Month: November 2019

I have quite a few nice things to write about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s solid win over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night in what used to be called the Chesapeake Energy Arena.

I’ll get to the Thunder and Chesapeake Energy itself maybe tomorrow, but given the shameful performances by Lindsey Graham of late this has to be on my blog right now….as in now.

Yes, Lindsey Graham is the biggest phony and the biggest pussy to perhaps ever have a seat in the history of the United States Senate. With all due deference to Little Marco Rubio, Lyin’ Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul—this isn’t even close.

Lindsey Graham—the long-term best bud of John McCain wins this award hands down. Lindsey Graham one of the original Three Amigos with McCain and Joe Lieberman in and of himself stands alone as the winner.

It must with Lindsey Graham be a masculinity thing. As in—such he possesses none—that he likes to attach himself to stronger men in the headlines like John McCain, Putin, Sean Hannity, and Donald Trump.

Lindsey Graham– the make believe Russia hawk national security phony hawk wins this award hands down. We now clearly know he isn’t this generation’s Howard Baker who went and told Richard Nixon he had to resign. We now know this with certainty…absolute certainty.

I think Michelle Obama would be okay with this. I could go much lower, as in on my knees like Lindsey Graham does every week with his stronger male evangelical friend Donald Trump every time they get together behind closed doors. But I won’t do that on here. I’m going high. Michelle Obama should be proud of me.

I feel like I’ve grown some today.

If you live in Oklahoma watch at your own risk they don’t talk like this on Fox.

I’m not concerned about OKC’s record because they’re tanking. I have the Thunder slated for something like a 30-52 record with Gallanari for sure being traded as soon as we reach December 15th or so and not quite sure how long it will take to find a taker of Chris Paul’s contract.

I don’t even know what the final score of this game was even though I watched parts of the second half in between play stoppages of the O State-TCU football game. If OU hadn’t been idle…I probably wouldn’t have watched what I did.

The Thunder are tanking. They need at some point point to rid themselves of the three salaries of Chris Paul, Steven Adams, and Andre Roberson which this season add up to just around $70 million for this season alone.

One is too old, one can’t shoot beyond six feet, and one tragically suffered an injury which is hard to come back from for an NBA player. I love all three of these players as guys, but this is a business.

I will actually start going to Thunder games once the resale value of tickets plummets even further for season ticket holders.

If I’m Sam Presti–I would follow the Lawrence Frank-Jerry West model with the Clippers the previous two seasons in honing my team for two seasons down the road.

This is what I want…I want to have three young stars as my core moving forward. All three need to be able to score the ball and be decent from outside the arc. No more big contracts for guys who can’t shoot the ball. SGA is a player. Sam Presti now needs to start using his assets and put two other young core players around SGA.

I then want hungry, tough role players making up the rest of my roster. No stars. I want guys like Pat Beverly and Nick Collison. I want guys with a chip on their shoulder who have something to prove. I want guys that want to prove they belong in this league and can be signed for contracts with some real value for the team.

As I see it the Thunder already have four of these in Diallo, Ferguson, Bazley, and Noel. Possibly—Nadar and Burton, but I would need to see more out of both of them as the talent level on the roster starts to rise again this late spring and into the NBA draft next summer. BTW…in case you didn’t notice Adams and Ferguson didn’t even play versus the Pels.

Centers in the NBA have become like running backs in the NFL. That being, you don’t need to pay a lot of money for a center to win a championship. Find a center who can run, rebound, play off the pick and roll…and be at the least a 68% free throw shooter. I love Steven Adams as a mate, but c’mon…. he’s to the Thunder as to what Todd Gurley is to the Rams…. too damn expensive for what he does. NBA centers are the running backs of the new style of play in the league…Jokic being an extreme exception.

And of course I’d probably part ways with Billy Donovan. You couldn’t find a nicer coach in the league. I don’t want a nice coach. I want a coach who can extract the maximum out of my roster and monetize the investment I’ve made in my team per wins and per high basketball IQ culture once they set foot on the floor.

This is the template I’d want if I were Sam Presti and Clay Bennett moving forward.

So at 2-4 and probably headed for the cellar in the Northwest Division along with the Timberwolves the Thunder are right where we thought they would be.

I’m actually much more upbeat than I was two months ago. Diallo is a high energy role player. Bazley appears to have much more upside than I thought he would have. Noel should have been played much more last season and we already knew that.

And here’s another thing..Jerami Grant is averaging 9 points a game shooting the three ball at 22% for Denver so far in his option year. Who’s to say last season at 38% Jerami Grant had an outlier high season shooting the three. Maybe Presti got lucky and sold higher than we thought he did originally.

This is the second decade of NBA ball in Oklahoma City. The fans and the local writers need to grow up. It’s a business. It’s not all fuzzy warm with butterflies and rainbows at times.

Actually–in hedge parlance…I’m bullish on the Thunder moving forward and my guess is Sam Presti would like what I just wrote.

Thank god PBS was on hand to chronicle the return of world champion Washington Nationals at Dulles Airport. There will be no question of crowd size or some sort of deep state conspiracy by the Nationals to steal this championship from the oil and gas lobby favored Houston Astros.

With the exception of reliever Shawn Doolittle….. I believe most of the Nats are going to visit the most overtly corrupt POTUS in the history of our country regardless of politics.

Like myself and Michelle Obama—the team is going to go high and do their best to ignore the Corrupter in Chief and conduct themselves as role models for our youth throughout the country.

I’m pretty sure the Washington Caps visited the White House after their Stanley Cup championship and in reality this is the way it should be even with Trump in office.

I’m certain GM Mike Rizzo has instructed the players and coaches to smile politely when Trump says something completely off color and inappropriate. I mean…this franchise has to sell season tickets to Republicans as well as Democrats. You can’t just openly insult half of your season ticket holders at the apex moment of the franchise.

Hopefully, Trump can get through this without causing some sort of controversy or uproar.

I had no idea a Romney was the current chair for the rogue RNC. This must be my design by Trump to have the niece of his harshest GOP critic as the head of the RNC following the spineless tenure of Reince Priebus.

I can’t believe I never saw her before extolling the spiritual virtue of Donald Trump on television. She must have missed the parts where he throws a handful of Tic-Tacs in his mouth, grabs the next handful of pussy available, and then brags about it to Billy Bush on a bus.

How is it she and Mike Pence aren’t having an affair is my first thought?

I wonder if she and Sarah Huckabee-Sanders are Facebook buddies?

This is why I can’t watch Fox Television.

I learned something today.

Of course they had to vote yes, unless you don’t believe in our constitution or democracy….. how could they vote otherwise if they have children, grandchildren or a dog.

Not surprisingly not one Republican crossed partisan lines. I was embarrassed Tom Cole of Oklahoma took the floor as he did. For those not aware—Tom Cole used to be a Democrat until gerrymandering changed the Oklahoma congressional districts.

I was wrong in regards to Kendra Horn’s vote. She voted yes on moving the impeachment forward on our most overtly corrupt president in the history of America.

Good for Kendra Horn. I actually called her congressional office and told one of her aides I admired her political courage for voting in this manner. Too bad for democracy James Lankford and Jim Inhoffe don’t have her set of balls to cast their votes in the impending Senate trial of the most overtly corrupt POTUS ever.

I’m going to try and use restraint on my blog as this moves along. I want to be thoughtful, deliberate, and ‘somewhat’ restrained as the trial of our most overtly corrupt POTUS moves to the Senate trial stage.

Hopefully, Trump won’t read his own transcript at his trial in that it in plain print supports the claim he’s guilty of treason, obstruction of justice, and perjury.

Sigh.

Trump seems to forget it was the erased gaps in the tapes which finally led to senators from his own party walking over to Nixon’s office and demanding his resignation. Most don’t know Bush 41 was the chairman of the RNC at that time and wrote the letter stating the need for Nixon’s to resign. Of course there was Howard Baker and others, but in Jon Meacham’s biography of Bush 41 the letter he wrote to Nixon at that time is covered in the book.

I don’t even know who the chairman of the RNC is right now. Is it one of the flunkies from Trump’s Reservoir Dogs-like mini mafia operation? I need to google the current RNC chairman tonight. Is it Liz Cheney? I can’t believe I don’t know who it is. History will not be kind to previous GOP chairman Reince Preibus. He was a chief enabler to this bullshit when our country needed a mature patriot instead of party-line yes man.

Good for Kendra Horn though.