You won’t witness me melting down anymore this season. It is what it is. Clay Bennett and his fellow owners went deep into the luxury tax to fund a Super Team of sorts which has more dysfunction than a private meeting between Donald Trump, Sloppy Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort. When this NBA basketball season began.. I had no premeditated notion that this Thunder season would correlate with what we witness daily from the political situation we find ourselves in as a nation. But the eeriness of this can’t be ignored. The theme being, some rich Republicans shouldn’t blindly throw money at something and hope something with substance will somehow emerge.
I won’t be emotional anymore. Fuck that. It would be a complete waste of time. For the first time in the Thunder Era in Oklahoma City, fans are seeing the other side of the NBA which these college fans had been sheltered from until the departure of Durant and the subsequent ‘free agent’ additions of Paul George and Carmelo Anthony this summer. Again, it’s not a league for coaches. One could even make the statement it’s not a league for the fans of all thirty teams, more to the point it’s a league driven by a handful of superstars and their agents.
Apparently, in Oklahoma City, that doesn’t even hold true because if one were to buy into anything coming from the people who cover this NBA team in this college market…. it would be you buy into the notion Andre Roberson is the MVP of this basketball team. Because…apparently, among all these millions being spent he’s the only one on the roster with enough heart and character to actually play some defense.
Sam Presti has a problem. That being, his team is a collection of pricey dysfunction. No heart. No character. Not much of anything except way too much payroll.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a basketball crush on Shabazz Napier when he led the U Conn Huskies to an improbable national championship. But his lack of size was perceived to be an issue. But you know what, he stuck with it and has turned himself into a nice enough NBA player that you wouldn’t even notice Damian Lillard was a DNP on Tuesday night as Shabazz Napier along CJ McCollum torched the heartless Thunder by a 117-106 margin in a game which was not nearly as close as the final score indicates.
For the record, my All-Star ballot now includes Aaron Gordon, something called a Dragan Bender, and Shabazz Napier. Who would have thought Sam Presti had to spend all that oil money for nothing? Good thing West Texas Crude is trending towards $72 a barrel later in 2018.
If you think I’m going over the top calling this Thunder team heartless and lacking any substance, keep in mind, I’m just following the lead of Thunder players Josh Huestis and Patrick Patterson who said as much in post game interviews after the loss in Phoenix and the gutless performance in Oklahoma City versus the Blazers. Hey…they said it. I’m just nodding my head on my rogue blog. Again, this is why you need a rogue blog, because for the most part young beat writers aren’t going to write shit like this. They want to keep their jobs even it means never stepping up and writing anything of substance. Just so we know here, there is no young Bobby Costas of the Washington Post covering this Thunder team. Not one in the bunch.
I clicked back onto the Fox postgame, and to the credit of Antonio Davis he was somewhat back on page as to what I’m writing here. Namely, the effort put forth by the Thunder has been shameful of late as the Thunder have now lost four of their last six games.
Billy Donovan was ‘brilliant’ on Tuesday night. Without Andre Roberson’s thirty two or so usual minutes of play available…he decided to go all in with Terrance Ferguson and went even further in giving Alex Abrines twelve minutes of time. All told, Donovan’s two three point specialists went 1-4 from beyond the arc in 42 minutes of playing time. Billy D could never coach hockey. It’s too fast. You have to think on your feet in intervals of twenty seconds when a mismatch could occur on the ice. Best he stay in a league where not much is required of a coach.
One thing was made crystal clear in this game. The notion that the Thunder had the ability to turn on or off the switch against good teams in an important game was debunked in this loss to Portland. This was a big home game. This game mattered. This game was needed, but it didn’t matter to this team. In the end, they didn’t show up and there was Billy Donovan for the second straight game emptying his bench with two and half minutes left signaling surrender to a lesser team which just beat his team’s ass in every which way.
OKC visits the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight. Point guard Jeff Teague is out, but I won’t be fooled again. I’ve got my All-Star ballot ready and prepared to add the name of Aaron Brooks before we get to the third quarter.