Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

The truth is we have two Americas and consequently constant political gridlock as this country tries to operate as one. This is still one of my favorite movie scenes of all-time.

One of the few bright spots of this otherwise bleak presidential election cycle has been Michelle Obama. Unfortunately, she isn’t a canidate of either party. She’s smart and tough and would probably whip Donald Trump’s pansy ass if it ever came to that. As a country we really haven’t come as far as we thought we might have in these past eight years. 61% of registered GOP voters either didn’t believe or had doubts of Barack Obama’s birth as an American citizen. Was it because he was liberal? Was it because he was president of the Harvard Law Review? Was it because he was young? No…it was because he’s black and as a nation we still haven’t ridded our country of an older generation which quite frankly still embraces a somewhat hidden plantation mentality. He’s black. That’s why the racist-coward Donald Trump demanded his birth certificate. That’s why the racist-coward Donald Trump demanded his college transcipts. Did Trump ever ask for any of this from Mitt Romney?

Did the racist-coward Trump ever ask this of either Little Marco Rubio or Lyin’ Ted Cruz? Of course not, neither are black. He just quizzed Rubio on his penis and Cruz on his father possibly aiding Lee Harvey Oswald.

It is what it is and if you’re a Trump supporter and you can somehow rationalize any of this I actually feel sorry for you.

Even for Donald Trump today’s staged performance was quite something to behold. The man who stirred the Birther Movement and has fueled it for many years this very morning blamed Hillary Clinton for the movement, then took credit for proving President Obama was indeed born in Hawaii. Even for a reality television star this took his campaign to new levels of audacity. Both of these claims are perjury. Nothing more, nothing less. But you know what…it won’t matter. People in this election care little if anything about the truth even when all you have to do is google and it’s all there to be witnessed. It’s truly stunning how dumb America has become. Truly stunning.

Time to start thinking about the upcoming Oklahoma City Thunder basketball season. But what we would be thinking about today if the final five minutes of Game 6 had played out differently? What we’d probably be talking about is how after getting to the NBA Finals after beating the Warriors in Game 6 then losing to LeBron and the Cavs in six games is what the Thunder have to do to win an NBA championship.

Durant would still be in OKC, the Ibaka trade for Oladipo still would have happened, and Al Horford would be reunited with Billy Donovan. OKC in likelihood would be the Vegas favorite to win the NBA championship and the entire basketball world would be abuzz about the Thunder vs. Warriors rivalry becoming the next great rivalry in NBA history.

But instead what we have not only as Thunder fans, but fans of the NBA is Durant now playing for Golden State while the Thunder deal with the reality of not currently belonging in the same elite group of the Cavs, Warriors, and Spurs.

If those five fateful minutes play out differently in Game 6 and Durant and Westbrook didn’t collapse at the end you’d have to assume at the least Durant would be back on a one year deal giving it one more try in Oklahoma City.

But the reality is Durant now plays for the AAU Super Team in Oakland while Oklahoma City trys to retool itself with Russell Westbrook being the main guy.

Put aside the Oklahoma City slant and just consider how all this has changed the entire Western Conference and perhaps the entire NBA.

It’s clearly time to move forward but it’s hard not to wonder what if.

OKC’s decision as to how to pare its roster down to fifteen players was just made fairly easy by another suspension of Mitch McGary for his failure to comply with NBA procedures for reinstatement. It was also reported McGary left the team last year by his own decision to sort things out in relation to his substance abuse issues.

Sad for McGary because he has some nice offensive skills, but the truth of the matter is he became totally expendable in Oklahoma City with this summer’s additions of Ersan Ilyasova and Joffrey Lauvergne.

From a human standpoint I hope he gets the help he obviously needs and can get his life and career back on track.

This would put the Thunder at fifteen players and still with six bigs in Steven Adams, Enes Kanter, Ersan Ilyasova, Joffrey Lauvergne, Domantus Sabonis, and Nick Collison.

In all candor probably not a smart political decision by Hillary Clinton to share her ‘basket full of deplorables’ thoughts out loud. What she should have just said is Donald Trump is the most deplorable presidential canidate in American presidential history. Then…as the Colin Powell emails calling Trump a national disgrace were leaked this week her comments would have carried some weight. But the truth of the matter is she’s just a horrible canidate who just doesn’t really connect with the American electorate.

If she wins it won’t be because of a ground swell of belief in her, but rather that just enough voters came to their senses on election day and realized in their hearts Donald Trump is indeed a national disgrace as a presidential canidate. The Newsweek article coming out this morning in regards to Trump should be illuminating.

In all candor, she should stay home resting till the first debate and allow President Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton to run the campaign. Obama now enjoys an almost 60% approval rating which puts him in the same territory as Ronald Reagan as far as second term approval ratings. If Obama were the canidate opposite Trump this election would already be over…as in done.

I can’t vote for any of these others given what I’ve observed. I’m officially endorsing John Kasich today as my write in choice.

Hopefully both Clinton and Trump supporters will give it a rest today and maybe realize they’re supposed to be on the same side in all of this. This is where America has become lost in the last twenty years. The hate and intolerance for one another in this country is what’s bringing us down. Put the labels in the trash. It shouldn’t matter if you’re liberal, moderate, conservative, or even alt right.

We should be Americans first thinking back as to why this became the greatest country in the history of the world. Take a break today and go back to bludgeoning each other tomorrow morning. From what Hillary Clinton said this week-end with her ‘basket full of deplorables’ comment I’m sure it will be another depressing week for the Losers and the country. But today should be different.

Contrary to what Kevin Durant may want to think Mark Cuban isn’t an idiot. Quite the contrary, he’s an interesting guy. Cuban was on Morning Joe this morning and shared his thoughts on the Losers and the upcoming election. Good interview.

As far as what Cuban said in regards to Westbrook I agree. Russell Westbrook being the best player on a team is probably not a team which can win a championship. Great player, in fact he should have a chance to win the regular season MVP, but he’s yet to show he can pull back the throttle when it matters most in post season.

I have no idea whatsoever why Durant said in reference to Cuban, ” He’s an idiot.” Because in making the move to the Warriors and later torching Westbrook…Durant basically agreed with what Cuban was saying after the first round of the playoffs.

There’s no point even playing the Hillary Clinton segment because almost half of her time was spent on her trying to answer questions about her emails instead of talking about veteran affairs or foreign policy. In all candor, this is what she deserves since it had been 273 days since her last press conference.

Anyway, here’s Vladamir Trump.