I haven’t done an After Dark in quite awhile what with all the Athletic/New York Times level content following Oklahoma’s magical national championship run and then Spain’s magificent 1-0 win over Argentina to claim its second World Cup.
This heat wave in Oklahoma SUCKS.
Mike J is too old for this heat wave nonsense. In Del Mar it was around 78 degrees every day with those beautiful coastal breezes nuggling MJ into a state of meditative nirvana.
I played this our last day as I sadly looked at the ocean from Jan’s deck.
Maybe you people in Oklahoma will get a break. Not us….we’re heading for Crested Butte to get out of here. This is insane. If I’m still living as a miraculous Stage 4 survivor next summer my plan is for us to spend only two weeks in Oklahoma out of the eight possible in July and August.
This extreme heat is complete bullshit. Internet stars don’t have to live in this manner.
If it were up to me…the answer would be a resounding… yes.
Yeah, I know Lu isn’t a max player prettyboy like Shai, JDub, and Chet, but if you followed this Thunder rebuild from the point Sam Presti traded away Jeremy Grant and commenced to inflict OKC Thunder fans with some of the most brutal basketball ever for two seasons after the tear-down following the exits of Russell Westbrook and Paul George… you should consider my thought on this matter.
Shai was/is the posterchild of the Thunder championship turnaround miracle, but undrafted Lu Dort from Arizona State was the grit and grind from the low tide ebb of the Thunder rebuild who brought not only great defense to Sam Presti’s second generation of NBA basketball in OKC, but exuded a contagious overall mental toughness to the culture of the Thunder where they became a defense first juggernaut, or as I’ve called them…Forty Minutes of Hell.
Lu Dort initated and set this culture… not Shai. Lu Dort was the perfect counterbalance to Shai in those early days of the rebuild when it was painful to watch the Thunder play NBA games.
Lu Dort was a large part of doing what Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Nick Collison, Perk, Serge, and Steven Adams never accomplished in Oklahoma City. Lu Dort became a key player who helped bring an NBA championship to Oklahoma City and he wasn’t even drafted. He literally had to prove every day he belonged in the NBA his first several seasons in the league.
Some will scoff at what I’ve just written, but compare Lu’s numbers to those of Nick Collison, who was a lottery pick out of Kansas, and then tell me I’m wrong. Unless there’s something I’m not aware of, in regards to something Lu did off the court…I would say, yeah…Lu’s jersey should at some point hang up there in rafters of the new Thunder arena….right next to Nick’s jersey.
Especially if the Thunder with this core never win another NBA championship.
Never discount what a key role player can do for a basketball club as they make a champioship run.