Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

The Thunder finally won a championship in Oklahoma City. The failures of Durant, Westbrook, Paul George, and others have been wiped clean. The slate is full of the possibility of an NBA repeat for the first time in the league in eight seasons.

To make this even more personal…the last NBA repeat was when KD left the Thunder to hook up with Steph, Klay, and Draymond.

The Thunder with the exception of two-way player Dylan Jones return a roster intact. On first blush only the revamped roster of the Denver Nuggets should throw a scare into the Thunder. The East is in turmoil and disarray.

But here’s what MJ would say…for some the Thunder’s championship has an asterisk next to it. The Nuggets pushed them to seven games with four healthy players. Aaron Gordon could hardly walk in Game 7. Russell Westbrook turned into Russell Westbrook. Michael Porter was virtually a non-enity the entire series and yet if the Nugs had held on in Denver in Game 4 …Sam Presti probably wouldn’t be having this discussion with his team this pre-season.

Throw into the mix the asterisk argument…Tyrese Haliburton pulled up lame six minutes into Game 7 of the Finals after getting off to a torrid shooting start. These things have to be written…even in educationally challenged Oklahoma.

I loved the parade..it was awesome. But fans in Denver are amped for this season to begin.

Does Mj adhere to the asterisk? Well, yes, somewhat even though I came to love these Thunder players during their ‘championship’ run.

But the Thunder didn’t prove they could beat the best in the league without injuries seriously weakening Denver and Indiana. That’s just an objective fact.

Denver with great prescience has removed Michael Porter and Russell Westbrook from their roster and added Bruce Brown, Cam Johnson, Jonas V, and Tim Hardaway Jr. Nikola, Jamal, Aaron, and Christian will not be playing the Thunder without a roster this season.

If I were Presti…I’d address this straight up with his players. Denver will be formidable and I don’t think they’re at all scared of the Thunder.

That being said, many in the league are nodding yes to the asterisk theory. The Lakers bubble championship was an asterisk season as well. Alex Caruso has him two asterisk ‘ships…put that one away on a trivia list.

Lombardi wouldn’t skirt that with his team. Neither will MJ.

Show the league and the basketball world last season wasn’t a fluke.

That’s it for the first episode of the 2025-26 MJ Thunder Repeat Season installment here on okcthunderground.com. I’ll try and feature some of the Thunder podcasters this season here and there.

Eternal love and peace, MJ

My grandson turned six this past Monday. And what a beautiful thing it is to have two healthy grand-children you adore. Aubrey will turn five in mid-December.

Words cannot properly describe the love both of you have brought into my heart.

Live life to the fullest. Try and learn something new every day. Be kind to others. Have a sense of inner justice and integrity throughout the days of your lives.

Follow passions which bring joy and meaning to your lives.

But most of all live the Golden Rule every day and good things will come to you in abundance.

Love, Mike

Sam Presti of the defending NBA champion OKC Thunder held his first presser of the season on Thursday. The theme was obvious…get better, work harder, and know the challenge of getting out of the West with Denver, Houston, Minnesota, San Antonio, and maybe even Dallas stronger this coming season. When was the last time both Steph and LeBron weren’t in this discussion? Or either for that matter? Think about that one.

Denver basically overhauled their roster this past season. In fact, I would say at this point before the start of camps OKC and Denver are my 1a and 1b picks to win the NBA championship this coming season.

But I’m going to come back Monday with Presti’s talk and my start to the NBA season here on the Underground Flagstaff Blog of both the 1a OKC Thunder and 1b Denver Nuggets.

As I’ve stated previously, no one other than MJ is better prepared for this coming OKC-Denver showdown. Not Barkley. Not Kenny or Shaq. Not even Michael Breen and Timmy Legler…although MJ has immense respect for the insights of Tim Legler.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster of a week here in Oklahoma this week, what with Mike Gundy and the jackal Ryan Walters both exiting the spotlight…so I thought I’d do something light and fresh heading into my Game-Day Saturday College Football coverage…that being, to share this great story from Robert Redford about his close friend Paul Newman.

It made me laugh and we need more laughter in these trying days in America.

Eternal love.

Mike J

I’ll be back sometime later today to address this piece of good news in Oklahoma from a political point of opinion laced with hope.

Maybe a break song would be appropriate so as I might reign myself in a little before writing about ‘this person’ on my blog.

If you’re an owner of a Trump Bible or anything else from the Trump fake Christian ‘movement’ or just the run of the mill radicalized Trump ‘human’ walking the streets of our 50th ranked in education state…this might be that time you take a pass on okcthunderground.com’s eclectic and award winning content.

Best wishes, Mike J

…………………………………………..

Yeah, I’m back and in a better head space than earlier today when I saw the Ryan Walters story break. It was too much for MJ in one week to have to deal with Mike Gundy and Ryan Walters biting the bullet just two days apart. Imagine Captain Ahab catching Moby Dick on Tuesday and then landing Jaws on Thursday. That’s where I was on the jubilation scale earlier this morning when I imposed a break on myself from writing content on the best OKC underground blog on the universe.

But now I’m calm again. I worked out. Meditated. Prayed and thanked God for the week so far. Maybe asked for too much when I prayed for Markwayne Mullin to announce he would be leaving the Senate to become a televangelist in Bolivia. I got greedy there.

But I’m back in my wonderful Stage 4 cancer survivor spiritual calm and just glad to be the grandfather of Robert now six years of age just this past Monday, and Aubrey soon to be five in less than three months.

Life is good and it got better this week. No hard feeling towards Gundy though and besides he’s walking with fifteen million and doesn’t have to answer Robert Allen questions anymore so maybe he should call his biographer sometime, take him out to dinner, and talk about the book.

Let’s join hands together with my prayer today from the Book of Matthew:

Blessed are the merciful

For they shall be shown Mercy,

Blessed are the kind of heart

For they shall see the light of God,

Blessed are the peacemakers

For they shall become the sons of God,

Blessed are those who were persecuted for their rightousness

For theirs shall be the kingdom of Heaven fowever.

Amen and eternal peace and lovingkindness. Live it every day.

MJ

It is what it is in today’s Wild West world of college football. Last night I wrote Gundy’s obit at O State on my blog.. Then — I read it this morning and decided to trash it. Literally. It was too judgemental on Gundy’s overall tenure at O State.

MJ may be some things, but one thing he’s not is a judgemental phony teasipper.

I mean, at the end of the day…I’m the guy who wrote Mullet King: The Boone Pickens-Mike Gundy College Football Saga. Who in the hell am I to judge Mike Gundy or anyone else?

So I’m doing this over today because it’s not like Mike Gundy did anything really wrong except losing Boone Pickens as his mega donor Sugar Daddy.

In 2025—if you don’t have at least one or two mega sugar daddies you have a zero chance of surviving and in my view what happened at O State these past two years is they got way too far behind the NIL-transfer portal curve and probably made some poor decisions in revamping their overall coaching staff this past off-season.

Do I think I would have fired Mike Gundy if I were a regent?

Yeah, probably. Not because I think Mike Gundy became football stupid overnight. But more to the point… he lost his Sugar Daddy and he lost someone like Mike Holder who ran interference for Gundy during the first five years of being head coach in Stillwater. Plus, 21 years at one place gets stale after awhile.

So…Mike Gundy—-listen up, dude, “You’re fired. But don’t take that in the wrong way. You were going absolutely nowhere with this new group in Stillwater. The whole body of governance at O State is currently a shit show clusterf–k. No university president. A weak AD. And no real Sugar Daddy with the hubris or cash of Boone.”

So my advice from a John Marshall Bear to a Midwest City Bomber is this…take the $15 million and run. Sleep in and eat a good breakfast every morning. Do some yoga. Start a blog. Enjoy the fact you won’t have to talk to Robert Allen any longer. That in itself should have a monetary value of at least another $5 million.

Go do the Game Picker gig on College Gameday when they call you. Take the color analyst job they offer you and laugh and have fun and quit thinking anyone is going to win big at O State with what they have in place currently because it wasn’t going to be you either.

As far as coaching again…this would be my take. The perfect place for you would be Texas Tech. They have those two sugar daddies who sold Double Eagle for $4 billion dollars and have a lot of cash to burn. You’re perfect for Lubbock. No slight to Toby McGuire, but God made you to coach at Texas Tech.

Pistols firing, buddy.

MJ

Injuries suck..especially when one fells your team leader. But this is what life and sports are about. Reacting to adversity–and finding a way to get it done.

Hate to see John Mateer miss three or four weeks, but it’s very simple. Next guy up needs to do his job and pull his link on the chain.

I have faith in Michael. He can do this.

If he can’t do it…we’ll move Owen Heineke to quarterback. Just kidding…kind of.

Love and eternal peace.

MJ

I like Jackson Arnold as a young man so this in no way will be snarky. It may be a little snarky to Auburn fans, but not to Jackson.

I thought this was a very entertaining SEC opener for both teams. This game had a little bit of everything as far as a college football game can deliever.

OU eventually won the game by a 24-17 score as John Mateer led the Sooners on a clutch drive to take the lead. Then R Mason Thomas closed the deal with a safety sack of Jackson Arnold to seal the game in what was a very physical football game.

A year ago, without John Mateer, OU probably would have found a way to lose this game. But not on this Saturday. This is a different group of Sooners with a different kind of mindset as far as finishing games in the fourth quarter when it matters.

We saw it in that final drive against Michigan and we witnessed it again this past Saturday as John Mateer completed his final 11 pass attempts of the game and then scored the game winner himself on another one of those smart scampers into the endzone which has highlighted his season in Norman so far.

Mateer is a tough kid. Both physically and mentally. He is exactly what this team needed at the quarterback position. A quarterback who sets the tone by example and leads the team through his play. Maybe a white kid who plays a litle bit like Jalen Hurts might be a good comparison.

That in no way is a dig at Jackson Arnold because I like Jackson and want him to succeed and play in the NFL at some point. My OU memory of Jackson will always be the Alabama game where he shredded the Tide with his running game as the Sooners routed Alabama 24-3 in Norman.

I’m dissapointed though in the Auburn fanbase. They’re still whining over the Sategna play where he didn’t leave the field. What is a trick play? It’s deception. What is a double reverse? What is a halfback pass? What is the Statue of Liberty play which Boise used to upset the Sooners in that epic Fiesta Bowl I attended? What is the hook and ladder play which Boise also used on the touchdown prior to the two-point conversion?

All trick plays with the (mens rea) intentional intent of deception.

Jackson Arnold was SACKED TEN TIMES on Saturday by OU. TEN TIMES. Plus, the Auburn offense took double digit penalties on the offensive side of the football at just the wrong times. The replay call on the overturned Auburn touchdown was correct. Possession was never established.

I guess, by the letter of the written rules–Sategna should have yelled over to Hugh Freeze he was staying on the field just like the Boise coach should have done to Bob Stoops before all of that trickery.

Yeah, whatever. Auburn has a little bit of that O State whine in them. They’re always firing their coaches and always upset with Alabama. They need to become more mentally tough would be MJ’s advice. I mentioned this to my wife who attended Auburn… just after the game and she flipped me off. I actually like she did that. It showed me some fandom toughness.

Que sera, baby. OU is now 4-0 all-time versus Auburn and this game marks the first time in the series OU didn’t win by a double digit margin.

As far as Jackson goes..I give this advice—get rid of the ball quicker. Get through your progressions quicker or move up into the pocket quicker and flush downfield. There’s an art to pocket presence, JA.

And BTW to you Auburn fans, OU’s best defensive football player, R Mason Thomas, didn’t even play the first half because of a very dubious targeting call in the Temple game. Should OU have whined to the SEC about that fact?

It is what it is. Auburn is at Kyle Field this coming week-end to play a good A&M team. We’ll see how it goes. I know if I were coaching Auburn…I’d make certain No. 8 Cam Clarkson at a minimum gets 12 targets or touches every game.

I mean, I want Auburn to win the game. Let’s see what they’re made of.

Time to work out.

Eternal love, MJ.

This will be brief because I need to go work out this Saturday morning and then get to work on my College Game Day as there’s three Power 4 games I want to focus on this glorious college football week-end.

These games would be: Texas Tech vs. Utah, Auburn vs. Oklahoma, and Miami vs. Florida. You’ll notice the two Power 4 teams with the two toughest schedules in the country, those being OU and Florida…both have tough assignments today as they pretty much will for the rest of the season.

As far as last night in Stillwater….what can you say of which I didn’t already write on this blog around twelve days ago.

Congrats to the young men from Tulsa. They completely dominated O State in the first half and in all reality should have been leading something like 24-3 at the half instead of 16-3. Tulsa obliterated O-State on both lines of scrimmage with O State coming off of an off week after the 69-3 disaster at Oregon.

For you business and math majors at O State…that’s means when your competing neighbor has 88 cows and pigs the last two games…and you have 15 cows and pigs the last two games—some serious work needs to be done.*

The kid playing QB for Tulsa, Taylor Hayes a sophmore, had one previous college football start before last night. And he played for East Tennessee State last season. So it’s not like in any way Tulsa had some high priced NIL transfer leading this road upset win last night in Stillwater.

Tulsa obliterated O State on both lines of scrimmage iin the first half. That’s football went the other guys obviously care more and have the ‘The Want To’ advantage.

That’s all that was, plus, O State tackles like a bunch of grandmothers. But give Tulsa credit. This was the first time since 1951 in which a Tulsa team won in Stillwater.

Kudos also should go out to former O State running back Dominic Richardson who was clearly the No. 1 star of the game. I’m sure this was special for him in that Mike Gundy told him he wasn’t good enough to be the feature back at O State.

Jim Traber on Monday can handle the Mike Gundy situation. I have better things to cover on my blog than this nonsense. Hope Tulsa can build on this and get themselves bowl eligible and build off this win.

Eternal love, Mike J.

• MJ using an ag analogy in the football venacular as simplication for the readers in Stillwater. MJ being kinder, gentler.

MJ is outta here for a day or two fishing some of the beatiful ponds and small lakes of eastern Oklahoma. Nice little swing down in the temperatures…so I think I’ll fish a day or two.

Then ….it’s back to the okcthunderground.com studio getting to work on Auburn vs. Oklahoma Gameday.

Unlike both Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert…MJ still has a studio intact. A vibrant studio I might add. A studio filled with courage, hope, integrity, and justice for all.

Have a splendid Thursday. And here’s a thought…be kind to one another. Find your better angels and be the best version of yourselves 24/7.

Eternal love and peace.

Enjoy the song. I picked the Michael McDonald verstion over the Marvin Gaye version in an effort to reach out to all the radicalized white male Trump supporters. We all have to start somewhere in reaching out to one another. Right?

Love one another.

Brother Miguel.

Robert Redford passed and it has brought a new set of tears to my eyes. He was not only a great actor, but an excellent director and producer as well. But most of all… a tremendous human being who never over-stepped his boundaries as a celebrity and stayed within himself with class and dignity.

There is an indescribable beauty of being alone fishing a spot like this with your thoughts and your soul. It allows you to free yourself from this crazy place we reside. Just calling it surreal doesn’t suffice.

This scene touches that part of me that always drive me towards solitude at our lake near Alex. A place to hide from the world.

Robert Redford directed A River Runs Through It. This is my favorite scene from all of the movies Robert Redford was ever involved in making.

God bless you, Robert Redford.

Hope to see you at some point down the road.

Love and peace, Mike J

• This second scene would probably be my second favorite scene from a Robert Redford movie. Remember…I’ve seen all these chick flicks with my wife which are indelibly printed on my soul. I can literally envision my favorite demographic here on the blog, Trump-white, non-college educated males puking all over themselves as I picked a scene with Barbara Streisand in it. Deal with it.