It was like a college football Saturday this past season.
In the first game on Fox Southwest we saw the feel good Jalen Hurts Sooners bury the miserable Kansas Jayhawks in Madison Square Garden by a 126-103 count. It’s almost uncanny how much these Thunder with Chris Paul resemble the Sooners with grad transfer Jalen Hurts.
But as we all know that story at some point turns ugly when the feel good story has to play a big boy monster in wait from the SEC with a mobile quarterback who can pass.
Enter the ESPN Game of the Night with Mikey Breen, Jeff van Gundy, and Mark Jackson on the call as real basketball junkies salivated to witness LeBron duel Giannis for the lead in the regular season MVP race.
It was like Joe Burrow versus Tua. Neither disappointed the viewers as the Bucks hung around until finally succumbing in the fourth quarter and losing by a score of 113-103.
It was great stuff. But we know for sure Clemson and Ohio State fans already know how this story ends. But what I don’t know right now is whether quiet stealth assassin Kawhi Leonard or LeBron is Joe Burrow this NBA season.
Does LeBron still have enough in him to carry the Lakers to four wins on a Texas-OU national stage setting to get his Lakers past the Clippers?
I don’t know. But I can’t wait to see.
On the Thunder-Knicks front—the game was a disgrace from a standpoint of how bad the Knicks are and how little they give their fans for the price of a ticket. Truly—at some point Adam Silver needs to step in and orchestrate some sort of deal with Chris Paul as player coach going to the Knicks at the conclusion of this season.
If I’m Sam Presti this is what I want….I want RJ Barrett, I want a first round draft pick down the road, and I want Julius Randle if he still has a year left on his contract beyond this season.
This is where Sam Presti gets his rebuild with another talented piece in Barrett to go alongside Shai G. Alexander and another Canadian at that to go along with Alexander and Dort. I wonder if any of these guys can skate?
In watching that dumpster fire of a Knicks team last night–Barrett’s potential is still obvious if someone gets him out of there and puts him in a winning culture.
To conclude–remember early on in this season when the narrative in New York was they were going to build around this young core. How’d that go?
Go make your deal, Sam Presti….but remember to sell high.