Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

I feel great about the blog moving forward into the ’25-’26 NBA season. As a saavy, experienced NBA blogger who’s favorite team is the Denver Nuggets, and second favorite team is the defending champ OKC Thunder…it’s as if the NBA gods have parted the seas for MJ and ‘all this’ has happened in this manner.

Not to brag, but…in four of the last NBA seasons the team which MJ picked at the XMas break went on to win the NBA championship. Golden State in ’22, Denver in ’23, and OKC in ’25. I’m not saying to totally ignore Vegas and ESPN, but it is what it is.

I’m going to make a few tweaks this season though:

1 I’m replacing Smerconish as an affliate link with Firing Line’s Margaret Hoover. MJ loves Margaret and this should have been done last season. I’ve bored with Michael. He appears to have become Donald Trump’s bitch.

2 I feel as if I need some sort of Buddist statue of Big Perk on the cover.

3 Jeremy Clarkson from Clarkson’s Farm will be an added affiliate link as well. It’s a long, long haul during an NBA season and without the TNT show I worry these white people are going to ruin the NBA. We all need to laugh at ourselves..and others from time to time.

4 And …continue to ban Donald Trump from from my blog content. No more rabbit holes for MJ.

Our big September trip to SanDiago isn’t that far off. Our goal was to go from coast to coast this year and genuinely take in the beauty of our country as we observe the final days of American democracy as our parents and grand parents knew it.

The wife of 45 years and I sat out on the porch this evening as the sun fell behind our dense forest line about an 8-iron away from where we where sitting.

She looked at me and said, “We got old, didn’t we?”

I replied, ” Nah…age is only a state of mind. You have to think young and challenge yourself every day.”

Etrenal love, MJ.

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There wasn’t much drama at this year’s British Open at Royal Portrush as Scottie Sheffler pretty much did as he pleased in winning his first British Open and fourth overall major at the modest age of 29.

The Royal Scroll of Golf now goes like this…There was Jack. Then there was Tiger. And now there is Scottie.

And how uncanny it is that the same number of days, 1,197 to be exact…is the very identical span of days it took between Tiger’s first and fourth majors it has now taken Scottie to turn the same trick.

Even Rory admits it…Scottie is playing at a level so far ahead of the pack this is not even debatable right now.

In tennis….Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are pretty much 1a and 1b defacto No. 1’s in the world. There is no such ambiguity at the top of mens’ golf currently.

In the NBA… I would say Shai and Jokic are 1a and 1b heading into this ’25-’26 NBA season.

But I must say when I listened to Scottie talking about his priorities in life…I felt very much like I was listening to Shai’s moving MVP speech.

God, Faith, Family, then Golf.

As was the case with Shai’s comments…I found Scottie Sheffler’s approach to prioritizing his life in this manner very refreshing in this Dark Gilded Age of America we find ourselves in currently.

Scottie Scheffler, thank you.

A song would be a nice way for MJ to end this lovefest of sorts. A song would be nice given this heat.

MJ

Congrats to three of the teams which showed up at the Summer League Final Four in Vegas this week-end. Eventual champion Charlotte, Sacramento, and Toronto all gave NBA fans all over the world three teams whcih were trying to compete and win the championship.

I could rant on the horrible level of basketball which was presented by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first semi-final game which they played without Topic and Mitchell.

I’ll write this though…Porter Moser, other than Barnhizer and Youngblood, would not have made NIL offers to the other Thunder players occupying court space on Saturday afternoon.

If you don’t want to give a genuine effort to win the championship…then pull back on Topic and Mitchell earlier in the event and lose some games.

Why ruin the event for fans everywhere else?

Congrats to the Charlotte Hornets for giving NBA basketball fans a show….and giving a shit.

MJ

Pretty much a lazy week for me given I was infused with my 11th chemo treatment on Tuesday. This will mark my last full strength treatment in a period of time whicn began on the Monday following Thanksgiving.

Clearly, a tough experience, but I feel I came through it pretty well all things considered.

I don’t want to ever use the words ‘complete remission’ with my Stage 4 cancer, but I will say it’s gone well to this point…and that’s all you can really ask for in this type of situation.

I did get to slip in one little fishing morning in Seminole, but otherwise in this heat index… it’s been a week of rest and calm as I prepare to move to the maintenance stage of my cancer journey.

Being ‘somewhat’ Italian myself, I thoroughly enjoyed watching fellow countryman Jannick Sinner handle Carlos is what I thought was a rather easy manner in four sets. I love watching these two guys play each other and currently they have clearly separated from the pact of the rest of the mens’ tennis field.

I wish my old buddy Glenda was around to talk tennis every now and again, but she may very well have died when MJ was bannished from the Daily Thunder . Que sera.

It’s a good week to be down what with the British Open and the NBA Summer League winding down. I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen from the Thunder players and Jeremiah Fears as well. I just wish Jeremiah hadn’t been drafted by the dumpster fire Pelicans though. I hope he can still excell there given his obvious potential.

I love the kid Presti picked from Northwestern with the 44th pick. He sends my TSSNP metric off the charts. Smart, tough, skilled, and physical with some nasty when needed. Plus, I think Borger with the 15th pick will fit the Thunder’s obvious need when they can no longer afford Isaiah Hartenstein.

That’s it for me today. I’ll do my roundup on the impending Thunder-Denver Nugget off seasons as MJ is feeling very good abou the NBA aspect for the blog next basketball season in that regard. I mean…is there another NBA blogger around who knows both of these rosters as well as MJ? I don’t think there is.

Love and peace, MJ.

This is just a first draft from me thinking of the Thunder’s time in Oklahoma City to date. I may revise this with more reflection. I put heavy emphasis on what players do in respect to their niche role on the team…and what they did individually to help the team win during the playoffs and against the better twelve or so teams in the regular season in meaningful seeding games.

Anotherwords…what did you as a player do during the goal acheiving portion of the season?

This isn’t just a reflection of me looking at stats as a generic whole. Generally…I don’t judge players by what they do against the bottom eighteen teams in the league during the marathon 82 game regular season.

And I do put a great deal of emphasis on the unique metric I created with my TSSPN metric which I share with ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins at times. BTW…my son’s Perk, the 13 year-old brown lab is still spry as a pup, and like Big Perk doing very well.

So here I go…

1 Shai (won a championship and Finals MVP)

2 KD ( didn’t win a championship in OKC or a Finals MVP here, but a very solid second for sure)

3 Russ

4 Harden

5 J-Dub

6 Nick

7 Lu Dort

8 Caruso

9 Serge

10 Chet (note to Chet…get tougher and show MJ more durability)

11 Paul George

12 Isaiah Hartenstein

Player I most hated to leave off this list? That was easy, and yet very hard for me at the same time. That player being Kenrich Williams. Every championship team needs a Kenrich Williams.

Two players I wanted to put on the list, but couldn’t because they can’t shoot a basketball…Steven Adams and Andre Roberson. Two awesome role players who just couldn’t shoot at the NBA standard. But…still had and are having nice NBA careers.

Chris Paul should probably be some kind of special category as well because if he hadn’t shined as a rookie with the New Orleans group this NBA thing in Oklahoma City may very well have never caught fire as it did. CP3 will eventually be in my Thunder Hall of Fame.

I’ll think about this first draft for a week, but probably stick very close to what I’ve done on July 12th, circa 2025.

Peace and love…here come the mid-July rains.

MJ

• I had Perk at No. 13, but in the end…. I had to go with Isaiah for three reasons: 1 Better hands, better free throw shooter, and 3 was a key missing piece on a team which won their first NBA championship.

• TSSSPN = Toughness, Skill, Smarts, Snarl, Physicality, and Nasty. Pop only had TSN. So there’s that as well. MJ never remains static. Just sayin’. You gotta be fluid.

Even though the NBA season has wound down…I still have a lot of things to blog about on my blog. Such as…Joe C’s retirement as the OU athletic director after more than a quarter of a century at the helm, this interesting movie I saw titled The Friend starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts, this interesting Serbian Nikola Topic who looks like he would be much more comfortable playing alongside fellow Serbian Nicola Jokic, and the Kevin Durant situation in Houston.

Plus, I want to at some point write something about the evolution of Sam Presti from that fateful Game 6 loss to the Warriors in 2016 to what he has evolved to as a GM since that horrific loss. I do agree with Kevin Durant in that I as well feel Sam Presti learned quite a bit about team building from that landscape changing loss to what we now see in Oklahoma City.

What I mean by that is shooting the basketball is a skill every NBA player should posess in this era of the three point shot. Plus, NBA players being able to go up to the free throwline and at the least make around 70% of their free throws and 30% of their three point attempts.

Some in the Thunder camp may want to refute me on this, but MJ feels Sam Presti took a very long look in the mirror after Paul George asked to be traded and realized moving forward he had to find honest two zone basketball players who could run, jump, defend, pass, rebound, and SHOOT THE BASKETBALL.

But for today…I just want to kick back and enjoy music by Sting and the Police. Sting was recently outside of Denver at the Red Rock venue and it broke my heart I couldn’t attend because of the difficulty that venue presents with my physical condition in that it’s a piece of work getting into the venue itself.

Maybe I can shoot for that next spring. Maybe. A golf cart would be handy.

Anyway…we also have a quick turnaround major rematch of the classic French Open Final we just witnessed at Roland Garros between No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Skinner tomorrow morning at Wimbledon starting at 4:00am CST in Oklahoma. Skinner needs to win this one to get some mojo back against Carlos. We can only hope it’s another classic. Can’t wait.

Have a beautiful Saturday in Oklahoma as the rains are supposed to reappear later today.

Ciao, MJ.

I always play this song first on my returns from Colorado because while I’m there it seems I’m always in a state of self-evaluation …and this was even before the the Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. When I’m there with my family its like this state of meditative calm overtakes me. Things just fall into place as to what’s really important in life…and what’s just extraneous bullshit.

It was a beautiful July 4th for MJ. Maybe the best one in my life to date. We did everything…. and from my point of view checked every box. The July 4th parade on the first row in Crested Debutte was highlighted by a Golden Retriever breaking loose from its group in the parade and adopting me.* The fly-by from the F-16s caught me off-guard as well. Then an off road ride on the top of the summit overlooking the valley beneath Gunnison and Crested Debutte left me breathless. We then closed off the night with a spectacular fireworks show on the campus of Western Colorado University in Gunnison.

I’ve decided this about Colorado…if I were ever to move there full-time…Gunnison is where I would want us to live. It’s me. A place for grinders and working class people who love to fish, love to hike and appreciate the beauty of nature, and don’t need the frills of the glamour spots elsewhere in the state.

We actually took an the alpine lift up to the top of Crested Debutte the next day as well. It was like touching the face of God. It was. In my previous body I could ski the blacks at places like Lake Tahoe, Taos, and Breckinridge. Now? I’m just grateful I can get on and off the lift chair in my tennis shoes with no snow on the ground.

That’s who I am. That’s why Nick Collison, Lu Dort, and Kenrich are my three favorite Thunder players of all-time. Grinders…just like me. Defense first type of guys.

This was my third 4th of July since my cancer revelation. I wasn’t supposed this live this long. But here’s the thing…you know, it’s like Dr. Showalter said to me in private, “Mike…I’m just a doctor. I’m not God. This isn’t about just what I’ve done as far as treatment with you. This is about you and how you’ve decided to live your life from this point forward. I’m proud of you.”

It’s funny…last night after watching this Serbian big cat named Nikola Topic play in a summer weague game for the Thunder…ESPN played the original Jimmy V cancer tribute.

Of course…I cried. Bigtime.

Coach V is an Italian like me and a huge disciple of Vince Lombardi…just like me as well.

His speech reminded me…that really if you do three things every day of life moving forward things will work for you in the end.

Those three things being:

1 Laugh every day.

2 Learn something new every day.

3 Cry once every day.

Mission acccomlished. I love you, Coach Jim Valvano.

My goal on this blog is to now hang around for this next NBA season to see who advances from the Western Conference next season. The East is in a complete state of shambles. Will it be Denver or OKC? Either way it goes…MJ feels as if he in his most spectacular prescient manner has hedged himself perfectly.

Kevin Durant with the Rockets…are you people kidding me? When is the last time we witnessed KD play impactful minutes in April and May? I’d ask for Dillion Brooks back. Seriously.

Life is good. It’s how you roll with the knock down punches which defines you.

Love, MJ

• We actually had a Golden Retriever named Lindy for the hockey player Eric Lindross when we were building the house out here on the mini-ranch in 2003-04. My wife’s favorite dog ever by far. Not even close.

Being I’m related to Jesse James and Italian….MJ loves his Italian food. Garlic Mike’s right on the Taylor River is where we make sure and eat every trip to Crested Butte.

I believe it was a New York family who migrated to the Gunnison area and created this incredible Italian restaurant, bar, and music venue.

I love it. It’s where MJ feels the most Italian.

Now…if some of you Trump knuckleheads here in Oklahoma want to keep on sending me these snarky messages…I’m just giving you a heads up. It needs to stop. Don’t push your luck.

Ciao, MJ

I need to come back on here this morning and finish what I started writing yesterday about the Denver Nuggets retool for the next NBA season. Executive Vice-Presidents of the Denver Nuggets, Ben Tenser and Jon Wallace (recently added from the TWolves operation), were basically just getting started on the 1-6 part of the Denver roster.

Shame on MJ, he was so excited about hitting the mountains with the ‘fam’…he wrote too quickly. This is a different kind of templet the Nuggets have put together since they fired both Mike Malone and GM Calvin Booth. Both Tenzer and Wallace will work jointly under Josh Gronke to retool the Nuggets to championship status.

Houston and Atlanta have both done some interesting things so far, but by far what the Nuggets have done tops the charts.

So ignore some of what I wrote yesterday in regards to the 8-11 portion of the Nugget roster next season.The two undrafted rookie free agents will most likely become two-way contract players, and if DeAndre Jurdan remains on the roster it will be as an emergency third center and a leadership type in the locker room.

What the Nuggets did was trade Dario Saric to Sacramento for 33 year-old center Jonas Valeniunas. What this means is Jokic will now have a legitmate backup center behind him. One who can come out on the floor and handle 12-14 minutes a game and give the team a quality backup center.

The Tenzer-Wallace combo then added another quality wing to their rotation by adding free agent Tim Hardaway Jr. into the mix. To me…Hardaway will now become the Nuggets’ version of Aaron Wiggins coming off their bench to provide instant offensive spark.

As a 38% 3-point point shooter this past season with the Pistons who averaged 11 points a game…. I would not hesitate writing I’d take Hardaway over Isaiah Joe, and on the nights when Aaron Wiggins doesn’t show up…. over Aaron as well. Aaron needs to address this part of his game…that being, becoming a dependable pro who does his job every night.

The Nuggets in my mind still have two dead weight pieces left on their roster who I would try and deal into another viable bench piece. The two dead weights I’m referring to are Vlatko Cancar and Zeke NNaji. Again, you can never have too much shooting, basketball smarts, and mental toughness on your roster.

I would look for maybe that one last bench piece. And I would also add, I love Jamal Murray, but Jamal… what we have here is a very clear message…get Nikola back to the NBA Finals. Know what I mean?

MJ

This is cool for MJ given the ‘fam’ will be in Crested Butte in a few days for the 4th of July. I saw Shai uses ‘fam’ quite a bit in his vocabulary and what’s good for Shai is good for MJ.

Finally…the Michael Porter Jr. experience is over in Denver. A parade might be in order just on that alone. I’m tired of ranting to myself about Michael Porter Jr.

So…the Nuggets in exchange for MPR get slick scoring forward Cam Johnson in return. I would assume Cam will start in MPR’s place and let’s be candid here…the defending champ OKC Thunder just droped a notch to now having the second best starting lineup in the NBA.

When one considers how much both Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun took their games this past season…I think the Nuggets now hold that edge.

So this Denver bench…the Nuggets also re-acquired 2023 clutch Sixth Man of the Year Bruce Brown on a one year deal as well. This now gives the Nuggets that consistent sixth man they’ve missed these past two seasons since the championship season. Good luck, Russell…it just didn’t work out.

This puts Peyton Watson as the 7th player as a rebounder/defense forward type. It’s time for Peyton to be the player we know he can be every game. Circle Peyton as a big key this coming season..as will be scoring guard Julian Strawther. I would hope Julian builds off that Game 6 vs. OKC when his 15 second half points were key to the Nuggets pushing that series to a Game 7.

The Nuggets also signed two interesting two-way guard types who weren’t drafted…those being Tomar Bates from Missouri and Curtis Jones from Iowa State. Both of these guys are good three point shooting types …and in this league you can never have enough shooting.

Then… I would think second year combo guard Jalen Pickett and veteran journeyman DeAndre Jordon will fill out the 1-11 portion of the Denver roster.

This will need to be a much better bench if Nicola and Co. are to beat the Thunder and win the West.

MJ and fam are off to the Rockies. Have a wonderful 4th.

Eternal love and peace, MJ.