Month: November 2025

Without Chancey Billups and with Jrue Holiday the Portland Trailblazers look like a different group. This in no way was a horrific loss considering who sat out for the Thunder on Wednesday night. Nope. In fact, if Jrue stays healthy and can be the glue to this young team…the Blazers might be a team we put on ‘a team to watch this season’ list.

But what OKC is doing in relation to Shai’s heavy, heavy minutes these first tens games makes little sense to me.

If you’re going to play by the load management Bible then I would suggest Shai be the benefactor of much of this load managing.

Like the other MJ, Michael Jordan, this MJ has little tolerance for excessive tank,ing and excessive sitting by certain NBA players. It takes away from the authenticity of the regular season games. Tanking and too much load management are two of the primary reasons the NBA iniated the Emirates NBA Cup. That being, to make organizations put more authenticity into the regular season games.

I love these Thunder players most of whom became members of the organization due to the draconian tanking of Sam Presti. Yeah…figure it out–the Thunder have depth like no other team in the Association and much of that depth is because of so many players still on rookie scale deals or low enough salaries to keep the Thunder out of the 2nd apron of the payroll tax.

So…let’s look at who didn’t play for the Thunder last night…per my Top 6 Thunder list I posted yesterday…2 JDub, 3, the seemingly always brittle and bruised Chet H, 4 Caruso, 5 Lu Dort, and 12 Kenrich Williams.

That would be five of the Thunder’s Top 12 sitting last night against a pretty good team while the cornerstone of the franchise logged a heavy 38 minutes while keeping his team competitively afloat with 35 points.

This is bullshit. This is precisely what Michael Jordan is currently talking about in a public manner. That being, the overall softness of the current players in the NBA. Caruso and Lu Dort should be ashamed of themselves. I expect this type of bullshit from Chet, but not those two.

If I were the FBI and the NBA …I’d be as concerned about the overuse of load managementand tanking as much of that of point shaving in low profile games.

But in closing let me write this down before logging off…Shai, Aaron, Ajay, I-Hart, and perhaps JWill played their asses off last night. If you Thunder fans are still going to keep booing Kevin Durant who seldom missed games with Thunder except for the Jones fracture season…you might want to hope this load management is applied in a more nuanced manner so as not to burn out Shai before the real season begins in April.

Jrue Holiday is a nice fit for these Blazers. He went 6-10 from behind the arc last night. Jrue’s the type of hybrid guard who in my view could not only replace Fred van Fleet for the Houston Rockets, but give the Rockets the type of two-way guard play they will need if they’re to overtake the Thunder in the West. We’ll have to see how many games Jrue plays this season by the week before the trade deadline.

The West is starting to take shape a bit. OKC, San Antonio, Denver, Lakers, Rockets, Warriors, Blazers and maybe the struggling TWolves who now have Anthony Edwards back on the court.

I think this year’s trade deadline will be fascinating to see which team in the West adds the neccessary player to challenge the Thunder.

But if I’m Sam Presti and Coach Mark…those heavy, heavy Shai minutes might be something to start tracking if the other players are so soft they can’t pull their links on the proverbial chain.

Peace, grace, and dignity.

MJ

First off…congrats to the Thunder for starting the season as defending champs at 8-0 with a workmanlike road victory over a Clipper squad which in reality is nothing more than a play-in type of team without Kawhi Leonard.

Like the real MJ, Michael Jordan….this MJ, Mike Jackson, is already weary this NBA season of watching more load management than stars stepping up and leading their resepctive teams. Not at all the case with Shai though as he’s been everything you’d want from your MVP and franchise player.

1/8th of the way through this young NBA regular season and Shai is already my in the clubhouse leader to defend his MVP as well as the NBA championship. He’s got that look in his eye MJ loves. That hungry look.

My notion is Shai has taken all Sam Presti’s pre-season words to heart and is completely in a zone to make this Thunder group the first NBA team to repeat since the Warriors did the trick in 2016-17. Repeats are all around us currently in the four major sports if you’re paying close attention.

The Florida Panthers of the NHL repeated this past June and will be looking to three-peat this hockey season. The LA Dodgers just repeated in front of us with a seven game thriller in one of the best World Series of all-time. If I had to pick the Super Bowl champion right now on November 5th…MJ would pick Jalen Hurts and the Eagles to repeat as well.

Which leads into my take on the Thunder a mere eight games in..the Thunder in my book are somewhere between a solid favorite to a prohibitive favorite to repeat depending on the health of their Big 6.

My Thunder Big 6 goes in this order currently…1 Shai, 2 JDub, 3 Chet, 4 Caruso, 5 Dort, and 6 I-Hart. If these six guys stay healthy and it will be tough for anybody to derail the Thunder…even the Denver Nuggets as they continue to search for team chemistry with this new team they’ve put together.

Something else to consider though…the emergence of Aaron Wiggins and Ajay Mitchell trning this into a Big 8. Last night… Ajay +31, Aaron + 26. That’s where the Nuggets and evevry other team in the league have a problem, that being, two guys at N. 7 and No. 8 like Ajay and Aaron.

I had a great time at the OU doubleheader on Monday evening. Both the men and women should have very competitive teams. The women especially… if they reach their potential should be at the least an Elite 8 type of team if the young newcomers figure things out by January.

My OU seat this year is right next to the OU student section and the band. I love it. It’s like being young again as I was in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Both schedules get challenging in a hurry as the OU men travel to play at Gonzaga this week-end, while the Sooner women host UCLA on Monday night. MJ will be in his seat on Monday night for certain. We’ll find out quite a bit about point guard Lia Chavez on Monday night I would suspect. She looks like a big-time baller to MJ though. She just needs to gradually acclimate herself into the role of starting point guard. Notice how little of Coach B’s presser dwelled on her freshman guard. Jennie knows this is a process in which the seniors are comfortable with.

Love, kindness, and peace as always.

MJ

What a massive week-end of sports!

Toronto gives away the World Series with some of the worst base running I’ve ever witnessed. Literally…the Blue Jays had basic base running gaffes dealing with their third base coach in games 3, 6, and 7. The Jays would have been better served with a dead corpse coaching third base in this historically good World Series.

But give Dave Roberts and the Dodgers credit for gutting it up in the final two games in Toronto and pulling off their repeat. Yamamoto did end up winning the official MVP, while my pick Will Smith was second. Both were deserving.

Toronto fans must feel sick this Monday. They had the Series in their grasp, but pissed it away with sloppy base running and some unfortunate luck, the ball sticking in the bottom of the wall play… and Kiki Hernandez’s incredibly smart ‘on the ball play’ to pull off the double play to end Game 6. Toronto needs to get a new third base coach and evidently spend more time on basic baserunning fundamentals beyond just trotting around the bases on homers and gestures with their hands.

My Packers sucked offensively yesterday at home and lost to the suddenly very respectable Carolina Panthers. My Broncos won their fifth straight by winning at Houston over CJ Stroud and the Texans. Leading MVP candidate Baker Mayfield was idle…hopefully next week he’ll have both Mike Evans and Chris Godwin back in his receiving arsenal.

Everyone loves Baker accept Jim Traber and surly O State fans who’ve never come to terms with their overall record in Bedlam. Other than Patrick Mahomes…is there another NFL player doing more ads than Baker?

Right now I have Baker with a slight MVP lead over Josh Allen.

My Sooners?

Great win at Knoxville.. A great win to put the Sooners in a position to travel to Alabama in two weeks and see what they can do defensively against Tide QB… Ty Simpson, who is my leading Heisman candidate. MJ never wants players to get injured, but if Ty Simpson were to get concussed this coming Saturday in their game versus the universally hated LSU Tigers…grief would not overcome MJ.

Owen Heineke…as I wrote yesterday was impactful in the first half Saturday in Knoxville. His play, plus that of Taylor Wein and Kip Lewis were almost as impactful. SEC Play of the Week had to be Owen’s massive hit on the the Vol QB who fumbled the ball right into the massive hands of R Mason Thomas.

That play was a FOURTEEN POINT SWING…ON THE ROAD when the Sooners were about to be knocked out with a second round TKO.

Massive play for my Sooners. Just massive. With massive being being the key adjective of the Sooners’ inspirational comeback win.

Off week for the Sooners this week-end… and much needed for Kobie, R Mason, and offensive tackle Derek Simmons, who in my mind is the Sooners’ best offensive tackle.

MJ had a rousing workout this morning and is now headed to Norman to watch both Jenni B and Porter’s basketball teams kick off their basketball campaigns. I think both teams will be good. Porter did some significant work with the roster this off season.

The Thunder improved to 7-0 with an easy win over the horrifically bad New Orleans Pleicans on Sunday night. MJ doesn’t cover games on his uniquely high quality content blog. I only cover games were both teams put reasonable teams on the floor or field of play.

Off to Norman for a great evening college basketball.

MJ

It’s never over till it’s over and these Sooners aren’t ready to pack in their CFP hopes just yet. It was shaky in that first period of tumult, but Brent Venables young men steadied themselves like a pummeled boxer in the corner from a knockout via the R Mason Thomas Scoop & Score and in reality pretty much dictated the terms the rest of the way in Knoxville as the Sooners prevailed in a mild upset by a score of 33-27.

OU improves to 7-2 overall versus the toughest schedule in CFS and 3-2 in the overall toughest conference of the four Power 4 conferences. True, Ohio State and Indiana are ranked higher, but the overall depth of the Big 10 isn’t nearly as deep and treacherous as the SEC.

This was the first game since John Mateer’s hand injury that in reality he really turned it loose with his running game. When Mateer can run as he did versus Michigan and Auburn, and as he did last night against the Volunteers—these Sooners are a different animal. Add to the running game mix is the fact 240 lb. running back Xavier Robinson is finally healthy again and doing what he did the back third of last season.

With Mateer now playing fearless again, plus the fact Xavier now has a two game streak of 100 yard plus games– these final three games of the regular season still offer a glimmer of hope for the Sooners to crack the Top 12 simply because I feel certain the Committee will reward a hot team on a late run with two losses who has the played the most challenging schedule of the combined 153 CFS teams.

OU thankfully has an off week now as that will allow both R Mason Thomas and linebacker Kobe McKenzie to get healthy for the Alabama game.

Lest we forget…last year’s national championship game featured two …two loss teams–Ohio State and Notre Dame.

Alabama hosts LSU next week-end. Maybe OU will get lucky and the dysfunctional Tigers will play inspired and physical ball versus the Tide and bang them up a little for the Sooners. To me…the key for OU versus Bama will be can they get their pass rush to Ty Simpson, and will the Sooners be able to RUN THE FOOTBALL ENOUGH to be two dimensional?

So many helmut stickers from last night….so here I so in this order….

1 John Mateer As JM goes the Sooners will go.

2 Kicker Tate Sandal Tate accounted for 15 points last night. Best kicker in the country so far this season.

3 R Mason Thomas Even though he got knocked out of the game his Scoop & Score was in essence a 14 point play.

4 Owen Heineke Toughest motherf–ker on the field last night.*

5 Taylor Wein Maybe the second toughest motherf–ker on the field last night.*

6 Kip Lewis Prolly MJ’s favorite player on the team these past two seasons.*

That’s it for MJ today. Maybe tomorrow or tonight I’ll talk about those two amazing LA Dodger game ending double-plays in Game 6 and Game 7 which gave them a repeat World Series championship. Will Smith was my MVP, Yamamota…a very close second.

Peace, love, and mercy.

MJ

• Footnote…below is what Owen, Taylor, and Kip gave us last night in Knoxville. More of this will be needed in two weeks if the Sooners are to derail the Tide on the road. Job well done last night, guys.