Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

We’re one day away from the election and I’ve kept my word by not putting anymore of that nonsense on my Thunder blog. Washington’s State’s Mike Leach is a Trump supporter, but I’ll overlook it with him because he’s my favorite college football coach.

I’ve always loved Leach because he speaks his mind and is never boring. He’s one of only five college DI coaches who never played football at the college level. He earned his undergrad at BYU with a degree in American studies, then earned his juris doctorate at Pepperdine.

Leach became Bob Stoops’ offensive coordinator at OU in 1999 before taking the head job at Texas Tech in 2000. Leach went on to be a great success at Tech before his ‘firing/resignation’ after the Adams James’ incident in which he ordered James to stand in an equipment shed while the team practiced. Leach claimed he was just following concussion protocol although he did later admit Adam’s father, Craig James of ESPN, was a pain in the ass who called frequently about his son’s playing time. Under oath, Adam admitted he found the entire shed incident funny.

Leach took a break from coaching until he landed the Washington State job in 2011. Make it clear–Washington State has not had recent success in football. But lo and behold here the Cougars stand at 7-2 and atop the PAC 12 North heading into the second week of November.

Leach’s book, Swing Your Sword, became a NY Times top ten bestseller. Great book and the forward was written by my favorite contemporary author, Michael Lewis of all people.

Leach is somewhat unique in that he encourages his players to read books, take challenging courses, and eventually graduate with a degree. Go figure.

Leach’s other interests beyond football are pirates, Geronimo, Daniel Boone, grizzly bears, chimpanzees, whales, and American artist Jackson Pollock.

Led by Russell Westbrook’s balanced evening of 28-6-8 in 28 minutes of play, the OKC Thunder used a 31 point third period to dispense of the youngish Timberwolves by a 112-92 count inside the Peake on Saturday evening. OKC improves to 5-1 overall and a perfect 3-0 at home so far this season.

A nice bounce back game from the loss in Oakland on Thursday night where northern California embraced the courage of Durant for having the grit to join fellow All-Stars Steph, Klay, and Draymond in pursuit of a more organic culture. Note sarcasm dripping. If Jerry West were sitting next to me in a bar and we were both drinking beers chit chatting-I’d have no problem whatsoever looking at him and say,”Are you kidding me? Really?”

But here’s the thing, since that game Golden State has lost by twenty to the Lakers while the Spurs lost at home to the Clippers by twenty-four points last night. So–without even looking at nba.com to peruse the Western Conference standings I’m going to guesstimate our Thunder are back atop the West at 5-1 even though we know they’re not going to finish there.

OKC is an uber, uber young team albeit Russell. The fact OKC has started this well far outweighs one loss on the road on the second night of a road back to back in an emotional setting for the Oakland Super AAU team which in reality has been anything but super to date excluding their desire to humiliate the Thunder on national television. Other than that game–they look awkward. Klay Thompson doesn’t even look like the same basketball player. Maybe he could come play here and he’d get some shots. Note to Klay–KD won four scoring titles here regardless of the bullshit you’re reading now. You’ll get your shots here. We’d take you.

5-1 is a great start for this Thunder team with so many new young faces. Here’s the thing–albeit Westbrook, these Thunder kids are as young as the Minnesota Timberwolves and this in no way should ever be overlooked as this season moves along. With growth, there will be some tough learning moments.

Five Thunder players scored in double figures against the Wolves. Westbrook 28, Kanter 20, Adams 14, Dipo 12, and Samaj 10. Nice balance as Westbrook got everyone involved. Jerami Grant and Jofferey Lauvernge both continue to gobble up more rotational minutes on the second unit and I agree with Donovan on both counts. I like both of them even taking into account Jerami shoots three even worse than Andre. But those dunks…omg

Andre Roberson had nine points and actually went 2-3 on threes. Christon had a very solid night at backup point guard with 10 points and 5 assists. Abrines played something like 17 minutes and didn’t make a field goal–which is nonsense because there’s no reason whatsover for him to be on the floor if he’s not making threes. None. Shoot the ball, Alex.

My three stars of the game goes 1 Westbrook, 2 Townes, and 3 Kanter.

Minnesota’s Karl Antony-Townes led all scorers with 33 points and is a legit big time talent.

As a rogue Thunder blogger I couldn’t be happier. 5-1 exceeds any expectations I had regarding the start of this season. Great start. These kids will do nothing except get better every time they step on the floor.

Miami Heat in Oklahoma City tomorrow night. Should be an excellent game.

For me, the 30/30 films on ESPN are by far the best part of the network. Even if you don’t follow golf much, take the time to see the film on John Daly. The name of the film is Hit It Hard and I’m almost certain you won’t find it boring.

I only post this to illustrate the significance of a road back to back after an emotional win the night before. If you watched this game, it was clear from the opening tip Golden State expended quite a bit emotionally the night before in Oakland against Russell Westbrook’s Thunder.

The Lakers are playing much better so far this season with Luke Walton coaching the team. Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, and D’Angelo Russell are all stepping up their games. For the first time in a while there appears to be some light with the Lakers.

Having written that though, Golden State was just an absolute no show against the Lakers. Steph Curry’s streak of 157 games with a made three is no longer. He went 0-10 from three. Klay Thompson struggled as well going 2-10 from three after going 4-8 against the Thunder on Thursday night. All told, Curry and Thompson were a collective 9-35. Hard to imagine.

It happens in sports every day. Trying to rebound from an emotional high and not having it in the gas tank.

But give some credit to Walton and his Lakers, they’re getting better and showing some signs of growing up a little.

A tough night for the Thunder. It all started well with Steven Adams dominating inside during a first period which eventually saw OKC win 32-31. But from that point forward the wheels came off as Adams got in some early foul problems as the tone of the game completely got away from the Thunder.

Golden State got Kevin Durant going early and it was vintage KD as he finished with 39 points going 7-11 from three point range. It was clear Steve Kerr and the Warriors were going to make this night special for Durant against his old teammates.

The final read 122-96, but beyond the first period when Adams was dominating Pachulia at will, OKC could never sustain anything on either end of the floor.

Clearly, Golden State was determined to make it a difficult night for Russell Westbrook as the lane was usually clogged with two or three defenders. Andre Roberson did nothing to alleviate this as he was basically non-existent from an offensive standpoint.

Westbrook had to work for any space he could muster against what was essentially a zone setup to take the lane away from him. No triple double on this night. Westbrook’s line was 20-6-10 with 6 turnovers attached.

A difficult situation for OKC playing this game on the second night of a road back to back after a tough grinding win the night before against the Clippers.

This in no way is an excuse being offered because the Warriors are clearly at a different level than the Thunder with Durant’s flip flop of franchises. You don’t lose the third best player in the world to the team you were just about even to last season and not fall behind. Simply put, OKC’s realistic high end expectations are to maybe finish fourth in the West and get into the second round. Golden’s State’s expectations are to win the West and then beat LeBron in the Finals.

The obvious take from this game is Russell Westbrook will need Sam Presti to add another significant offensive piece if the Thunder aspire to become a contender again.

Some silver linings from the game were Adams’ interior dominance in the first period. Victor Oladipo did some positive things and scored 21 points. Joffery Lauvergne showed he could compete at this level and could very well be the Thunder’s second or third best overall big at this juncture. He competes on both ends which is what the Thunder needs. Sabonis had a rough start, but as the game wore on showed he can do a few things. He just needs time. Jerami Grant had some good and bad moments, but his pure athleticism can’t be ignored.

On the flip side, Enes Kanter played only three minutes and was horrific in those three minutes as he didn’t even appear to be playable against the Warriors. Roberson was non-existent offensively and this in no way helped Russell Westbrook get near the rim let alone to it. Anthony Morrow got some minutes and didn’t make a basket. Singler didn’t play until the second half so you can’t blame him because the game was over at halftime. Abrines got first half minutes and looked like a first year European player playing against a team of NBA All-Stars. Christon struggled as well.

For OKC to be competitive against these Warriors these guys can’t just stink it up as they basically did on Thursday night. But to the point, second tier role players usually play better at home so the Thunder can only hope when the Warriors travel to the Peake in February and March these guys play much better.

When you have a young team and have a road back to back against the Clippers and Warriors a split is a good thing. That shouldn’t be lost big picture as the season moves forward. But overall–OKC isn’t in Golden State’s league. But really who is other than LeBron and maybe the Spurs.

The realistic goal for OKC’s extremely young team is to get better and for Sam Presti to add another offensive piece to help Russell Westbrook.

Minnesota tomorrow night in Oklahoma City.

I have to admit I watched almost all of the Thunder’s 85-83 win over the Clippers with my index finger atop the back buttom on my remote going back and forth between the Thunder-Clippers and the Cubs-Indians. Lucky for me, both of the teams I wanted to win did so.

OKC won it’s fourth straight out of the gate and now remain as the only unbeaten team in the West heading into Oracle tonight. Actually, I’m not all that amped about tonight because I finally heard something authentic and honest come from the lips of Kevin Durant which touched me almost as much as his 2013-14 MVP speech. What Durant said was that basically, unlike Russell, he’s still trying to find himself as a human being and that in a sense he envies Russell for the relationships he has with his wife, both of his parents, his brother, and close friends. I couldn’t agree more with Kevin. That’s a significant step forward. I completely respect him for saying that instead of some of the other nonsense he’s said of late.

As far as the win over the Clippers–Westbrook was once again magnificent even though his 35-6-5 line was somewhat pedestrian compared to Week 1. No other Thunder player scored in double figures. Oladipo scored nine points and was the second leading scorer.

Steven Adams and Enes Kanter both had double figure rebounding nights. But this was a game about Westbrook hitting key baskets when it mattered and the Thunder playing some great team defense. On the night, the Clippers shot 39.1% from the field. More to that point, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul went a combined 11-32 from the field.

Three things stood out to me about this game. Samaj Christon, Joffery Lauvernge, and Jerami Grant were all solid and will continue to play significant roles moving forward. Plus the fact, Billy Donovan now has three guys who can play the point in Westbrook, Oladipo, and Christon. So why is there really need to keep Cam Payne moving forward?

Jerami Grant doesn’t shoot any better than Andre Roberson, but I love his defense and raw athleticism. OKC now has four perimeter defenders in Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson, and Grant who should be able to somewhat match up with the Warriors. The dilemma with the Warriors is how to go small with them. Sam Presti has now given Billy Donovan his own small lineup of Westbrook, Adams, Oladipo, Roberson, and Grant. But again–OKC now has four guys who can defend on the perimeter. The Thunder have never really had this as a team. And, yes, BTW…defense wins championships. You can never have enough guys who can defend.

As far as tonight, I have no idea what will happen. I’m not all that much into the Westbrook-Durant narrative at this point. I’ve completely moved forward with all that. I’ll never boo Kevin Durant even though he did disappoint me. It’s his life, not ours. It was his decision–not ours. Instead I’ll remember the good things about Durant and how he touched all of our lives in Oklahoma City for almost an entire decade. Having written that though–I clearly hope we beat his ass tonight.

LET’S GO THUNDER!

Congrats to the Cubs, Bill Murray, and their fans.

Lots of speculation on a deal bringing Rudy Gay to Oklahoma City. We’ll see.