Month: July 2016

Not that anyone is counting days, but’s it’s now been three weeks since the Kevin Durant exit from Oklahoma City. For the time being, the Thunder are going to do everything possible to keep Russell Westbrook and build the team around him.

In truth, it would be a nice fit because OKC has two bigs in Steven Adams and Enes Kanter who can pick and roll effectively with Westbrook, plus the addition of hybrid guard Victor Oladipo. A nice defensive guard in Andre Roberson, a talented backup point guard in Cam Payne, a promising rookie big to succeed Nick Collison in Domantus Sabonis, and an interesting stretch four in veteran Ersan Ilyasova who can provide some offense.

With the departures of Durant and Ibaka, OKC loses around 41 points a game and loses their two most consistent three point shooters. So a tough decision had to be made in regards to three point shooting, and the Thunder’s ultimate decision was to rescind the offer they made to Dion Waiters and instead sign their Euro stash shooting guard Alex Abrines.

Abrines is a 6′ 6″ shooting guard who the Thunder picked with the 32nd pick in the 2013 draft. Actually that pick came from the James Harden trade so we’re still not done evaluating the Harden trade. Abrines is a 40% three point shooter with an overall good offensive game which could help Russell Westbrook as far as giving him some one to kick the ball out to behind the arc.

The main concern with Abrines is his defense, as in will he be able to defend anyone at the NBA level.

Also, with this move not to retain Waiters, the Thunder have enough room to offer Russell Westbrook an extension if he and his agent feel so inclined at some point.

With this team, OKC would most likely be somewhere around a #4 thru #6 type of team and extremely entertaining to watch. Another very good player would need to be added to put OKC back on the championship contender radar, but with some luck and a kiss from the basketball gods it could happen.

So…three weeks removed from the Durant exit to the Oakland Super AAU Team, from my perspective all in OKlahoma City have accepted the hand which was dealt and have moved forward in a positive manner.

Moving forward.

Everywhere I turn I see these two together…laughing, giggling, embracing, texting, whatever—it’s like I can’t escape them. Now I know what Jennifer Anniston must have felt like when she found out about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Not one basketball blogger in the world wrote last October, “Kevin Durant will fall in love with Draymond Green and leave the Thunder for the Warriors.” Not one.

Wherever I look—there they are. America’s new ‘it’ couple.

I don’t even want to write about the Abrines signing or the release of Dion Waiters or even the best possible Westbrook to Boston trade for the Thunder.

It’s just this…there. How is it none of us saw this ending?

 

 

 

 

Some historians are somewhat comparing the these turbulent times in America to what the country faced in 1968. Richard Nixon from California was the Republican nominee, while Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota was the Democratic nominee.

Nixon’ speech in ’68 took about a third of the time Donald Trump’s took tonight.

From a historical standpoint I thought it might be interesting to compare Nixon’s speech to what we heard from Donald Trump tonight.

Of course, Nixon went on to win the election by a razor thin margin and then ultimately had to resign from office early into his second term amid the Watergate scandal.

From my perspective, the two best speeches of the convention came from Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump. It was the highlight of the convention in what otherwise looked like a glorified Trump rally from the GOP primary race.

Donald Trump’s children  stole this convention. They make jaded people like me think ‘if he’s really such an arrogant asshole then how did his children turn out so well?’

They did for Donald Trump what he still wasn’t able to do on his own in his record setting in length acceptance speech–namely make him appear human.

Was it enough to sway me? No. Not even remotely close. I might vote for Donald Jr or Ivanka down the road for something if they ever run for something, but in no way did this sway me or change my mind about their father.

I don’t hate Donald Trump, but I just don’t think he has the temperament to be  leader of the free world. Nor do I feel he’s qualified.

But you never know what might happen in those debates. He ran roughshod over sixteen Republican canidates in his trek to the GOP nomination. I think more  what we saw tonight was a Donald Trump deposition of what awaits Hillary Clinton the next three months.

This will be very ugly.

Historically ugly.

 

Marco Rubio did a brief one minute infomercial which at best looked like he was told to do so by GOP officials in Florida if he ever wants to be elected for anything again. Obviously, he hates Trump, but he hates Hillary even more so I guess he got through it like a good soldier.

Then Ted Cruz took the stage and talked for twenty-three minutes. He never endorsed Donald Trump. Even told the delegation to vote their conscious in November as they went up and down the ballot sheet.

Pretty much par for the course after what we saw from these two during the primaries.

Kind of sad to watch. Hard to imagine why he was even allowed to speak during the prime time portion of the convention, no less as a lead in to Mike Pence’s  acceptance speech.

Yet, like with so many things regarding Trump it will probably help him with his followers even more.

Cruz would have been better served just staying home like John Kasich, Jeb Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, W, and others from within the party.

What Cruz did actually made Trump look like the adult option of the two.

 

 

 

This was actually a very good speech. Better than anything I’ve heard from his father in the previous twelve months. Never was there a mention of building a wall. Never the crazy statement of Mexico paying for it. Not once did I hear a word about banning Muslims from the country.

No overkill on the hatred of Hillary and Barack Obama like we’ve heard endlessly from his father. Never once did I hear a reference to low energy Jeb Bush, Lyin’ Ted Cruz, or Little Marco Rubio. Not once.

It was a speech which would resonate with independents like me for it’s core thoughts of choice, hard work,  individual responsibility, and other core values of voters in the middle.

In a word it was an excellent speech which touched all the bases. The only problem is it didn’t come from his father.

The father would be well served to study his son’s speech from tonight and incorporate this tone into his general campaign and be more inclusive in the coming months.

Good speech. The only saving grace from this convention I’ve seen so far.

 

 

On a day where the Thunder finally signed Alex Abrines and said good-bye to Dion Waiters how is it I’m on here doing this. I swore to myself a thousand times over I in no way would post anything on here in relation to Trump and this GOP Convention. I’m not a Hillary Clinton supporter, I’m still going to write in John Kasich and basically piss away my vote so it’s not like I have a dog in this fight.

But here we are only one night into the convention and it’s apparent the Trump campaign machine blatantly plagiarized Michelle Obama’s 2008 DNC speech.

It’s not like this will matter to Trump supporters in the long run though. At this point Trump could pistol whip Bob Dole on Thursday night and his supporters are still going to vote for him. The wife, the diva lab, and I are thinking some Mexican resort village might be the smart move all things considered.

Only with Donald Trump could his campaign staff plagiarize the very people they’ve demonized for the past eight years.

Sigh.

 

If you haven’t seen this you should take the time. Tim Duncan quietly retired earlier this week and didn’t hold a press conference. He just quietly retired. The only coach he ever had in the NBA and his surrogate father felt some things needed to be said. It’s beautiful. It’s what we’d like to believe sport is about every now and again.

Respect, common courtesy between teammates and coaches, commitment, and seeing the journey through to its ending.

It’s ironic considering what we just witnessed with the Kevin Durant move to Golden State that both Sam Presti and Clay Bennett both with previous ties to the San Antonio Spurs envisioned this very template for Durant in Oklahoma City.

I’ve yet to post Durant’s press conference from Oakland on here because it disappointed me so much. It lacked all the humanity which Popovich displayed in his press conference and quite frankly looked more like a Nike get together to move Kevin Durant into Kobe Bryant’s slot as the West Coast spokesman for the shoemaker. Probably not nearly enough has been written about Nike’s impact on the Durant decision.

Anyway, for those needing a few feel good minutes to help get over with what just transpired with Kevin Durant you might want to take the time to watch this.

Following Russell’s first All-Star MVP award he and Dan Patrick talk this and that.