I watched the game in a jam packed family room with family and friends. I kept my thoughts to myself about the Thunder heading into the game and after the game. Who needs another Grinch when you have Donald Trump already?
Fairly entertaining game with Clay’s Bennett’s version of the NBA United Way posing as a Western Conference elite team. It was a good game because without Chris Paul these Rockets like the Thunder are not two of the four teams I have circled as legit O’Brien contenders on December 26th.
But in the end the Rockets without Chris Paul made the plays and beat the Thunder by a score of 113-109.
There’s no need for angst. If you’re the Houston Texans or the Kansas City Chiefs that’s who you are. That’s who these Thunder are. A nice team which will be entertaining at times in the regular season but in all likelihood another quick exit by late April.
I use the Christmas games as my first marker of sorts to evaluate teams, then redraw the day after the trade deadline if somebody did something of consequence.
What a perfect Christmas game for the Thunder to prove the payroll was worthy of the luxury tax consequences. What an opportunity to show they could be something different. But in the end it’s hard to buy the facelift Sam Presti put together this summer really making that much of a difference post season-wise. But they really are very nice guys.
You couldn’t ask for a better non-profit organization to do an assortment of good deeds for a community like Oklahoma City.
But an NBA championship contender?
No.
Isn’t it odd the most talented quarterback in the NFL and the most athletic point guard in the NBA both lead teams this season who aren’t going anywhere of consequence this season in Green Bay and Oklahoma City. How odd these two small markets with marquee players at their sport’s most important positions aren’t going to figure to be relevant beyond the regular season for the second straight season in Green Bay and the third straight season in Oklahoma City.
The Nick Gallos and the Royce Youngs of the Thunder Universe will try to spell it differently, but in the end they won’t be able to because it’s a truth which makes you gulp with a sense of partial sadness attached.
In the end this is Sam Presti’s Doctrine of Sustainability in Oklahoma City. To be respectable on the court, but to be even better in the surrounding community in Oklahoma.
To do good things from a human standpoint to show the good in the human condition. To show the sense of empathy to others that the world doesn’t see from the current POTUS.
In the big picture of all things make this clear, I’m not railing at anyone by writing up the Thunder’s Christmas game in Houston in this manner.
I love what the city leaders have done downtown with all the MAPS projects. I’m proud of how they’ve transformed the city. I’ll always love the Thunder. I love the baseball park downtown which is a replica of Camden Yards and hosts the LA Dodgers’ AAA team. The Riverwalk is awesome. What they’ve done with the Canadian River in turning it into a national rowing attraction is a miracle. I can’t wait for the new Oklahoma version of Central Park even if it won’t be Washington Park in Denver. Just to have the vision and civic will to do it impresses me.
Clay Bennett and the people in Oklahoma City have performed a sequence of miracles in Oklahoma City which have made the county a tolerable place to live even if you can’t ignore the rest of the dumpster fire state for its lack of vision.
So as I sit here the day after Christmas I do indeed realize there’s quite a bit of good things going in Oklahoma City even if the Thunder aren’t a viable championship contender.