Month: May 2019

It’s my favorite time of the week on my blog. I love getting to answer a question or two on the state of our union. Let’s go to the mailbox.

Q: Heather from Portland asks: ” I love the blog. Hope you dump the Thunder and start doing the Trailblazers next season. Do you have any take on how Donald Trump turned out to be such a miserable human being?

A: “Thanks. We’ll have to see about the Thunder. Ostensibly since the domain is okcthunderground.com you would think I would somewhat need to write about the Oklahoma City Thunder on here from time to time even though it pains me watching Russell Westbrook play basketball.

As far as to how Donald Trump turned out this way. I have no idea how a human becomes this much of a deplorable. I wonder if a dog would even curl up next to him on a couch. Dogs have a sense about them in this regard. I’m not Dr. Ruth…but if I had to guess…maybe both of his parents belittled him as he was growing up and all of this lying is Trump’s never ending quest to build himself up for their approval. Maybe his mother teased him about his penis. I don’t know, but he has issues for sure. But given the sick times we live in…he’ll probably be re-elected.”

Q: Chipper from New Orleans asks: “I’m a big Trump fan. Your observations are way off on mainstream America. Trump is the best thing to happen to this country since Teddy Roosevelt. Just look at the jobs reports and GDP growth.”

A: “We just recorded our first ever trillion dollar budget deficit. We just set the record for our largest ever trade deficit at $981 billion dollars. We have witnessed not one single tangible improvement to our health care system which eventually ties into everything economically in this country as we try to figure out our $22 trillion dollar debt. It means nothing to increase GDP growth to 3.2% if you can’t manage the budget. My question to you would be how much has the average American’s net worth increased in relation to their share of the debt.?”

Q: Joanie from Lawrence, Kansas asks: ” Do you think Tiger will win the PGA?”

A: “No. His game is not tailored for that course given the way Tiger has had to change his game. I would think Tiger’s best chances to win some additional majors will come at the Masters and perhaps at the British Open. Brooks Koepka is an animal—Tiger is fortunate he won the Masters.”

Q: Ben from Boston asks: ” I love the fact someone in Oklahoma loves the Bruins. Do you think they win the Cup?”

A: “I think they do win the Cup if Rask doesn’t come apart. The Bruins will score goals. I’m not concerned about their offense. It will be about Tuukka Rask in net.”

Thanks for the great questions. Let’s Go Boston Bruins!

I could not be a happier sports person right now. Russell Westbrook with his shitass diva bruh attitude and the Thunder season seem like two worlds ago for me. The Warriors and the Trailblazers are in the Western Conference Finals. Klay versus CJ. Steph versus Damian. I’ll be okay with either set of them advancing.

But in these Stanley Cup Playoffs my cup overfloweth. Don’t get me wrong—this is a good Boston Bruin hockey club, but I wouldn’t have picked them to win the East when this post season got started. Tampa as the No. 1 seed got swept in the first round and these Boston Bruins are now sitting in the Stanley Cup Finals with twelve wins already to their credit. Four more wins get them to the magic number of 16 wins and their names on the Cup.

Very poetic…the Bruins in Game 4 won the clinching game by a 4-0 count over the Cinderella Carolina Hurricanes.

To me, the Stanley Cup is the most prestigious trophy in team sports. It literally gives me goose bumps when the eventual champion parades the Cup around the arena after the championship is secured.Of my four favorite athletes of all-time…two of my four are Boston Bruin legendary offensive defensemen…Bobby Orr and Raymond Bourque. The two other athletes in my Pantheon of Four are Roberto Clemente and Barry Sanders. You’ll notice…no divas or hot dogs on my list

This season—Bruin netminder Tuukka Rask is finally silencing his critics. He has been the story for the Bruins. The Conn Smyth is there for his taking if he stays hot in net and the Bruins defeat the eventual winner between San Jose and St. Louis.

I don’t want to jinx him though by doing something for him on my blog when the job isn’t done yet.

I already featured the greatest hockey player of all-time in Bobby Orr from Parry Sound, Ontario—so this is my tribute to my second favorite Boston Bruin defensemen of all-time…Raymond Bourque.

Mark Jackson on the broadcast kept going on about the Portland pick and roll defense. I agree in that I’ve seen Enes Kanter up close as a Thunder fan with his defensive blemishes. Terry Stotts will have to adjust somewhat if you can adjust against the Warriors.

But Enes Kanter aside…nobody in the NBA is going to be beating these Golden State Warriors by putting up 94 points on the board.

115 points or so is usually the barrier a team needs to put on the board to hang with these iconic Warriors whether Cupcake is on the floor or not.

Did you really notice any significant difference without Durant on the floor?

What Kevin Durant is for Bob Myer is a hedge. A hedge in the sense he was there for the Warriors when LeBron was still relevant being on the Cavs playing in the NBA Finals. Relevant as in the next round Durant will come in handy when the opponent will either be lead by Giannis or Kawhi. But for this series—I really don’t think the Splash Brothers will need Kevin Durant and his moods of sulkiness and self-doubt littering the Western Conference Finals.

With all due respect to Mark Jackson–I feel through watching Durant from his days at Texas and with the Thunder … I have a much better feel on Durant than either he or Jeff van Gundy do from their national perch.

Kevin Durant is a hedge and he was a double hedge in reality. Bob Myer was smart enough to realize that the instant he removed Durant from Oklahoma City the Thunder would no longer be a viable rival to his Warriors in the West. Bob Myer is the guy I want handling trade deals with the Chinese…not Wilbur Ross.

Tell me with a straight face that didn’t work to perfection. Since the Cupcake exit to Oakland—the Thunder have become a Northwest Division also ran and a combined 4-12 in post season play. The question in Oklahoma City for next season isn’t if they’ll be a real contender…the real question will be if the NBA will still consider the Thunder viable enough to put on the Christmas Day schedule.

But for this Game 1 …it was really very simple and let me help Mark Jackson out and this might be why Steve Kerr is coaching his team right now:

Splash Brothers 62 – Damian & CJ 36.

There’s your storyline. Steph and Klay obliterated the Portland backcourt in this first game of the best of seven.

Harkless and Hood both had decent games with 17 points apiece, but combined–Damian and CJ went 11-31 from the field. No way do the Blazers win any games in this series with those two only attempting 31 shots and only making 12 of them.

No way.

Terry Stotts and his team have some things they need to talk about in the film room this afternoon if they want to make this series competitive whether Kevin Durant plays or not.

……………………

I didn’t write about Game 2 on my blog because I was basking in the Boston Bruins glorious Eastern Conference championship. Here’s Steve Kerr discussing Golden State’s 114-111 win in Game 2. Take note…114 points for Golden State in relation to the 115 point plateau.

Dell Curry is a former NBA Sixth Man of the Year and as a father he’ll be in rarified air starting tonight as he’s the first dad in NBA history to have two sons playing on different teams playing against each other in a conference final.

Dell Curry was a good NBA player. Not a star like son Steph, but a solid NBA player who was a good three point shooter back before the three point shot ruled the NBA game and how it is played today.

Anyone who knows anything about the current NBA knows of Steph Curry and his impact on the game. Kevin Durant is not the soul of the Warrior iconic dynasty…no way. He’s just a visitor who will reap some of the historic glory years from now.

Steph Curry along with fellow Splash Brother Klay is the dude who’s made this what it is in Oakland along with good ownership, great general managing, and a good coach.

Seth Curry by contrast has been an NBA journeyman so far in his NBA career. This year he averaged 18.9 minutes a game, 9 points a game and shot 45% from beyond the arc.

I wonder how Dell and his wife Sonya will handle this?

I would think it would be tough because I’m sure CJ McCollum’s father will be giving Dell Curry the evil eye if he sees Dell now cheering for the Warriors in the conference finals.

This will be tough for the Curry family, but what a nice dilemma to have with two sons both playing in the Western Conference Finals for two wonderful coaches like Terry Stotts and Steve Kerr.

I’m pulling for the Portland Trailblazers…so in this series I’m in the Seth Curry camp.

Kawhi’s shot was great, but that was at home in Toronto in a game in which I think most thought the Raptors would win.

To me, the storyline on Mother’s Day from an NBA viewpoint was CJ McCollum basically putting his Portland team on his back on the road against the favored Denver Nuggets and leading them with a 37 point performance in a Game 7 win by a 100-96 count.

Not many teams win on the road in Game 7’s, but this is one of those performances you can’t overlook especially after the way CJ toyed with the overpaid, overhyped, underachieving Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.

Consider that Nurkic didn’t play, Lillard had a subpar scoring game with 13 points, and Rodney Hood left the game with a knee injury. The Fox broadcast for the Thunder would use those three excuses for explaining away why the Thunder haven’t won anything of note since Kevin Durant left. For the Michael Cages and Little Nick Gallos of the delusional Fox world that’s enough alibis for a decade let alone a season.

CJ McCollum apparently isn’t into excuses. He’s into winning in this post season. Consider this—in these first two rounds with eight playoff wins—these Blazers have doubled the Thunder’s total post season win total since Durant left for Oakland three years ago. Pretty sure that won’t be on a Little Nick Gallo Bolt or on a Low Energy Royce Young hot take anytime soon as in this is the time of year they need to be in full Thunder spin mode to help with Thunder season ticket sales.

Royce Young…I believe gets to continue covering the Blazers for ESPN in as his beat team the Thunder is off for the summer after exhausting themselves with another lightening quick choke-exit from the playoffs. This will be good for Royce Young and might help him grow up as a writer as he’ll get to witness real NBA players and a real NBA head coach up close and personal. I’m almost certain all the Portland players will answer his questions and not play the punk Marshawn Lynch bullshit game in the postgame pressers. Royce Young should invite Tramel to join him as well and maybe they’ll feel absolved from the Thunder season of abuse.

But, anyway, I can’t wait for the Western Conference Finals if for no other reason than to witness the two best backcourts in the NBA currently go at it with a trip to the NBA Finals at stake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KtPe2RLiqs

Not exactly sure what Cupcake’s status is and quite frankly I don’t care. Rodney Hood is another matter. Portland needs him and hopefully the MRI will turn out okay and he’ll be available for the real NBA head coach named Terry Stotts.

In closing, I have no idea if Sam Presti has ever happened upon my rogue Thunder blog, but in the event he ever does this is for him.Dear Sam Presti…this is what a real NBA head coach looks like after they’ve coached under Rick Carlisle on a NBA championship team

Let’s Go Blazers!

Bonus coverage. One of my readers in Florida sent me this from Mar a Largo today as he played in the group in front of Donald Trump on Mother’s Day.

I think I’ll do this every Saturday now that the presidential election is pretty much in full swing. It’s fun getting messages here and there about the political aspect of our country and today I have two questions.

Chuck from Flagstaff, Arizona asks:

Q: “I enjoy your blog, but I feel you go over the top calling our sitting president a con artist, a rogue, a grifter, a douche bag and a pussy grabber.”

A: “Chuck, thanks for reading the blog and the question. I would feel bad about calling our sitting president any of these things if I felt they were an untrue depiction of the him. But in this case, I feel as if my claims are if anything rather on the tame side and in fact pedestrian considering this human’s behavior. Hope you keep reading the blog.”

Carrie from Toronto, Ontario asks:

Q: “It’s refreshing to read an American who can be objective about how far American culture has fallen the past twenty years. Who are your favorite political columnists past and present?”

A: “Great question. Growing up my two favorite political writers were Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. I could never get enough of them and went on to enjoy reading many of Gore Vidal’s historical novels. I loved it when they almost came to blows at one of the political conventions on ABC back in the day.

In the present, if I want to be entertained and laugh my ass off…I enjoy reading Maureen Dowd. If I want to be informed in an objective, pragmatic manner… I don’t think you can go wrong with Tom Friedman.

Hope you keep following the blog.”

Hope to have a good question or two next Saturday.

In what was clearly the most compelling NBA game played this season—the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant sitting with a mild calf sprain–rode 33 second half points by Steph Curry to eliminate the Houston Rockets in Game 6 inside the Toyota Center.

It was vintage Splash Brothers as Klay Thompson carried the load in the first half with 21 of his 27 points. Splash Brother Curry had zero points in the first half and appeared to be bothered by an injured finger on his left hand which surely would have had Kevin Durant sitting in this critical crossroads historic game of sorts.

The narratives following this game will be immense. Some will say James Harden and Chris Paul are post season chokers much like the pair in Oklahoma City named Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Some will say Kevin Durant is still a cupcake and only has two rings because Steph, Klay, Andre and Draymond are the real soul of a team which had already won a championship and then the next season broke the Bulls’ record for wins in a regular season with 73 of them.

The talking heads will have a field day. But here’s the thing—these four guys who played last night in Houston just basically have championship DNA in their veins and the others don’t. Much like Tom Brady or Bill Russell or Tiger Woods or Roger Federer or Joe Montana or Sid Crosby or Jack Nicklaus… they make plays when it matters.

Think about the feeble pair of regular season stars in Oklahoma City who in two seasons together and millions spent have to date not won a series and have a 3-8 record against Utah and Portland in post season. Think about all that money spent and the paltry rate of return while these four in Oakland are on the cusp of a threepeat and their fourth NBA title in five years.

Think about how every time the Warriors appear to be on the edge of a cliff one of these four guys stand up and be counted. None of these four have constant drama surrounding them. None of them to my knowledge are overtly rude to reporters or rumored to be headed to New York with Kyrie Irving.

These guys just make plays and perhaps maybe since they weren’t shaped in the Sam Presti fantasy world culture in Oklahoma City they behave like grown men and perform like champions when it matters most and the spotlight burns the brightest.

But on this night it wasn’t just the four. Kevon Looney came up huge with 14 points and some rugged rebounding. Shawn Livingston added 11 points in his usual low key style. That’s the thing—when your stars lead like stars the role players follow.

But the thing which stuck with me the most on this night is that none of the three stars Sam Presti drafted in Durant, Harden or Westbrook had anything to do with how this Game 6 in Houston was grabbed by the throat by a baby-faced kid from Davidson and a then obscure shooting guard from Washington State.

Sam Presti hasn’t been in Bob Myers’s league as far as pushing the championship buttons…and to me that has to be a major storyline as we examine why Oklahoma City as a franchise became downgraded like a subpar bond in the summer of 2016 while the Warriors have become an iconic dynasty.

Here’s Steve Kerr and GM Bob Myers in 2018 after the repeat over LeBron for their third championship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwJSY6IwwM

All the sudden these Western Conference semi-finals have become very interesting heading into Mother’s Day on Sunday. The Portland Trailblazers won at home in Game 6 by a 119-108 count to send the series to a Game 7 in Denver. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum combined for 62 points while Rodney Hood stepped up big with a 25 point game.

On the other side of the bracket we get Golden State at Houston tonight with Kevin Durant now ruled out with a Grade 1 calf sprain for the rest of the series. Figures, doesn’t it? Durant won’t be able to play in his team’s two most impactful games of the season. It’ll be on Steph, Klay, Draymond and Andre to do the heavy lifting when it matters most for the Warriors’ chances of pulling off the threepeat.

No Durant and no DeMarcus Cousins and the word I heard was Andrew Bogut would be starting at the five with Livingston, Looney and McKinnie coming off what is now an even shorter and thinner Warrior bench.

For league wide suspense though it’s great. The West without Durant tipping the Warriors with a talent advantage is up for grabs this week-end. How ironic the two former Thunder players in Durant and James Harden will to a degree have their personal narratives defined by what happens this week-end.

If Harden can’t get past the Warriors without Durant will he and Chris Paul ever get to an NBA Finals?

And will Durant have to endure the Cupcake innuendos if his team wasn’t able to depend on him because of what is considered a somewhat mild injury?

Some great NBA storylines to unfold this week-end in the West.

Is it any surprise that when Kevin Durant left the floor with a right calf strain that the Splash Brothers assumed their previous roles from a championship team which then went on to win 73 regular season games in a season without Kevin Durant the next season?

For me…no.

These dudes have championship DNA. So do Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala as well. They know how to win. They taught Kevin Durant how to win when it really matters because Sam Presti couldn’t ever figure things out in Oklahoma City. As in… you friggin need a shooting guard who can shoot to win championships in the NBA. Even back before Moneyball and the analytics craze… guys like Red Auerbach and Jack Ramsey pretty much had this figured out. The only person in the NBA who can’t seem to come to terms with this flash of genius realization is the GM in Oklahoma City.

What a great game last night at Oracle. It had everything from a human emotion standpoint. It had Durant leaving the playoffs for who knows how long. It had James Harden not shooting the ball in the game’s most impactful moments. It had both Klay and Steph flexing their Hall of Fame championship biceps to all of those who think Kevin Durant is the engine which solely drives this historic team.

It had Draymond Green showing what he can do when it’s Big Boy time in the post season.

And it also had Steve Kerr outcoaching Mike D’Antoni in Game 5.

One would surely think the Rockets will win in Houston on Friday whether Durant plays or not.

So assume Durant doesn’t play in Game 7 at Oracle. Who would you take in that situation? I’d take the four dudes with championship DNA and home court named Steph, Klay, Draymond and Andre.

I wish they didn’t even have to play Game 6. I can’t wait for Game 7. All the sudden these NBA Playoffs just became a very compelling watch.

Great presser. Good questions and to the point answers. None of that fourth grade level bullshit Russell Westbrook does with certain members of the press. So look at these two guys and how they handle themselves in this setting and then visualize how Russell Westbrook handles himself in these settings. I know it’s hard because lifetime without Durant he’s 4-12 in post season–but look at the stark difference in how champions carry themselves and those who can’t win when it matters handle themselves.

Former Daily Oklahoman Thunder beat writer Anthony Slater made the best decision for his career when he headed back home to the west coast to be a Warrior beat writer in San Jose and now for The Athletic. If Royce Young were smart he’d push the buttons to make this happen for him in Denver.

So yesterday it was revealed Russell Westbrook will have a hand surgery and a knee re-scope this off season. We were also told Paul George has two shoulders which will require surgery.

Does this excuse the Thunder massive swoon?

No it does not because none of these injuries were to the brains of the two stars and this was the dumbest of the sixteen teams which qualified for the NBA Playoffs.

If you told me they were suffering from some sort of brain trauma which affected basketball decision making then I might give them a pass. But otherwise…no.

This team led the NBA in technicals received. They were in dead last place in number of team passes made per game. They routinely made the dumb play in the last six minutes of games following the All-Star break. This is a dumb team.

And let’s even look back at the Miracle in Philly road win when the Thunder should have lost in regulation when Russell Westbrook lost his mind with a sequence of horrific decisions before fouling out.

Being a dumb team and a dumb team without a reliable shooting guard are what doomed this team. Most pro athletes are playing hurt at the back end of their seasons. Their bodies become worn out. It’s a cycle for the athlete and the human body especially when one reaches the age of thirty.

The Thunder spin is in full swing in the NBA city which no longer has a viable Oklahoma City newspaper covering it.

No one locally covers this team which does not have an inherit quid pro quo coming right back at them.

So unless there was acute head trauma suffered by the two regular season stars this wasn’t on injuries.

This was on being a dumb team which can’t shoot and is now a collective 4-12 in post season without Kevin Durant carrying their lunch box for them.