Author: Mike

I actually watched about thirty minutes of this game tonight in Philly. It was of course the fourth loss in a row, but from the glass half full big picture take…I thought it was one of the best nights of the season for the Thunder and their future heading into next season.

I thought Poku was really good. I’m not just talking about stats. He didn’t play scared. He seems to have found himself a little as to what he can be as a player in the NBA.

I loved what he did out there. He didn’t stand in concrete like a pylon.

It was beautiful to watch. He ran the floor in transition with a joy for the game I haven’t seen from him in a game against a good team. Again…he didn’t play scared …as in scared of himself. There was an inner confidence in what he did out there. You could visualize what he could be as a hybrid forward moving into next season as a rotational piece for the Thunder.

I don’t even know if the term hybrid forward is used in the NBA vernacular, if not, I just created it. But what I saw out there was guy who could be a three or a four or even a five in small ball depending on the game situation.

It was like watching the clumsy ugly duckling transform into a swan.

The Thunder dropped to 17-38 which is good with twenty-seven games left, but this was big if Poku can incrementally build on this in the remaining games of the Big Tank Part Two.

Would I still trade him to Golden State if I could get Johhny Kuminga in return?

Sure, I would because I think Johnny Kuminga has a chance to be a transformational player if things go right for him in Oakland.

But this was one of those moments in the rebuild you might want to date and circle.

I don’t know what kind of music Poku likes, but I’m going to sleep with a smile on my face and a song on my heart. Good for Poku.

I wonder if the first thing he did with some of his contract money was buy one of those Urban Cowboy fake tough guy Ford pickup trucks like the frilly gringos do out here in Edmond. I can just see him bobbing his head to Blake Shelton with the windows down heading to the practice facility.

Bless his heart.

I’m getting where I get some good questions on my private box here at the blog and I’d like to start featuring one a week since we’re one football game away from the end of football for six months.

Twitter is something I would never consider. I’d kill it on Twitter, but my greatest fear is that as a grandfather I’m too old to become President of the United States. God made me for Twitter, but I’m too old for that at this juncture.

Message board? Not a chance. I did that once with a hockey site I had and I ended up getting death threats from multiple Edmond hockey mothers. Maybe the lowest point in my adult life. Been there. Done that. I’d rather have cancer than a message board.

So I’d like to feature a question each week as we begin to head into the goal achieving portion of the basketball season.

My first question is from Sondra in Malibu:

Mike,

Love the blog. I can’t believe someone like you actually lives in Oklahoma. Don’t ever change the way you blog.

I’m a huge Laker fan. What do we do with Russell Westbrook? Any suggestions?

Sondra,

Thanks for reading the blog and the extremely kind comments.

Whew…what a question. Other than having Russell either murdered or kidnapped and held in private captivity till the end of the season…there’s not a great deal GM Rob Pelinka or coach Frank Vogel can do at this point.

No one in the league is going to touch that absurd contract of Russell’s. This is how absurd that contract is…Lu Dort and Kenrich Williams could both help the Lakers. Off the top of my head trying to remember what year Russell’s contract is in… Lu and Kenrich make a combined $40 million less than Russell. If that isn’t an indictment on Sam Presti’s decision making then I don’t know what is.

If Russell isn’t going to listen to LeBron….I don’t know what else to write. Maybe Jack Nicholson could have a talk with him. I don’t know. And even if the Lakers hypothetically murdered Russell then they’d still have to pay off the contract plus punitive damages from a wrongful death civil lawsuit.

So I guess my advice is …write off this season and hope the Rams win on Sunday and hope the baseball strike gets resolved so you can attend Dodger games this summer.

Take care.

I don’t know what else to write on here to you Trump fake tough guys.

You have your fake Urban Cowboy fake tough pick-up trucks. You have your fake Kyle Rittenhouse fake tough guy AK-47 assault rifle kits. You have all the bluster of your fake tough guy leader …the one with the little fake tough guy hands smaller than Walter the Cat’s tiny little paws.

You have it all…that’s for certain.

One last suggestion and then I’m giving up on you.

Do me a favor and take your hands and feel between Liz Cheney’s legs sometime.

This isn’t sexual perversion on my point. Please take a long deliberate feel between Liz Cheney’s legs.

Did you feel it?

That’s what it feels like when you have a set of balls.

The end.

I posted this video last February when OKC’s Republican mayor David Holt rightfully and in an aggressive manner got Oklahoma City $116 million federal relief dollars to aid the city’s economic transition in dealing with Covid recovery efforts.

David Holt is what I would describe as a reasonable Republican not connected to the Trump batfuck crazies. He was Little Marco Rubio’s state coordinator back in 2016 when Little Marco ran for POTUS.

I actually sat next to David Holt once on a flight from Denver and we had a nice conversation about Sam Anderson’s book Boom Town. I liked him. I’m not an ideologue of any sort. If I sat next to Bernie Sanders on a flight…I’d probably like him as well. We probably wouldn’t agree on everything, but I’m sure I would like him. I love Barack Obama, yet if I sat next to him on a flight… I would literally read him the Riot Act on several of his foreign policy decisions.

You know what I didn’t see last February when Oklahoma City accepted this federal relief money. I didn’t see youth punks with ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ flags streaming from their pickup trucks.

Nary a one.

I didn’t see the Sarah Palin crazies protesting in the streets of Oklahoma City.

Can’t remember one.

Oh, no. These Trump people are genuinely adorable. Hilllary should have rightly called them Adorables instead of Deplorables.

Always the first in line to get on either Medicaid or Medicare. Always the first in line to either file Social Security Disability or Unemployment claims. Always the first in line to bitch about part of their Social Security check being taxed although in the state of Oklahoma there is no state taxation on Social Security. Always the first in line to seek an ag subsidy of some sort. Always the first in line to receive FEMA assistance. Always the first in line to file a lawsuit when they’ve been in an automobile accident even if it was their fault. Always the first in line to seek a workers’ comp check. Always the first in line to receive a low interest subsidized mortgage. Always the first in line to request educational grant money assistance.

Always the first in line to avoid creditors FOUR TIMES with our nuanced bankruptcy laws.

Always the first in line to be at the feeding trough of federal or state dollars of some sort.

Always. And do you know why? Mike Jackson can answer that question. Because a dollar to them means more than doing the right thing.

That’s why.

What part of this do I not understand? What part of this am I not grasping from the Trump faux evangelicals?

Have any of these Trump people ever read a book by say William F. Buckley, George Will, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, or Ben Beranke for God’s sake?

Of course not. That would require some genuine intellectual effort beyond watching a Billy Bush soft porn video.

These Trumplicans aren’t enlightened conservatives. Ask one of them to site a source some-time. Call their bluff. What they are is a group of sexually frustrated adults who are vicariously living their mid-life crisis thru Donald Trump’s sex life or Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority views on race in America post LBJ.

In closing, I’m glad Oklahoma City re-elected David Holt given the other options. Truth be known…Oklahoma City in the last ten years or so has become what I would describe as a purple city engulfed by red everywhere else in state minus Tulsa and Norman.

I’m thrilled with what our city has done with MAPS. Now if we could only acquire a real NBA team to go along with the city this might all fall into place.

Next time you have a problem from a Trump fiscal phony in a bar or ball game…call them out. I’m pretty sure this is how it will go if you’ve been reading my blog. I’ve had two people walk out of public places on me. There comes a point where some lines have to be drawn in the sand. This is bullshit. Surely in a country of 330 million you seventy million who voted for Trump could agree on nominating an adult in 2024. Hell…I could very well even vote for that person.

Call them out. See what happens.

Have a great Super Bowl Sunday. I know I’m going to do so.

LET”S GO BENGALS!

Is Lincoln Riley a pathological sociopath?

I would say no.

He may be a hypocrite, a soft football coach who can’t get his offense in gear against a Dave Aranda defense, and petrified of coaching in the SEC, but despite what Chris Jackson would like to have this jury believe…I know Lincoln Riley at his human worst could never measure up to Donald Trump or O.J. Simpson as a sociopath Hall of Famer.

The story is that on the morning of Lincoln Riley’s departure a group of power boosters assembled by Joe C actually made Lincoln an offer which easily exceeded the offer made by USC.

Your Honor, defense will stipulate at this time we don’t know if that offer included rapper Doctor Dre’s $2 million offer to Caleb William’s father.

Yet, regardless of the absence of that specific money trail we still know Lincoln Riley said no to OU and the SEC.

So what does that tell us as purveyors of the truth?

This is what the evidentiary money trail tells me:

If you as a coach can’t figure out Dave Aranda and Baylor’s so-so athletes in three games with OU’s offensive fire power…then why in the world would you go to the SEC and think you could beat Alabama, Georgia, and LSU?

Your Honor, as Lincoln Riley’s advocate defending him against Chris Jackson’s unfounded claims…. I at this time would like to introduce an expert video which will show the jurors what a clinical pathological sociopath actually looks like out amongst us in normal societal interaction.

Your Honor, may we please at this time play Defense Exhibits A and B to the jurors?

I thought with what Milwaukee did today they helped their ball club better as they try to repeat as NBA champions. They gave themselves some depth in their big rotation with a guy who won a ring while at Toronto was a key part in OKC getting to four Western Conference Finals and one NBA Finals.

He’s not a team cancer like both Ben Simmons and Harden. At this point in his career he’ll have a narrow role off the bench to help Giannis and Company prove they’re still the best team in the NBA one year later.

Yet as recently as February 4th…Serge recorded a 20 point, 8 rebound game against the pathetic LA Lakers. He still has some gas in the tank.

So while his season stats are…6 pts, 3.1 rbs and one block a game…there’s proof in a six-game series or so Serge could have a game or two where he could make an impact.

I love what Milwaukee has done with their team. Nothing draconian, yet enough nuanced moves to keep the Bucks as the team still to beat in the East even though I love Tyler Herro and the Miami Heat.

Giannis is the best player in the game. Period. And unlike Durant he never bailed on the city of Milwaukee, but to the Bucks credit also–unlike the Thunder they added key pieces like Jrue Holiday and Bobby Portis to make the supporting cast conducive to Giannis winning rings.

Sam Presti and the Thunder…bless their hearts. I don’t know about these dudes. I really don’t. I hate to write this because I live in the Oklahoma City area, but when you have the naive fanbase in the league with the softest local media covering the team this is what can happen.

My fear for the Thunder is that this summer Shai Gilgeous Alexnader’s agent finally represents his client like a real fiduciary and demands Shai be traded to a legitimate NBA franchise if the Thunder don’t hit Jabari Smith or Paulo Banchero in the draft.

So look what Philadelphia did today. After all those years of tanking under Hinkie they had to trade one candor in Ben Simmons to Brooklyn for another cancer in James Harden to give Joel Embiid the appearance he’s MVP caliber season isn’t being completely wasted by Sixer ownership.

How ironic…the Thunder’s two bigs in Serge and Steven are both on teams in my Top Six odds wise to win the NBA championship this season.

You know why the Thunder didn’t take on salary today with their huge $35 million cap space at the trade deadline? They couldn’t because they couldn’t take the risk of actually making their team a legitimate on the floor product this season in the hopes of landing either Jabari or Banchero.

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for chirpy Little Nick Gallo or Michael Cage to make that point on air.

My top six seeds would go like this if the Playoffs were to start tomorrow;

1 Milwaukee, 2 Phoenix, 3 Golden State, 4 Miami, 5 Nets (if Kyrie gets vaccinated) and 6 Denver (if Murray is at one-hundred percent). Not sure how one values the Lakers at this point besides just being a longshot with a puncher’s chance perhaps if they could somehow mitigate the Russell Westbrook Factor.

Tragically sad for the Thunder on every imaginable front. Lot of angry white people in Oklahoma…that’s for certain. Very sad. I’m not really sure Oklahoma should even have an NBA team at this point. Tragically sad.

Maybe they could sell arena space for Trump rallies to fill the cash flow abyss. Just a thought. Las Vegas would be an excellent NBA market.

The only thing so far which I like is Serge Ibaka headed to the Milwaukee Bucks in search of ring No. 2. BTW…our TNT Game of the Week tonight features the Finals rematch of the Bucks vs. the Suns. I could definitely see that happening again minus a serious injury to a key player.

Serge may in fact be my favorite Thunder player of all-time just because I love his smile and he never took himself over seriously like Durant, Westbrook, and Harden.

I doubt in all seriousness Sam Presti does anything today minus possibly mitigating the tax penalties for being $35 million under the minimum NBA roster salary requirement.

Bob Myer at Golden State isn’t trading away Johnny Kuminga. I knew that, it was just my pipedream deadline trade fantasy.

A trade isn’t critical as long as the Thunder don’t screw up the tank again like last year and this time come out of the draft with a top three player and perhaps a center with the Clippers pick like Walker Kessler or Oscar T from Kentucky.

Oh, wait–James Harden just traded to Philly for the mentally unhinged Ben Simmons. That might be interesting… I guess. Harden for Ben Simmons would be like trading Sarah Palin for Marjorie Taylor-Green from my perspective. Maybe one of them will surprise me and grow up. I still like the modest trade Milwaukee made though. No team drama upheaval attached.

I’m pretty much at peace with everything. Fact is, we’re planning to head south with the lab to some beach just south of Clearwater and spend our 41st Valentine’s Day together. Supposed to be 84 degrees on Valentine’s Day. Nice.

At some point this weekend… I’ll call my son Chris back and explain to him in detail why Hitler, Trump, and OJ Simpson are sociopaths and Lincoln Riley isn’t.

Embrace the day…it’s beautiful in Oklahoma today.

Forty-one years…holy shit. I remember that drive back in 1981 from Oklahoma to Montgomery, Alabama like it was yesterday. Never thought I would see her again even though I knew I’d fallen in love with her and kept it to myself.

She said we needed to have a talk. I bought a ring and two airline tickets from Montgomery to an outer island in the Bahamas. I finally admitted to her I was in love with her like Noah did with Allie in The Notebook. Seems like yesterday and yet forty-one years of marriage isn’t an easy thing.

I bet I played this Marshall Tucker love song at least twenty times on the drive to Montgomery.

Click for best ever version of Boomer Sooner. There’s Only One Oklahoma, Baby!!!

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I left the Thunder vs. Toronto game after about ten minutes of that premeditated fabricated bullshit and found myself a sports bar and settled in for the OU-Texas Tech game.

I have to admit… I got on OU the other day after that abysmal second half versus the dysfunctional Oklahoma State Cowboys in one of the worst second half performances I can ever remember in OU Bedlam basketball history.

But man, oh, man…Porter Moser’s team put on their big heart big boy hard hats tonight in Norman which could have in effect been a play-in game for the Sooners. Granted, Joe Lunardi already had the Sooners as one of his final four teams in the draw, but this coupled with the win over now red-hot Arkansas gives the Sooners some breathing room heading down the stretch.

Nothing went right for the Sooners in the first half and I thought there was some sketchy officiating by Bob Bowlsby’s zebra’s…especially on the Flagrant One on Tanner Grove just before halftime.

But OU fought through it behind a career thirty-point night from Moj Gibson. That’s the Moj Gibson the Sooners have to have if they aspire to win a game or two in the NCAA Tournament.

No backup point guard tonight with freshman Bijuan Cortez out for the night, so in essence…Moj played quite a few point-guard minutes tonight and that maybe moving forward is the recipe Porter Moser needs to follow the rest of the way.

Moj was 8-11 on the night behind the arc and played with grit and toughness. If I had been there in the arena, I would have hugged him after one critical defensive rebound late in the game which cinched it for the Sooners. Moj Gibson…three helmet stickers.

I got all over Ethan Chargois after the Bedlam game as well. He gets my other helmet sticker. Tanner was in foul trouble the entire night with what I thought were several tough calls which went against him, but unlike the case in Stillwater…Ethan stepped up and gave the Sooners valuable positive minutes.

OU improves to 14-10 and goes to Lawrence to play nationally ranked Kansas on Saturday.

There’s nothing easy in this league, but on this night in Norman…Porter Moser’s team finally found a way to finish over a Top Ten team and in the process greatly enchanced their Big Dance March Madness aspirations.

BOOMER!

I’m so happy. I’m still like a kid in this regard after a big win. Chris Jackson called me from Denver after the game to just check on me and make sure I was okay which was cool.

Then my son the OU MBA says just out of the blue…”I think Lincoln Riley is a sociopath.”

Trust me…I know what he was doing there.

I replied, ” You mean like Donald Trump and O.J. Simpson?”

He said, ” Worse. Much worse. He doesn’t even know when he’s lying at this point.”

I said, ” You don’t think he’s just scared to play Alabama, Georgia and LSU? Gundy would never play in the SEC and that doesn’t make him a sociopath. He may be a Mullet King who’s team can’t score from a yard out in seven plays, but he’s not a sociopath.”

Chris said, “No. Lincoln Riley clearly possesses all the traits of a textbook sociopath.”

I said, ” Don’t ruin this for me tonight. We’ll talk about Lincoln Riley the sociopath some other time.”

Have a nice week.

We’re now a day away from the NBA’s trade deadline and two big trades were made yesterday. Of course…none of them involved the tanking Thunder who are somewhere around $35 million under the NBA’s minimum team payroll allowed by the stipulated salary cap requirements. Who could have thought that possible considering the product on the floor?

In some circles the above would be called frugality, in some it might be called being brilliant creating cap space to acquire a stud free agent, or in others like Oke City it could be called criminal fraud.

The Warriors, who are in a win now mode with the excellent team they have in place, get Kenrich Williams, Lu Dort, Poku and the Thunder in exchange get Johnny Kuminga and one second round pick.

You have to understand where I’m coming from with this trade. I no way think Sam Presti could ever win a championship in Oklahoma City even if he had KD and LeBron, but Oke City’s arena is twenty-five minutes from my front door and if the Thunder could somehow acquire Johnny Kuminga by trade and Jabari Smith in the draft…. that would be hard for me to resist as a passionate NBA fan. That would in a word be…lit.

You have to also consider how much I love and respect what both Lu Dort and Kenrich stand for as NBA players who have both clawed their ways into solid NBA careers. This gives both of these guys a chance to win a ring and live in a woke city.

I have no idea what it would mean for Poku because I have no idea what he is as a player, but maybe he would start to improve some with Steve Kerr as a coach.

So visualize this as the Thunder’s starting five next season if Sam Presti could pull this off…. Shai and Giddy as the guards, Johnny Kuminga at the three, Jabari Smith at the four, and his Auburn teammate Walker Kessler at the five. That would leave a bench unit of Aaron Wiggins, Ty Jerome, Tre Mann, Darius Bazely, and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.

My eleven and twelve guys would be Mamida Diakite and maybe Theo Maledon if I decide to keep him…. his spot could be upgraded fairly easy.

Tell me that wouldn’t put the Thunder back on TNT and on the Christmas Day NBA package again.

Might need Putin to invade Ukraine to get West Texas Crude up to $130 a barrel to pay for all of this in five years, ‘but if you’re not going to dream big then you might as well play with yourself’ is what Texas oilman Big Ed Bookman always used to say in Dead Solid Perfect.

Nick Collison… you can tell them this was your idea.

Even if Sam Presti can’t pull the Johnny Kuminga part off…I wouldn’t sneeze at the idea of using that Clippers picks to acquire Walker Kessler from Auburn as one of our three bigs. You could keep Mike Muscala around as the 13th guy since his body doesn’t seem to be able to absorb more than 14 minutes every third game and tell the completely nonexistent collection of Thunder scribes his role is that of a player/coach. I like his bullshit smile when he’s talking trash around the free throwline as well.

I like Walker more every time I see him. His three-point shot has been bouncing around between 18-23% and he’s big boy on the boards. Perk, Nick, and Steven combined never shot 23% from the three-point line ever in one Thunder season.

El Prez is bullish on Walker Kessler later in the first round if he’s still around. Jabari Smith is basically just Kevin Durant waiting to happen. No one in the league is going to able to defend that perimeter jumper of his.

What all of this means of course is that all the white fanboy nerds over at the highly dysfunctional Daily Thunder who never played or coached any sport in their lives are probably all Chet from Gonzaga.

I can’t believe OU fans are still obsessed with Lincoln Riley. He left. Get over it. Lincoln divorced OU just like I divorced the feeble Oklahoma City Thunder this week.

Unless OU was planning on heading to the snowflake PAC 12 instead of going to the rugged SEC, Brent Venables is the better coach culture-wise for OU moving forward. If OU were staying in the cupcake PAC 12 … I could see the angst with Caleb, Mario Williams, and Lawrence McCutcheon heading west to follow Kathleen Turner from Body Heat.

The one part of this however I will call complete bullshit on with Lincoln Riley is the notion that all this with him going to USC came to a conclusion just after Bedlam. That’s total bullshit. From the point Barry Helton was canned at USC earlier in the season was when this whole scheme was hatched.

If anyone in all of this has a right to be pissed it might be Dabo Sweeny and Clemson at this point because he lost quite a bit of his staff.

Truth be known…. I can’t imagine that Alex Grinch and the other coaches who left OU are all that big of a loss.

Again, OU with Jeff Lebby is always going to get one of the top Texas high school quarterbacks and more importantly OU will start getting four star defensive players from the South… where they still play defense in high school football. Thet don’t play that kind of physical football in Texas in high school. Texas high school ball has become a very finesse brand of football with the advent of the spread offenses.

There’s no reason for OU fans to keep hanging on every word of Lincoln Riley. It’s over. Culturally he and his wife probably weren’t Trump Proud Boy domestic terrorist types and I’m sure that may have played a part in all of this as well.

Get over it. He divorced you.