Thunder Decide to Chill in Road Loss to Suns, 114-100

At some point you wonder if there’s really any need for a coach, let alone that horde of somewhere around eight or nine ‘coaches’ who each game sit near Billy Donovan on the bench. If Donald Trump doesn’t need a State Department, then please explain to me why Clay Bennett needs to be paying this horde of coaches for in essence doing nothing. When a team in essence loafs—why pay the extra overhead?

I’ve said on here before, the NBA is a star driven-agent league and certainly not a coach driven league with the exception of maybe around six current NBA coaches. I think I’ve made it clear I don’t have Billy Donovan in that grouping of coaches. But sitting here writing I’m not in any way saying firing Billy Donovan fixes this Thunder team. I even feel somewhat bad in being so tough on Alex Abrines because he only got in this game in the final two minutes or so and was a Brian Davis smiley face +2 in those final two minutes of surrender when Donovan cleared his bench realizing that his team in no way listened to anything he asked them to do in route to a 114-100 loss to the now 16-26 Phoenix Suns.

I think most familiar with the Thunder fully expected Devin Booker to have a good night even if Andre Roberson had played. No big deal. But I don’t think even the clueless Brian Davis and his equally daft Sean Spicer sidekick Michael Cage had any premonition Dragan Bender is the next Larry Bird looming on the hoops horizon. Who could have thought? I’m texting Dragan Bender on my all-star ballot.

Before I go further, I have to admit, I fell off the wagon last night. Something akin to recovery dysfunction in me compelled me to watch the Fox postgame ‘presentation’. I embellish none with this statement, if Kellyanne Conway or Sarah Huckabee-Sanders ever leave Caligula—Brian Davis should be the next White House Press Secretary. His ability to look straight into a camera without blinking and state absolute bullshit is somewhat impressive.

Yesterday, in my plea for the Thunder to stop playing like what appears to be a lazy, heartless team with a sense of entitlement… I listed five bad losses. I left off the Thunder’s Nov. 94-86 loss to the Kings on Nov. 7th and their even worse 121-108 loss to the Magic on Nov. 29. Along with those two bad losses, plus the five I cited yesterday, plus this one in Phoenix—the Thunder now have eight really bad losses only forty games into the season. Do the math, that’s 20% of the schedule played to date. To date, the Thunder in 20% of their games have basically loafed, shown no heart whatsoever, and basically given credence to many that the NBA regular season is a league of coasting where stars pick their spots to play hard.

So my question to Clay Bennett…why even pay the extra freight for Billy Donovan and all those coaches on the bench? Trump doesn’t have ambassadors—why do you need coaches? Because, it’s apparent to all watching these guys in no way are listening to Billy Donovan. On certain nights, against certain teams…they play hard. Then like in Phoenix or Orlando they make guys like Dragan Bender and Aaron Gordon look like the second comings of Bird and Jordan.

The Thunder drop to 22-18 and that’s really sad because the Spurs lost to Portland last night and if the Thunder had simply walked to the arena last night and conducted themselves like professionals they’d now only be three games down in the loss column to San Antonio.

So…if I can’t blame Alex Abrines and I can’t blame Billy Donovan and his army of support staff…who do I blame for the lack of heart, leadership, and effort in these losses to bad teams which is probably going to lead to a quick post season exit for the Thunder?

Well, since by my own admission, the NBA is a superstar/agent drive league, you don’t have to be Columbo to connect the dots. Bobby Mueller…this rogue blogger doesn’t need you.

I think I’ve figured it out.

OKC’s laid back Thunder host the Portland Trailblazers on Tuesday night.

I’m chilling from this point forward. If they don’t care, why should we?

Jimmy Buffet anyone?

I’ll go Alabama 20- Georgia 16.