Month: December 2023

I love using ‘slay’ in a post-game headline…just saying in case you haven’t noticed. It feels so dramatic.

It’s time for me to get busy being the pre-eminent Golden State Warrior blogger here in godforsaken Oklahoma. Anthony Slater….I know you have a great gig there at The Athletic being the best Warrior beat writer around. But for this game, for this moment, let me show you a few things…slick.

Thirty turnovers!

Putting aside the fact the Golden State Warriors committed THIRTY TURNOVERS in an NBA regular season game where nobody really tries all that much on defense…the Warriors gave the ball away THIRTY TIMES. Thirty possessions of the ball in transition mostly. And yet… the Warriors still should have won this game in regulation with relative ease just inside the ten second mark.

So what does that say about the young Thunder?

I guess it means they’re good enough to beat a Warriors’ team of which Chuck Barkley last night referred to as the Titantic.

I know, I know….Royce Young, Little Nick Gallo and Michael Cage all are saying this was a Jordan-Pippenesque display of defense…but the fact of the matter is as of this writing the Golden State Warriors are the dumbest team in the NBA bar none.

If I were Steve Kerr I would have just gotten my second technical about three minutes into the second half and found the bar down there in the bowels of the Pay.Com Arena….and said f–k it to myself.

Draymond our favorite NBA crimefighter. Right there with Superman, Spiderman, and the Green Hornet. Let’s see..he punched Jordan Poole in the face. Then got Jordan exiled to the Washington Wizards. Then got himself a fat, big new contract. Then missed most of training camp with an ankle ‘injury’. Then sat five games for choking Rudy Gobert. Now this horrific late game gaffe which literally cost his team another game and drops the Warriors to 10-12 on the season.

Draymond…if you’re burned out and don’t want to play then do the upright thing and quit taking owner Joe Lacob’s money and spend all your time on your podcast and/or sitting beside Kendrick Perkins in an ESPN studio.

As for the Thunder…they shouldn’t have even been playing this game tonight. They should have easily qualified for at the least the quarterfinal round of the Inaugural NBA Regular Season Tournament.

The Thunder have three dudes bound for NBA stardom and about six or seven mini-dudes who are really nice role players. And then you have Josh Giddy….the odd man out.

What do you think the Thunder could be if you dropped Josh Giddy…somehow picked up a sixth man like Austin Reaves and acquired Jeff Green at the trade deadline?

What I think what you might have is a legit Western Conference contender.

That’s it for me tonight.

We’re heading out tomorrow for Seminole so I can hang out with a Dog Named Hank and then do a podcast of sorts with some retired U.S. Air Force officers on the condition of our country currently.

Merry X-Mas.

MJ

Sooners have opened the season on an 8-0 run with three Quadrant 1 wins and are currently the 19th ranked team in the nation under Coach Porter Moser.

I’d say at this point Otega Oweh, Javian McCullum, and Milos Uzman appear to be the three best players on the team. But this team is deep and has a nice bench as well.

This team looks nothing like the white, slow, non-athletic team from a year ago. Coach Moser has a nice ball club and travels to Tulsa tomorrow to play the always tough Arkansas Razorbacks in a game slated for a 3:00pm tip.

These Tulsa games pitting OU vs. Arkansas have already in my mind more than replaced the Bedlam basketball series…of which OU leads 141-101… all-time. I’m tired of the whining from the cupcakes up North. Enough is enough. The very soft deal with the tiebrekers was the last straw.

If you wanted to play in the game so bad…then show up and PLAY IN THE GAME.

Good lord…third and eight and you were waving the flag with a carry by the third string running back. Weak beyond weak.

Now I need to go workout and get my karaoke game in shape as well since it won’t be long before I’ll be at Howl at the Moon in San Antonio displaying my shaky singing voice.

Have a wonderful Friday and remember it’s Christmas. Be especially kind.

Eternal peace.

MJ

Back in the day, writer Michael Lewis wrote a book titled ‘Losers’ in which he followed the 1996 GOP candidates vying for the nomination to defeat Bill Clinton’s re-election bid.

It’s a great read which never went NY Times Bestseller list because I guess it was too esoteric as far as what really goes in an American political presidential bid to gain a party’s nomination.

Bob Dole went on to win the GOP nomination over the likes of Steve Forbes, Herman Cain, and others…but then went on to be literally obliterated by Bill Clinton despite BC’s hazy memory in regards to incoming blowjobs dotting his past.

So..was there a winner last night? Yeah, there was. His name is Donald Trump and that’s why he hasn’t even bothered to show up for any of the four GOP debates so far this political season.

Our most orange ever past POTUS must have a smile on his face this Thursday morning. A big, fat Cheshire Cat smile on his face because he knows even if he got smoked in one of these debates his rabble zombies would still be behind him all the way.

I would suggest Michael Lewis get to work on Loser’s II so it will be ready for print by February 1, circa 2024.

As far as my promised Thunder piece which I intended to blog this morning. I planned on writing something really nice about the Thunder because I presumed they’d beat the Houston Rockets last night. But per the norm with Sam Presti’s teams…they choked and shat right down their down their leg and lost to the Houston Rockets. Not that the game mattered as for the Thunder had already been eliminted from the regular season tournament.

So…tonight, I’ll be covering the semi-finals of the NBA Regular Season Tournament semi-finals. I’ve actually enjoyed the tournament and the quarterfinals were great. In Vegas tonight…most in Oklahoma will see a Vegas arena which will be full and a city which should have an NBA team.

I’ll get back to the Thunder after their game against the Warriors on Friday night.

My question to myself is why does OKC need a new billion dollar arena when for the second straight season the Thunder are near the bottom in league attendance? I’m not voting either way on the arena proposal, btw….because I don’t ‘really’ live within the appropriate city borders. Me voting on this issue would not be ethical unless my child was enrolled in in an OKC funded school.

Be kind to others today. Help a person in need of compassion.

MJ

We just had a lovely week-end hanging out at the in-law’s family ranch in Seminole these past few days. Total contentment for me.

I took several moderately long walks for me without the walker. The OMBN-1300 is pretty much done for me as where I am currently in the physical rebuild. Walking in the country is the best…simply the best. Plus…I hung out with a Dog Named Hank quite a bit on Sunday.

I planned on watching all the Power 5 conference championships, but due to the horrific, non-competitive nature of the Big 12, Big 10, and ACC games…I in reality only watched the PAC 10 and SEC games, plus Liberty’s win over a pesky SMU team which OU defeated earlier this season.

O State….oh, boy. Maybe that DB for O State shouldn’t have tackled a wide open Drake Stoops in the endzone is my primary thought. If that is the second best team in the Big 12 as per the second set of tiebreakers submitted indicate…..then I would suggest Commish Yorka check out the portal and see if any entire team rosters would consider the move to the new Big 12 next season.

I don’t mean to be cruel, but that is the worst Big 12 Championship Game I have ever tried to watch. Congrats to Texas for advancing to the Final Four.

One stat says it all….Longhorn playmakers were wide open the entire first half, plus Ollie Gordon was stuffed for 36 yards on the day. It was hard to watch. So….I only watched the first half.

The only drama in this game occurred in the second half during the Dr. Pepper-Big 12 Football Toss contest. You know…where the two aspiring college students try and underhandedly place footballs in a large Dr. Pepper can within a minute or so of time. The two youngsters named Gavin and Jeremy tied at the end of regulation and the contest was supposed to advance to a three tiered playoff tiebreaker.

However…confusion ensued when the young female ABC sportscaster on the field mistakenly applied the tiebreakers and mistakenly awarded Gavin the winner’s check for a hundred thousand dollars. This was later remedied when Dr. Pepper agreed to give both Gavin and Jeremy a hundred thou apiece.

Go figure that in a such a collossal mismatch of a football game which probably shouldn’t have ever taken place….the tiebreakers in the Dr. Pepper-Big 12 Football toss went awry as well.

Breaks of the game…I guess.

Dillon G…hit the portal this morning as I expected him to do. He did his job here in Norman and is a great young man. He bridged the OU program for two seasons and helped get some stability back in place after the pathetic exit by Lincoln Riley.

Go make some money, kid and maybe come back here and be a coach when you’re done playing the game.

As far as the Playoff Selection picks…here’s who to blame. The groups to blame primarily are the ACC and the Big Ten because two years ago when the SEC was trying to put together a 12-team playoff system…it was in fact these two conferences who filbustered and stalled the entire process.

How ironic it is ACC Commish Phillips is primarily the one at fault for unbeaten Florida State not being a member of this year’s playoff.

I need to blog about the Thunder and Warriors tomorrow…so I think I might.

Jackson Arnold, let’s go buddy. Make me proud in the Alamo Bowl.

Be kind.

MJ