well again, but the rest of the Thunder bench struggled.

Westbrook and Paul combined to go 14-17 from the free throw line which is something the Thunder will need from these two if they are to be competitive in the playoffs.

Four games left and if the Thunder split the four games they finish with an identical record of 47-35 just like last season.

Golden State visits on Tuesday night and who would really know what these Thunder will do against a Warriors team which is locked in as the No. 2 seed regardless of how they finish the regular season.

I think little about the Paul George situation anymore in that I assume he’s probably going to leave unless this Thunder team does something in post season which would be a deviation from the norm this basketball season.

But you never know. Maybe they’ll start making free throws and playing like they care…or maybe they won’t.

That’s a horrible thing for me to write about this team, but it’s just the way I feel about them. I don’t respect this team for their body of work this season. I detest their mental laziness.

But I trudge on with the death knell basketball season march.

Golden State in OKC on Tuesday night.

How ironic it would be if these two teams somehow meet in the first round.

Amid a season where there’s been an FBI probe investigating the corrupt nature of big time college basketball–Sister Jean and Chicago Loyola have advanced to the Final Four as an 11th seed.

What a nice story.

I have no idea if they can beat Michigan today, but what a nice story.

Morphine. I need some morphine if I’m going to make it to the conclusion of this Thunder basketball season.

I can’t lie and I won’t. Never in my life has a team sucked the joy and passion like this from me. This isn’t a basketball season–it’s torture chamber.

This season has become like a death knell for me. Part of me says fuck it—you don’t have to watch this bullshit anymore. But the competitive part of me won’t allow that degree of quitting even though I’d like to be the one personally who doused this team in diesel and lit a match.

I wonder if it’s felony to catch an NBA team on fire in Oklahoma?

The diva lab Pauli keeps her eyes closed during the games and flaps her ears over in a cute way where she can’t hear me screaming. My wife makes sure before every tip there aren’t any objects near me I could shear the flat screen with. Some of my neighbors at this point must think I’ve killed some people over here, but must be afraid to call the police.

But thank god—there’s only five games left. And maybe, perhaps, with divine intervention–this group of basketball misfits Sam Presti saw fit to pay $134 million dollars will somehow miss the playoffs and allow me to focus on the Philadelphia 76’ers and Boston Bruins.

But I can’t quit at this point. This has become personal with me even after this loss to a blah Denver team. But here’s the thing, when you go 15-27 from the free throw line — it’s hard to win a basketball game even at the high school level.

But by the grace of God there are no more Thunder games in March. Only five games remain in April if Billy Donovan doesn’t change some things.

I can see in his eyes…he’s dying just like me with every game.

Like me—I think he wants to get this death knell march over and pretend it never happened.

The Thunder at New Orleans on Easter afternoon.

I can’t do this today. I need to take a break from writing about this basketball team for a day. I have no rants left inside of me. If I were their coach I would have been throwing chairs in the locker room and setting the North American records for F bombs dropped in a minute.

I’m empty right now.

At some point words are meaningless when the team you’re blogging about doesn’t have any character as a team. In no way am I including Steven Adams and Ray Felton in that statement.

Maybe they’ll play better tonight against Denver and I can compose myself.
The Thunder host the Denver Nuggets tonight at the Peake.

In no way would I blame Clay Bennett for not showing up and having to watch the game tonight.

Go Boston Bruins!