Author: Mike

Tough. Tough to watch the play which took Andre Roberson down. Even tougher to watch the immediate aftermath as his teammates came to his side with looks which told it all. That being, Andre Roberson’s season is most likely over with what is being speculated as a ruptured patellar tendon injury. I won’t put the video of the injury on my blog. I can’t watch it again. I won’t.

Westbrook, Adams, and Andre are the core three of this team for Thunder fans who know anything. No, Andre isn’t part of the elite thing called the Big Three, but for those of us who never miss Thunder games, we know what just happened. What happened is OKC just lost the soul of its defensive identity and one of the best defenders in the NBA. OKC lost the player who would have guarded James Harden in the playoffs or Klay Thompson or Jimmy Butler or Andre Wiggins or at times even Kevin Durant.

What OKC will lose if indeed this is a season ending injury—is a major piece of its team. But more than that, it lost for this season a solid human. A player who without fanfare did his job. A guy his teammates and coaches love. And if you’re a knowledgeable fan–you know the season and the manner in which Billy Donovan coaches this team just took a big hit. Billy Donovan just lost his blue collar junkyard dog defender who does so many little things which don’t show up on a box score it’s pointless to list them all.

Some might say OKC will be a better offensive team with I’m to presume Terrance Ferguson starting in place of Roberson. Good luck with that. So much of what Roberson does on the defensive end enables OKC to get in transition and gives Russell Westbrook and Paul George time to breathe and get their space in transition. Basketball is like hockey in that offense is started by what you do on the defensive end of the floor in transition in breakout mode. From this point forward, Billy Donovan will have to rethink somewhat how he’s going to coach this team the remaining 33 games of the regular season and beyond into the playoffs. Especially, the playoffs where the pace of the game slows a bit and individual matchups are highlighted even more than in regular season games.

I’d probably start Terrance Ferguson and use Josh Huestis more minutes to try and deal with this Andre-less situation coming down the stretch. Billy Donovan might have to use them as a situational tandem of sorts. But that’s would I do. In no way does this have me bringing Alex Abrines back on the floor for anything beyond spot minutes here and there as a three point specialist. Go nine with the rotation with Abrines as a floater sub and pray. But I’d shorten my rotation to nine.

What a bummer recap. The Thunder won their 7th straight in Detroit by a score of 121-108 to improve to 29-20 for the season. Wouldn’t you know it, just as it appeared the ‘turn’ to the season finally occurred this happened. But there is a silver lining. As I watched the aftermath of Andre’s injury with him laying there what I observed was a close team. A group of guys who seem to care for one another and have fought through this season of ups and downs and developed a sense of respect for one another. That’s what I saw. That’s good. This isn’t like in Cleveland where the team is shitting on each other. It made me feel good about the team. It gave me hope about the character of the team.

No rest for the weary. The Thunder host the Sixers tomorrow in Oklahoma City. That’s the way the NBA works. It’s a grind. Terrance Ferguson gets an even bigger opportunity than when Andre sat some games earlier this season with a sore knee. But this time, it isn’t a fill in spot, it’s for the rest of the season just as the Thunder were hitting their stride. Terrance Ferguson and Josh Huestis have big shoes to fill. Billy Donovan has to change the nuance of his team.

But again, as tough a day as it was in Detroit, the thing which gives me hope is what I saw from the team as one… and three weeks ago I didn’t know if that was possible with this team.

Come even closer together as a team. Next guy up. That guy is Terrance Ferguson and it’s his time. Pull together and figure it out.

Beat Philadelphia.

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Get well, Andre. As a fan base we love you and what you stand for. Seriously. Our prayers are with you.

I think we’re headed for some very tumultuous days in the coming months. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to state a constitutional crisis is looming. Perhaps, the greatest challenge since the Civil War and the preservation of the Union.

The Russians meddled in our election. It does remain debatable whether the Russians by themselves defeated Hillary Clinton, but they definitely mettled in the election.

The aftermath must delight the Russians.

We elected an immoral human junk bond. Our institutions have run a ground. We can only confirm a Supreme Court justice with a nuclear confirmation. We cannot come to terms with a budget. The Republican Party after wholeheartedly endorsing Robert Mueller as a special prosecutor is now probably going to leave him hanging on his own findings. Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy have done the unthinkable…they actually have made Ted Cruz look like a decent human being.

We sit on a cusp per se of historical tumult.

The Dems better find themselves a spokesman and in a hurry because in essence the midterms in the House will probably decide the direction this country takes moving forward.

If only the Paul Newman character Frank Galvin were running for a Senate seat in 2018. This is something akin to what the Dems closing statement should be as the country heads towards November.

I honestly try to ignore Donald Trump as much as possible. He’s not a person I ever took seriously before or after his ascendancy to the presidency. I don’t blame the Russians. I don’t blame James Comey. I blame the 60 million or so who voted for this human junk bond. That’s who I blame. Donald Trump had sixty million co-conspirators. How these people choose to rationalize their vote is up to them as they deal with the issues of if they actually believe in anything beyond having control of the Supreme Court and/or allowing America’s richest to get a tax break when for the previous eight years all we heard was in reference to the debt and being deficit hawks. So much for that.

So…yesterday a story written by Maggie Haberman from the NY Times was published citing four sources. The story asserts that our boy Caligula ‘ordered’ the firing of Robert Mueller by White House legal counsel Don McGahn in June of 2017. McGahn threatened to quit before doing this and Caligula’s handlers walked their puppet back down off the ledge of stupidity.
Now, in essence with the filmed admission of obstruction of justice which Caligula freely admitted to in the Lester Holt interview –there’s this. Ya think Bob Mueller will have or already has a deposed version of this from a lawyer named Don McGahn?

Anyway, for the sake of history and something to log on here in reference to Caligula’s Rise and Fall….here’s Anthony Scaramucci trying to clean up after Donald Trump. You can have all the law degrees in the world from Harvard, but if your client is unrepresentable then it doesn’t matter. You just have a really bad client.

Jimmy Kimmel will have Ivanaka look alike porn star Stormy Daniels on his show the night of the State of the Union. I’m sure the Christian Coalition and Family Values crowd will be watching. Who knows..maybe even the Boy Scouts of America will be filming it for a lead in to Caligula’s next address to the Boy Scouts of America Jamboree.

There are no style points in this NBA. Every night is a different script per se. But on this night inside Chesapeake Energy Arena, the script was simple…Russell Westbrook took his team by the reigns and led them to a wire to wire 121-112 win over the Washington Wizards.

On this night, it was vintage Westbrook. It was MVP Westbrook. It was a Westbrook who despite not being an All-Star Starter this season..is one of the game’s top five players. Explain that to me, how one of the game’s top five players isn’t an All-Star starter? You can’t. The answer is simple–the All-Star game is a joke. That’s the answer.

Anyway, Westbrook scored a season high 46 points on a 19-29 shooting night. Twenty-one of his points came in the forth period as Rickey Vaughn went 9-11 shooting the basketball. But on this night, Westbrook wasn’t just the closer. More to the point, he was the starter, the middle reliever, and the closer.

Bradley Beal, a Sam Presti covet from way back to his Florida Gator days with Billy Donovan, had 41 points for the Wizards despite being kicked in the balls by Steven Adams. Go figure.

The win propels the Thunder to a season best 28-20 mark. It is the Thunder’s sixth straight win and keeps them in touch with Minnesota and San Antonio in the standings.

Paul George and Carmelo both had quiet nights going a combined 10-30 from the field. Steven Adams double doubled with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Ray Felton was solid. Jerami Grant looked better offensively going 3-4 from the field. Terrance Ferguson played 24 minutes and scored 11 points on a 3-6 night from beyond the arc. I thought it was Ferguson’s second best performance as a pro. The Alex Abrines experiment is over. Terrance Ferguson has become a piece of the rotation.

The Thunder move forward into January with an 8-3 mark. The six game win streak is the league’s current longest streak.

While LeBron and the Cavs seem on the verge of anarchy, Russell Westbrook is making his sales pitch to Paul George to become his permanent Thunder buddy. It’s a goofy league. Some of it makes no sense. But right now the Thunder are trending…and in the right direction.

The Thunder are in Detroit on Saturday for a 4:00pm start to play the struggling Pistons.

LET’S GO THUNDER!

First off, the NBA All-Star Game is something I pay as little attention to as possible except for the dunk and three point contests. Otherwise, it’s not worth watching. It’s a piece of junk where as a fan I worry that a Thunder player could actually get injured and miss time coming out of the break.

Putting that aside, I’m to assume the goal of the game is to highlight the best twenty-five or so players in the world and showcase them to the world in this gala Oscar-like production.

Okay. In my view the OKC Thunder has two maybe three players on their roster who I would easily rank in my Top 13 players of the league if I were a GM and putting a real team together for a real seven game series against say…the Golden State Warriors this post season.

After watching Paul George for 47 games, from my acute Thunder view, Paul George would easily make this thirteen man team. In fact, he would be one of the most valuable components of my team. My only complaint of Paul George as a Thunder fan is that he has coasted at times this season in games against lesser teams. But when the Thunder have played Golden State, Houston, Cleveland, Toronto, and Boston (first half) he’s been stellar. In the marquee games he’s been one of the best players in the league displaying his overall versatility. When Paul George brings his A game, in a word–it is breathtaking.

His stats this season are All-Star worthy even though the Thunder’s 27-20 record seems to be more of an indictment of him than is probably fair.

His stats are solid… 20.9 points a game, 5.6 rebounds a game, 3 assists a game, 2.1 steals a game (leads the league), and a PER rating of 18.3, 42.2% shooting the three ball. If I were a GM asked to put together a team of All-Stars to beat Golden State–Paul George would probably rank in my top five most valuable pieces to beat the punk Warriors.

So… who would be on my 13 man team to beat the Warriors?

I’ll rank in order of value my from my view.

1 LeBron
2 Kyrie
3 Russell (2&3 interchange with me but I didn’t want to be viewed as a homer)
4 Paul George
5 Kawhi (when healthy)
6 James Harden (Sixth Man, ha)
7 Crazy Greek Boy
8 Anthony Davis
9 Al Horford
10 Jimmy Butler
11 Steven Adams
12 Clint Capela
13 Aaron Gordon

This would be my roster. At times–Westbrook and Kyrie would not be on the floor together. At times they would, at times they wouldn’t. When together–I want Kyrie at the point and Russell as my tough, rugged hybrid guard using his physicality to back people down. I want both of them exploiting Steph Curry on the defensive end every time they can within the flow of the game. I want James Harden as my Sixth Man. I’ll use combinations of LeBron and Paul George to wear Cupcake down. I’ll make Durant work his ass off every second on the defensive end when he’s on the floor. I’ll put a healthy Kawhi on Klay Thompson or maybe use to Kawhi to grind some on Curry as well when he’s the hybrid guard. You notice I have Adams and Capela on my team. I want two different centers with completely different skill sets to give me what ever I need against the Warriors whether I play big or small. My bench of Harden, Crazy Greek Boy, AD, Butler, and Horford will not allow Steve Kerr much if any breathing space with his suspect bench. Aaron Gordon is my floater. He gives me roster flexibility depending on the flow of the game.

I like my team. I’d love to coach this team with Nick Collison and I think we’d kick the Warriors’ ass in five games.

This is the what the NBA All-Star Game should be. This matchup would hold my interest.

No one has been tougher on Paul George and the Thunder as a whole than me for their coasting so far this season. But the notion that Paul George isn’t on this year’s All-Star team is ludicrous. I have him No. 4 on my wish list to beat the punk ass Warriors.

Just so we’re clear, the Wild Thing deal is a complete and utter compliment. I love the passion in your game. No diss whatsoever intended with the Wild Thing video. None. You should do a Wild Thing brand with your eye wear business. You’d prolly sell at least a million of them in Oklahoma alone. I’m semi euphoric with the five wins in a row. The Paul George thing is no longer bothering me. If he leaves, he leaves. Que sera. If PG leaves to go play with LeBron and rub LeBron’s balls for the rest of his NBA career—then so be it. You and Sam will figure it out.

Stay the way you are. Play hard. Have fun.

Winning is fun

Let’s Go Thunder!

It wasn’t pretty. The first 36 minutes were a microcosm of the Thunder’s woes against bad teams this season, but then something happened to start the fourth period.

That something was Raymond Felton. With the Thunder bumbling around the first three periods while I was watching OU beat Kansas in Lloyd Noble and listening to Matt Pinto broadcast the Thunder game, the Brooklyn Nets were hitting a slew of threes which had them leading by 15 points at one point, and by 11 points entering the fourth period.

This is when Raymond Felton beat his chest, yelled something like…”Let’s fucking go”, and then saved Billy Donovan from another embarrassing loss against a bad team.

Felton was brilliant. He scored 10 of his 14 points on the night in the fourth period. On a night when the Thunder as a team only had 12 assists, he had four helpers. He was +12. I sat there wondering if Billy Donovan would be smart enough to keep Felton in the game after Westbrook re-entered in the fourth. Billy D passed this test and kept Felton in the game deep into the fourth period. That alone coupled with the fact Alex Abrines never saw the floor allows me to give Billy Donovan a pass for the first thirty-six minutes.

But it wasn’t just Felton off the bench who made a difference in this comeback. Patrick Patterson hit two huge threes in the fourth period. Josh Huestis hit another huge three. Terrance Ferguson only shot 1-5 on the night, but I liked his energy in the fourth. Same with Jerami Grant. The bench was great when it mattered.

Then Russell Westbrook entered the fourth period and closed the deal. Felton was the middle reliever and Russell Westbrook was Rickey Vaughn the closer.

With 3.3 seconds left, Westbrook drove the right side of the lane and assaulted the basket for what turned out to be the game winner for the Thunder.

Brooklyn inbounded to Spencer Dinwiddie, but Andre Roberson blanketed his man and the shot fell short as the Thunder improved to 27-20.

Paul George added 28 points and Carmelo had a quiet night. It looked like Billy Donovan wanted to sub Jerami Grant on defense for Carmelo those last 3.3 seconds, but quite frankly it appeared to me Carmelo waved off Donovan and finished the game.

Remember the 4th Rule of Coaching…. ‘Your stars at times have to coach the team from within.’ I have no idea what the dimwits at Fox said in their postgame, but that’s kind of the way I saw it there at the end.

To me, there are no style points in NBA regular season games. Just win the game, stay healthy, and move on to the next frame. What happened in those first 36 minutes doesn’t matter, it’s what happened in the last 12 minutes which has the Thunder at 27-20 and seven games above .500 for the first time this season.

Was a turner corned? Of course not. But other than the Golden State Warriors has any other NBA team this season really turned any corners of sort? And, to be clear, it’s not like the Warriors have been anything special, they’re just obscenely loaded because of Durant’s presence on their roster.

Maybe more to the point, the NBA as a whole isn’t a league of corner turning this season, but more of a league of spurts, mini runs and mini slumps.

It doesn’t matter. The Thunder won a game they needed in a bad way and survived.

Ray Felton was the star in this one, but needed Ricky Vaughn to come out of the pen and close the deal.

Win, survive, and advance.

The Thunder host Scott Brooks and the Washington Wizards on Thursday night.

Just win, Thunder.

It seems like we’ve been at multiple turning points in this season of inconsistent play for the Thunder. Bad news is the Thunder have only veered and never really turned as a team as we sit on 46 games played.

If the Thunder don’t make the turn these next five games to finish the month of January they probably aren’t ever going to make the turn.

The five games left in the month read… home vs. Brooklyn, home vs. the struggling Wizards, road vs. the 2-8 Pistons in their last ten, home Sixers, and road Wizards. 5-0 is doable, nothing less than 4-1 should be acceptable.

Win four games and the Thunder is 30-21 heading into the All-Star break. Win four or five games to close out the month and the 4th or even the 3rd seed aren’t complete pipedreams when the season restarts on February 1st in Denver.

It’s time for Billy Donovan to drive his team. It’s time for the three stars to in a nuanced manner coach the team from within. It’s time for Steven Adams to continue his excellent play of late. It’s time for Andre Roberson to continue to be one of the five best defenders in the NBA. It’s time.

I’m not as down on the bench as some others are because the reality is when the playoffs get here I’m fairly certain Billy Donovan doesn’t go deeper than a nine man rotation. Ray Felton is fine. Patrick Patterson is coming around. Jerami Grant needs to settle down offensively and play within his skill set. Terrance Ferguson has been a pleasant surprise. Josh Huestis gives Billy Donovan another defensive specialist if he needs one on a given night. That’s the way I see the team. I would think Presti will make some type of move at the deadline but I’m at this point thinking OKC is all in with Paul George if for no other than to allow Russell Westbrook a chance to make his case to Paul George. It might not be the safe hedge play, but it’s the play Russell Westbrook needs to see from his general manager.

The Brooklyn Nets are in town tonight and the Thunder have the opportunity for the first time this season to get to seven games above the .500 mark.

The team is healthy and poised to make a bit of a run.

No more veering, it’s time to make the turn.

The government shut down is technically over. It made no sense whatsoever. Nobody ever wins one of these, everyone loses. None of this is new. Newt Gingrich and the GOP shut down the government in ’95. Ted Cruz and right wing of the GOP closed down the government in 2013. And then of course, we just witnessed this mini shutdown of 2018. Just like our ‘normal’ current government, these shutdowns don’t really work. They’re just dramatic extensions of the pre-existing dysfunction.

The two party democratic system of government only works when you have visionary statesmen in both bodies of Congress and a strong pragmatic leader in the White House utilizing the Bully Pulpit to bring people together.

Good luck with that in circa 2018.

Then is when we’re going to find out if our government is completely dysfunctional. Eighty to ninety per cent of the country think the Dreamers should stay. It clearly is the right thing to do.

We’ll see what happens the next four weeks. I wonder if Teddy Roosevelt could have handled the American Freedom Caucus and Steven Miller.

I’m sure he could have handled it.

Not so sure Caligula has this skill set.

Simply amazing to witness the Tom Brady legacy continue to grow. As each year passes Tom Brady is on the cusp of cementing his place as the greatest quarterback in the modern era of the National Football League.

But yesterday in Foxboro may have been the exclamation point. With a nasty cut on his right hand, with no Gronk in the second half due to concussion protocol, and with the Jacksonville Jaguars up 20-10 in the fourth period–Tom Brady did exactly what every football fan in America knew he was going to do…namely make every play he needed to make in the fourth period to rally the Pats to a 24-20 win over Jacksonville to advance to yet another Super Bowl.

Simply a great game as Jacksonville led by Blake Bortles showed they not only belonged on this stage, but have every reason to believe they’ll be back next season to challenge once again for a Super Bowl championship of their own.

These Jags were no fluke. They’re young and should be the team on the AFC horizon to replace the Pats if Tom Brady ever decides he’s had enough fun winning Super Bowls.

I’m not really a Pats fan, but as each year passes you have to sit back and admire the overall game and toughness Tom Brady brings to the stadium each week. I can’t think of any other contemporary pro athlete close to Tom Brady in the sheer competitiveness he brings to the table. Maybe LeBron in basketball, maybe Sid Crosby in hockey, baseball doesn’t have a dominant star, but what Tom Brady is doing is something special.

If a comparison were to be made it would probably be to Tiger Woods when he was in his prime winning fourteen major golf championships. Or when Michael was winning six NBA championships. There’s the same type of energy and confidence each athlete exuded over their game.

So now we have the Pats vs. the Eagles in Minneapolis in our fifty-second Super Bowl. It’s called the Lombardi Trophy, but if Tom Brady wins his sixth Super Bowl against the Eagles he’ll own the distinction of being the greatest quarterback in the modern era to ever play the game.

So…how long will we be able to watch Tom Brady do his thing? Hard to tell because in his forties he’s still yet to show any regression in his game. But I’ll make sure and enjoy it while Tommy Clutch keeps doing his thing…like he did on Sunday in winning his 54th comeback game in his career while trailing in the fourth period.

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Here’s the game winner with Tommy Clutch hitting Danny Playoff…like we haven’t seen these two hook up before.