What a sad spectacle to see these once great franchises in the West both in tanking mode with no real exit from the darkness in sight. I can only watch about 8-10 of these games…then I either change the channel or read whichever book I’m currently reading.
Timmy Duncan’s Spurs vs. Kevin Durant’s Thunder…those were the days.
Timmy of course is treated like a god in San Antonio, while Kevin is booed worse than Lincoln Riley even though he honored his contract, played his ass for a decade, and did nice things for the city.
BTW…I think Laker coach Frank Vogel just benched Russell Westbrook. That’s what real coaches and real GMs have to do from time to time.
Right now…I’m reading The Wish by Nicholas Sparks and it’s magnificent. I needed a fictional aspirational novel and this is the book.
The tanking Thunder were pummeled from wire to wire on Wednesday night inside of AT&T Arena as the Thunder looked to be in early April tanking mode.
Kenrich Williams didn’t play.
Mike Muscala saw the floor only six minutes.
The Thunder were unwatchable even with Shai playing thirty minutes and going an unimaginable -25 in those minutes in a game in which he should have clearly been the best player on the floor. To me…I wouldn’t put Shai on the All-Star team just for this game. That is absolutely absurd. This should be the point in Shai’s career when he clearly dominates a game against bad teams and the San Antonio Spurs are every bit as bad as the Thunder currently.
I haven’t seen Chris Fisher do another Thunder game since he used ‘alacrity’ in that last telecast I mentioned here on the blog. I wonder if that was a Bridge Too Far for the culturally challenged who for some reason still watch these Thunder telecasts.
Matt Pinto seems to have taken the spot for the time being. I wonder if like Lincoln Riley…Chris Fisher is headed back to LA get his old radio job doing USC football and basketball. I wonder if him using ‘alacrity’ in the Proud Boy regional homebase was the last straw for him or was it the fact he constantly tried to explain to Michael Cage the Thunder occasionally foul just like every other team in the Association does from time to time.
I hope he’s okay either way. Nice kid. Wish him the best on his journey.
Gregg Popovich tanking…it breaks heart. Clearly…along with Bill Belichick…Pop has been the greatest head coach in any of the four major sports professional leagues since the advent of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
For both Belichick and Pop what this clearly illustrates is no coach is immune from the 1st Rule of Coaching…that being, ‘Player makes the Coach’.
The Thunder drop to 14-30 with thirty-eight games still having to be played to contractually fulfill their television obligations to be paid.
22-60 is my magic number. For me to hit that number the Thunder would need to go 8-30 down the stretch to hit a 22-60 season.
Considering the Thunder closed 2-23 in their last twenty-five games last season…I’m actually bullish the Thunder can lose that many games and get to the hallowed sixty loss plateau in an NBA regular season.
I think what I’ll do maybe tomorrow is highlight the five worst teams in NBA history. The Thunder aren’t anywhere near that type of history, but still…who are our five worst teams in NBA history?