Author: Mike

Great presser. I’ve come to savor Brady like a fine wine. I’d never heard the dog bite story before. I’ll go New England 23 – Philadelphia 20.

No DeMarcus Cousins. Absent also were Omar Asik, Jameer Nelson, and Tony Allen given they were traded to the Chicago Bulls. The Pelicans were playing with ten suited players on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And, yet, in the end it was the New Orleans Pelicans coasting to an easy 114-100 win over a Thunder team which showed little heart and mental toughness even if it was on the second night of a back to back. Tough teams fight thru back to backs. Tough teams don’t cave at home against a shorthanded team which was missing one of its two best players. Mentally tough teams fight thru things like this and accomplish goals in the goal achieving portion of the season.

Tough teams don’t cave in the aftermath of losing Andre Roberson. Tough teams have resolve.

Maybe Andre Roberson was the only mental toughness thread holding this basketball team together?

Maybe.

Oklahoma City fans can say what they want about Kevin Durant, but the Durant Era in Oklahoma City was marked with teams which played hard after a loss. Played hard as if they had something to prove. This basketball team doesn’t possess that trait. This team seems to feel they’re entitled. I’m tired of writing this.

The Thunder are now 1-3 without Andre Roberson and quite frankly look lost. This is a roster which has three future NBA Hall of Famers and an elite center in Steven Adams…and yet they can’t quite seem to figure the puzzle out without Andre Roberson. As a group they can’t seem to come to terms with the notion defense, effort, and grit do kind of matter.

But then again…neither can their coach.

I have no idea whatsoever what Billy Donovan is doing with his basketball team. Even Scott Brooks knew the axiom, it all starts with defense. All championship coaches know this. It all starts with defense. Period. And yet, we’ve now seen Alex Abrines play 52 minutes in these last two Thunder losses.

I’m not blaming Alex Abrines. I’m not doing that. It’s not his fault. It’s clearly Billy Donovan’s fault unless Sam Presti is telling him to do this. I’m blaming him. This won’t be the template for replacing Andre Roberson and any good high school high coach should know this. You don’t need another scorer with the Big Four, what you need are blue collar guys like Jerami Grant and Josh Huestis or Johnathon Simmons or someone else busting their asses doing the dirty work that Andre Roberson previously did night in and night out.

That’s what you need.

And to be fair, Russell Westbrook has looked really bad these last two games. Ignore the stats, Russell Westbrook in these last two games has imploded at the end of both games. Alex Abrines isn’t why OKC is 1-3 without Andre, from my view it’s on Russell Westbrook and Billy Donovan. If your superstar and your coach can’t bring their A games to the arena then your chances of success are greatly diminished.

I’m glad I had Anthony Davis on my NBA All-Star team to play the Warriors in that he absolutely torched the jelly roll soft Thunder to the tune of 43 points and 10 rebounds. E’twaun Moore is a nice player. He’s not one of those guys most fans know, but I remember him from his days at Purdue and on this night he scored 25 points and was the second best player on the court. Nice basketball player.

I have no rants left in me for this team or coach. I won’t make excuses for them like the Fox crew does or the young writers at newsok. You have a coach being paid $6 million a year and a roster being paid $130 million a year. You would hope some professional mental toughness could present itself without Andre Roberson there providing it.

I hope these guys realize that next Tuesday the basketball world will be watching when then they travel to Oakland to play the Warriors.

Because if we see the same Thunder we’ve seen in this 1-3 stretch so far without Andre, it will be ugly. Golden State will find that open man who gets wide open as a result of either Terrance Ferguson or Alex Abrines losing their man off the dribble. Golden State will break this Thunder defense without Andre Roberson and it could be ugly.

So.. if I’m Billy Donovan–my team is watching film tomorrow and my coaching staff is huddling up and figuring out the Alex Abrines Era in Oklahoma City isn’t going to be the answer to replacing Andre Roberson. That’s just not going to happen.

The Thunder host the Lakers on Sunday in the early afternoon ABC game.

Sometimes words aren’t really needed. This would be one of those times.

The final play of the game pretty much reflects the defensive effort given by the Thunder on Thursday night in a 127-124 road loss to the Nuggets. With 1.3 seconds left and coming out of a timeout and a side out inbounds, Russell Westbrook lost Gary Harris and allowed Harris to hit an open three point shot to send the Thunder to its second straight road loss.

This was a night which illuminates what the loss of Andre Roberson will mean to this ball club and what Billy Donovan’s limitations as a bench manager will mean as well.

Let’s not mince words. We all knew the loss of Roberson would be tough. I wrote as much. But I had no idea Billy Donovan would go full Rain Man mode and do something as inherently stupid as play Alex Abrines 29 minutes in an NBA basketball game. Twelve minutes is questionable, 29 minutes is a felony.

An NBA head coach has 240 minutes in a regulation game to orchestrate minutes and do it in a way which gives his team a chance to be successful. That’s part of the job description.

I had to leave the man room twice. And this was with the volume already turned down on the Fox telecast. Only God knows what I would have done to my flat screen if the volume had been turned up. Jesus Fucking Murphy….are you kidding me?

It just numbs the mind. Simply numbs the mind. Even if it was just a ploy to get some other NBA team to give the Thunder back a piece in return for Abrines in a trade—the Thunder needs wins to fight for a higher seed right now.

It would seem pretty simple to me even with Terrance Ferguson getting sick right before tip and only playing four minutes. Here’s what a coach does who knows he’s trying to reset his team’s defensive identity with the loss of Roberson.
What he does first is SHORTEN HIS FUCKING BENCH for this road game. Then, he looks to Jerami Grant and Josh Huestis on a night like this to absorb heavy minutes. They’re both young, give them some extended roll. See what they got inside them.

If you want to showcase Abrines for a possible trade do it in easier home games against the Pelicans and Lakers.

But no, what Billy Donovan opted to do was put his worst defender on his entire roster on the floor for 29 minutes against a Denver team which can shoot the three ball. And on this night Denver lit the three ball light 15 times with Gary Harris getting the game winner when Russell Westbrook didn’t stay with his man.

I mean, give yourself a chance. Calibrate your best defensive options on how to replace Andre Roberson’s defensive minutes. GIVE YOUR TEAM THE BEST OPTION FOR SUCCESS. That’s what coaches are supposed to do. If nothing else, limit your exposure to Abrines to home games against non-playoff teams. Fucking think about what you’re doing out there. Is that too much to ask?

On a bright note, Paul George was utterly fantastic scoring 43 points on a 19-26 shooting night. PG was great. Easily the best player on the floor last night. I loved when he barked after hitting the three which should have sent the game to overtime at 124 apiece.

So…this Thunder bunch is once again sagging and now 30-22 and have missed another glorious opportunity to draw near to the Spurs and Wolves by losing two games against teams they should have beaten.

Tonight, it’s the Pelicans at home without DeMarcus Cousins. What are we to expect? Thirty minutes from Alex Abrines?

Who would know…who would know?

But we know this… Billy Donovan can’t just buy his underwear from KMart in Cinncinatti, Ohio. That can’t happen because coaches in Oakland, Houston, San Antonio, and Minneapolis don’t just buy their underwear at KMart.

I honestly didn’t watch Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech. I don’t watch reality television shows.

The state of our union is very simple…it sucks. Our country cannot govern itself. We basically have three generals in essence babysitting a president and a government which cannot get anything done. Take away the nuclear confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and the Robber Baron Tax Reform Act and nothing has been done.
As per the Dave Chappelle Doctrine, I’m okay in that I have assets, as far as you Trump supporters who live month to month–you’re pretty much fucked unless you loaded up on Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Good luck with the Caligula-Elmer Gantry grifter rallies.

As far as the Dow, it moved from around 6,500 to 18,500 during Obama’s eight years. As far as job creation, after the financial crisis of 2008 was somewhat leveled out…the U.S. economy created around two hundred thousand jobs a month during the Obama recovery… which is about what the Trump economy is creating currently. As far as GDP…during the Obama years the GDP moved between 2% to 2.5% growth depending on the month. During the Trump presidency, there have been a few months of 3% GDP growth, but other months have hovered around the 2.5% marker.

As far as healthcare, nothing has been done except the mandates have been abolished. In no way has healthcare been addressed. Nothing has been done with America’s trade treaties. Nothing has been done with the Dreamers and immigration and as we all know…Mexico won’t be paying for the Wall-you people living month to month with shitty healthcare will pay for the Wall if it ever happens. Nothing has been done in regards to infrastructure. Oil has risen to $65 a barrel, yet the U.S. is still a net importer of oil even with the survival of the shale industry after the market assaults from the Saudis. We do actually export more natural gas and are a net exporter of this commodity, but as any person in Oklahoma should know–natural gas is a depressed commodity selling at half of what it needs to be selling at for it to have an impact on a state like Oklahoma which is governed by idiots. Coal is not coming back regardless of how many times Joe Manchin kisses Donald Trump’s ass. That isn’t happening.

As far as the national debt, $1.5 trillion over the coming years was just added to the $20 something trillion of debt which the U.S. was already carrying. Funny, how deficit hawks such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell had no problem with any of this.

ISIS has been somewhat subdued, but that was already taking place in the final year of Obama’s presidency. America is still waging war in Afghanistan seventeen years later and will not be leaving anytime soon. But Caligula did drop a bomb on an empty airfield in Syria.

America unilaterally pulled out of the Climate Change Accord and now sits with two third world countries on the roster of countries not buying into climate change, globalization, free trade, math, and science.

As far as how America is perceived by the rest of the world, for the first time in my lifetime the United States is not perceived as the beacon of democracy in the world. You can’t be the greatest democracy in the world if your president assaults the media, his own FBI director (Christopher Wray), his own Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) and his own party in power (the GDP).

The only thing you can be perceived of is a country which has gone bat fuck crazy and is being governed by the American Freedom Caucus a.k.a the Tea Party. Is there anyway Sarah Palin might be available?

Our government will probably close for the second time in less than a month on February 8th. Nothing will be done about the Dreamers, which is somewhat poetic in that the American Dream is currently on hold except for a miniscule portion of the American population.

But, hey, I’m okay. Dave Chappelle is okay. We’ll just let you Darwinian free market thinkers who voted for Donald Trump figure it out on your own.

Good luck with that.

The night just had a weird feel to it from the get go. As the Thunder were playing the Wizards in D.C.–Caligula was addressing the Roman Senate as to the state of the Union. The state of the Union is fairly simple, on February 8th, for the second time in less than month, the U.S. government will most likely shut down again. There’s your state of the union.

But the basketball game was just kind of blah. You had the feeling from early on the Thunder were running on empty and the fumes just weren’t going to be there in the end to make enough plays to beat the Wizards even though they were without their best player in John Wall. It wasn’t like the Wizards really did all that much, they just survived at the end with OKC handing them a win which Scott Brooks was in serious need of. Billy Donovan… Scott Brooks says thank you very much.

The final score was 102-96 and in reality the Thunder still could have won this game in this last minute, but just kind of deflated. And it in no way had anything to do with Andre Roberson not being there because the Wizards for the game struggled from the field and beyond the arc shooting the ball. They almost shot the ball as poorly as the Thunder did in fact.

Just so we’re clear, Alex Abrines played an unimaginable 12:32 and was +9. So, it’s not like I can even blame Billy Donovan for enabling Sam Presti with this whole thing about making the Abrines deal work because it was part of the Harden trade package the Thunder got from the Rockets. Even I can’t do that on my rogue blog.

If you want to blame someone for this loss, it’s pretty much squarely on the shoulders of Russell Westbrook…as in he had a bad night. Bad Little Dude looked worn out to me. All the chest pumping and fuck yous to Joel Embiid on Sunday appeared to have emptied his tank. In what was an otherwise MVP month of January for Westbrook–he pretty much sucked against the Wizards going 5/18 from the field and committing 7 turnovers against a white guy with a name I’m not even familiar with. As a team, the Thunder shot 37.8% from the field and committed 21 turnovers. That will get you beat against the Sacramento Kings or Atlanta Hawks. Storyline.

So what I’m saying is…this was one of those weird nights that while Caligula was addressing the nation Alex Abrines outplayed Russell Westbrook. Too bad Joel Embiid doesn’t read my blog cause he’d be grinning his ass off right now.

Fuck it, the streak is over. That’s the life of an NBA regular season. The Thunder end the month of January at 10-4 which is acceptable. You move on, you get a breathe of fresh air and reset for the month of February.

I mean, let’s be candid here, the NBA minus Golden State doesn’t have a great team per se. And the only reason they have a great team is Jerry West stole Kevin Durant from Sam Presti. What I’m saying here… there’s no reason OKC can’t or shouldn’t be a Top Six team in this league even with the loss of Andre Roberson.

OKC at Denver on Thursday night. The Thunder need to get a win and start another streak. It’s that simple…even if it’s just a mini streak leading into February 6th in Oakland.

I was going to write today on how Jerami Grant, Josh Huestis, and Terrance Ferguson are going to have to by committee replace Andre Roberson for the duration of this season, but then I saw this trade the Clippers and the Detroit Pistons just made and I think I’ll pass on the initial thought.

So…Jerry West and Lawrence Frank just traded Blake Griffin and his newly signed massive contract to the Detroit Pistons in return for Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanovic, and two draft picks. DeAndre Jordan is expected to be traded as well before the deadline as is Lou Williams. So, it’s clear what Jerry West has decided is that this season is over for the Clippers and with all this cap space they just created they plan on some major free agent acquisitions.

Which of course makes me think of Paul George the Cali youngster who grew up as a Clipper fan. Jerry West is in the process of doing a makeover of the Clippers. He has realized they made a huge mistake with the contract they gave to Blake Griffin this summer. What he realized is that even though Blake was the face of his franchise, he’s not a player who can be the ‘guy’ for a championship level team.

Blake Griffin has become a Cali guy since he left the Sooners. He loves the beach. Now he finds himself in Detroit with Andre Drummond and the minimalist Reggie Jackson. Maybe Blake will find himself in Detroit. We’ll see.

But from a Thunder perspective–what Jerry West now has in his possession as a possible trade for Sam Presti does indeed draw my interest.

Tobias Harris is a swing player who’s having the best season of his career. Avery Bradley is a guard who defends like Andre Roberson, but who can actually shoot the basketball. Both of these guys alongside of Westbrook and Adams would be interesting to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I want Paul George to stay. I love him as a player, but with February 8th looming and still no word of a contract between the Thunder and Paul George…I’m just thinking to myself what would a trade look like which sends Paul George and Alex Abrines to the Clippers for Tobias Harris, Lou Williams rental, and Detroit’s first round draft pick.

Just a thought.

Eighteen days ago, after a brutal loss to Minnesota, the Thunder had lost three games in succession to Phoenix, Portland, and Minnesota. It was an ugly, almost completely unwatchable stretch of basketball. In all three losses, Billy Donovan cleared his bench early and waved the white flag. In my mind, it was the worse three games in a row in the Thunder era in Oklahoma City. It had a PJ Carlisemo feel to it. It really did.

But since that fateful stretch of games, OKC has won eight games in a row and saved their season. It would not be a crazy statement to say right now the four teams in the NBA playing the best ball are Golden State, Oklahoma City, Houston, and Boston. That wouldn’t be crazy talk. My NBA Power Poll would be those four teams plus the Cleveland Cavs and Toronto Raptors as the six teams in the league with a ‘chance’ to win the championship this season. I cannot believe I’m writing this in that on January 10th after the loss to Minnesota–I wrote that the Thunder had no chance to win the Northwest Division, let alone the O’Brien Trophy.

But here the Thunder sit eighteen days later as winners of eight straight letting it be known they could actually be the second best team in the entire NBA heading towards February. One could even make the call the Thunder are currently playing the best ball in the league right now. One could say that with a straight face.

A team which three weeks ago looked like they didn’t care enough or feign interest in half of their games is now playing with a chip on their collective shoulders and is on fire. The Thunder are now 10-3 in the month of January and 22-8 overall since December 1st.

On Sunday evening inside Chesapeake Energy Arena, the Thunder had every excuse to be a no show. It was their third game in four nights and the second game in a back to back with the imagery of Andre Roberson pulling himself along the floor still raw in their minds. A heartless performance very well would have happened perhaps three weeks ago, but not on this night, not with this Thunder.

Instead this Thunder fought, bled, scratched, and clawed their way to their eighth straight win with a rousing 122-112 win over the trash talking Sixers. It was simply a helluva game with an energized crowd which was of course energized by the reigning MVP…Russell Westbrook. Bad Little Dude was once again incredible as he went for 37 points, 9 rebounds, 14 assists, and multiple chest pumps and ‘fuck yous’ to the Philly bench. It was as good as anything we saw last year when Westbrook weaved magic upon the basketball world in breaking Oscar’s record.

More to the point, since December 1st, there’s no reason to rule out Russell Westbrook from this season’s MVP race if the Thunder continue their upward spiral. Tell me who’s been better or more valuable to his team than Westbrook in this stretch of 22-8 ball? The answer is… no one. Russell Westbrook has been the best player in the league for the last sixty days or so.

But it’s not just Westbrook. Paul George started playing with a consistent edge. Carmelo figured out his role and has made the transition from not being the best player on a bad team to being the third or fourth best player on a championship contender. And then there’s Steven Adams. In these last sixty days– Steven Adams has emerged as one of the elite centers in the league.

But what would OKC do without their defensive stopper in Andre Roberson for the first time since the win streak started against the Sixers in this game? What they did was bear down, play mentally tough as one, and find ways as a team to beat a good Philadelphia team. A playoff caliber Philly team.

Combined, OKC’s Big Four combined for 102 points. The only other Big Four in the league right now resides in Oakland. And don’t think the Thunder and their fans haven’t been salivating to play the Warriors twice in the month of February since the Thunder’s blowout win on November 22nd. If OKC takes care of business between now and then the best two teams in the NBA could conceivably be playing each other on February 6th.

This will give the Billy Donovan four more games to figure out how best to redistribute Andre Roberson’s minutes between Terrance Ferguson, Josh Huestis, and Jerami Grant. Again, Alex Abrines is a non-starter for me in this conversation–he shouldn’t be on the floor except as an occasional three point specialist in very narrow windows of play. He cannot defend without fouling.

On this night–Terrance Ferguson struggled while both Jerami Grant and Josh Huestis looked equal to the task. Especially Jerami Grant—who I thought played one of his better games of the season. I would think this will be a continual process where Billy Donovan tinkers with combinations of minutes depending on the night and the opponent.

So… here we sit fifty games in and the Thunder have revealed themselves to not be frauds. At this moment they are the hottest team in the league playing like a team with something to prove to the world.

Tuesday night in Washington D.C. the Thunder go for their 9th in a row versus the Wizards.

A season has been saved. The expectations have been reset. Being a Thunder fan is a special feeling again.

Winning is fun.

I like what I’ve seen from Ferguson to date. I like his body, his athleticism, his skill set, and his attitude. This is ahead of schedule from the role he was expected to fill this season, but injuries happen and it’s next man up.

Next man up.

You win championships with defense. That’s where it starts. Golden State is a really good defensive team when it matters, Houston not so much. That might be one of the reasons the Warriors are where they are and were there even before Durant joined them.

You’ll notice in this video Andre makes plays against the best players in the world with regularity. He’s OKC’s best defensive player and Russell Westbrook’s partner in offensive transition. Big shoes to fill.