Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Some more tough days ahead for LA County as the winds and fire dangers kick up again. Just horrific to witness. Even worse than the fires which engulfed Maui. In total…I think I’ve visited Lahaina five times in my life to date. Four times when I was single, and another time with my wife early in what is now year forty-four in our marriage.

In total…I’ve been on the Islands six times and all the four major islands each at least twice.

But California cuts closer to home for me. I was born in San Diego when my father was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. As a kid we made the trek back several times. As an adult I was back in 2003 for the OU-Washington State Rose Bowl game. I was back again in 2007 when my son played in an ice hockey tournament in downtown LA.

I’m still kicking myself for not making the 2017 trip to the Rose Bowl when OU played Georgia in that historic double overtime game in the national semis. In reality, that was the last OU team which had a real chance of winning the national championship.

But on the two previous trips I made the trek along the Ventura Highway from Del Mar all the way to Pasadena. You have not lived as an American if you’ve never made that drive in a convertible with the top down on a sunny day.

My cousin Jan, who in reality is my older sister, at the end of this very January will retire from the Gates Foundation and move from Seattle to Del Mar. I hope that as long as I keep navigating my cancer journey we’ll be able to visit her at least once a year..if not maybe twice. I’m hoping that’s a big part of my journey as I head down the runway of the final chapters of my experience here on earth.

So, yeah… my heart is with California right now. But let me add this in closing…the other part of my heart will always love Oklahoma despite some of the snarky things I’ve written on my blog during these Trump years.

Consider this when you judge me…during these Trump years I had to navigate my father’s death from cancer, my mother’s final grievances with my father, I had to deal with the angst of Trump even being a candidate, my ‘brother’ Mark’s completely unexpected death this July, and then of course… now, as Trump re-enters the White House as Time Magazine Person of the Year no less.

But let me tell you this…when those Crimson and Cream jerseys come bounding out of that tunnel at the Cotton Bowl… this heart is all Oklahoma. When I’m out fishing or just taking in one of Oklahoma’s seventy-seven counties this heart of mine is all OKLAHOMA.

Pure Oklahoma.

Have a nice Monday in sunny Oklahoma today.

Mike J

Editor’s Gift to Reader: Here…drive it and feel it yourself.

Two great national semi-finals in our inaugural 12-Team College Football Playoff. Two very smart, tough, and deserving football teams who will enter Championship Monday as the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds off the original bracket.

Two great programs, two excellent coaches…but most importantly the two teams playing at their best at the goal acheiving portion of the season. Anotherwords….neither left their best football behind them in October.

I told you people on my blog…Penn State and Texas had sugardaddies on the selection committee. I wrote as much. In fact Texas probably should have been beaten by Arizona State when that horrific non-targeting call saved the high dollared Horns.

Like me….the football gods took note. Penn State and Texas….Take the Walk of Shame you pampered pussies….you’re going home where you deserve to be.

Without looking at any injury report as of yet…I’m installing Ohio St as my early 5.5 favorite to win the national championship.

I hate the Ohio State fight song. It’s the weakest part of their historied football program. Otherwise, I would have posted it on here.

Congratulations to both teams and their excellent fanbases.

MJ

I watched Jimmy Carter’s funderal service today and I thought it was done in a beautiful manner. My two favorite speakers were grandson Jason Carter and Andrew Young. They both knocked it out of the ball park as far as I’m concerened.

The 1976 presidential election was my first as an 18 year-old. I registered as a Republican who fashioned himself a social liberal, yet a pragmatic monetary conservative at the same time. A conservative with a kind, tolerant heart. Today people like me are considered radical left by the Trump supporters.

The kind heart and social liberal part has never changed with me. Although, in 2000, I changed my registration to Independpent because I was a John McCain supporter. Senator was beaten in the GOP primaries because he was pro-choice and the ‘faux’ evangelical Christians crucified him for being honest about his feelings in regards to womens’ rights.

I also firmly believe there should be a clear separation of church and state so as the dipshits wearing their faux Christian MAGA caps never have any leverage over American goverance. Attempting to connect those MAGA dipshit narratives I guess I’m at this point to assume hanging Mike Pence, Mitt Romney, and Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t from their view be a broken commandment of some sort. Three words apply here…. YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID.

Editor’s footnote: In an effort for Mike to be kinder and gentler to the fake Trump Christians…he will from this point forward use ‘faux’ instead of fake in matters of this regard.

I voted for Gerald Ford in 1976. In 1980, I voted for the fiscal conservative John Anderson who ran as an Independent. So, yes, even at this early stage in my adult development… I displayed a courageous streak which is so strikingly absent in the blind lemming faux Christians who have supported Donald Trump three times to date.

Jimmy Carter was not a great president, but he was a great man. He is someone who I have respected and admired from afar for quite some time. I would compare his one term presidency to that of fellow one-termer Bush 41. Both great men, but both one termers in fact because they actually had the audacity to take on their own party at times when they felt it was appropriate.

Ironically, for Jimmy Carter the U.S. hockey team did indeed go on to win the 1980 Miracle on Ice at Lake Placcid. But, then in that same year he prevented our athletes from performing in the Summer Games in Moscow because of the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.

Yes, the American hostages were still being held in Iran. But as Jimmy Carter would later admit it was one of his biggest mistakes while in the White House. In essence, the ultimate opposite parallels of Jimmy Carter’s four year presidency.

But clearly, in the end, one of our greatest Americans during my lifetime.

Mike J

Ya…it was a glorious Monday here at the corporate office of okcthunderground.com. Very glorious.

Denver, Tampa, and Green Bay all are heading to the NFL Playoffs.

Baker Mayfield, dude. You are gold here at the Underground. Does anyone ever really care what Jim Traber thinks? Not MJ. That dude was QB on some O State teams which were so bad that was when Boone decided he had to step in with his buddy, Carl Icahn and actually purchase a state funded university in Oklahoma.

Ya, man, but there is no hate on the Underground. None. There is so much love. OU also decided to add Kendal Daniels on the same week-end R Mason Thomas declared he wasn’t going to the NFL draft, coupled with the return of Kendall Dolby and the addition of Florida State’s best edge rusher.

No hate here, man. In fact I would have to say O State is my third favorite college football team in Oklahoma behind Sooner Nation and UCO. It’s all love….ya, man. All love…eternal love in fact.

So yeah, a big week ahead for Denver, Tampa, and Green Bay. Green Bay worries me though. They’re sliding backwards into the playoffs. Not a good sign.

But for Tampa and Denver….they might win a game or two.

And for Baker…redemption. Total redemption.

Did you see the pathetic Cleveland Browns finish 3-14 this week-end vs. the Ravens. Karma is the ultimate bitch. Karma knows.

Have a beautiful day in frigid Oklahoma. Stay warm

MJ

27 POINTS.

The OKC Thunder shutdown the defending champion Boston Celtics by a score of 105-92 in what could be a preview of this season’s NBA Championship Finals on Sunday afternoon inside of Paycom Arena.

But back to the 27 points the Thunder allowed in the final 24 minutes of play. It was vintage Thunder for this group. As Lu Dort ‘somewhat’ stated in his postgame affirmation…”This is the vision Sam Presti had for this group through all the tanking.”

These Thunder are more like a college team with Shai added as their core ringer. They remind me of some of those great Jerry Tarkanian UNLV Runnin’ Rebel teams or Nolan Richardson’s championship team at Arkansas.

Forty minutes of hell and then some.

Perhaps it took the embarrasing loss to the Milwaukee Bucks to elicit this type of passion in a game to game manner. The Thunder haven’t lost a game since that pitiful loss to the Bucks when they shot 4-31 from behind the arc. Those nights happen in the NBA.

Aaron Wiggins not getting his minutes can’t happen though. Coach Mark has made sure Aaron has gotten his run since that game.

F this group they’ve now won 15 games in row heading into Wednesday’s night game versus the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland. These Cavs are currently on a 10 game win streak of their own after claiming 15 straight wins earlier this season. Something will have to give. Maybe it’s this game which will prove to be the preview of this spring’s NBA Finals.

The Thunder feed off their forty minutes of hell approach. They feed off pace. They feed off of live ball turnovers transitioned into open court baskets. They wear other teams down as each minute in the fourth period evaporates.

Shai scored his customary 33 points in this game…yawn. But it was Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace, and Jaylin Williams who were my Thunder 4 Stars of the Game. The Thunder role players were SUPERB.

Porzingus played. Chet didn’t. And yet this group won by 13 points after trailing by 13 points. Same scenario. Forty-eight minutes of hell.

On my blog I was on Sam Presti about the third year of tanking. To me…if you’re going to claim sustainability as the brand NBA trademark in Oklahoma City….you shouldn’t have to tank three years to become relevant again.

But you know what? I like the fact his vision has turned out to be prescient.

He has a great group on board. The championship window in Oklahoma City is for the first time since 2016 once again open.

It will be fun to actually have a blog which covers this.

The Donald Trump second term…not so much.

Mike J

Another great comeback win by the streaking Oklahoma City Thunder as Aaron Wiggins’ 15 fourth quarter points enabled OKC to erase a 14 point deficit enroute to a 117-107 victory over the Knicks on Friday night at Paycom Arena.

All told on the night…Wiggins’ line went 19 pts, 5 rebounds, 2 ast, and 2 blks with zero turnovers.

The 14 game win streak ties a franchise record and tomorrow afternoon the Thunder have a chance to get to No. 15 versus the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics.

Shai led the Thunder with 33 points while JDub added 20 points.

Pretty much the same old story for OKC as they started slowly, fell behind by a double digit margin, and then totally dominated the second half against a very capable Knicks team which was trying o win its 10th straight game.

Like the Minnesota game…this was an excellent NBA early January game with a playoff feel to it from start to finish. The final margin in no way indicates how tough of a game this was for the Thunder.

On my current list of the six teams as of this writing who could conceivably win the NBA championship… as of 1/5/25 my short list would go in this order 1 Boston, 2 OKC, 3 Dallas (with Luka healthy), 4 Cleveland, 5 NY Knicks, and 6 Minnesota Timberwolves.

To date the remainder of the Western Conference in a sense appears to be an assortment of teams roiling in disorder and flailing to establish any real consistency in their games. Maybe some trade deadline moves will change this fact in February.

An enticing three game stretch of games for the Thunder as they host Boston tomorrow afternoon and then visit the 30-4 Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday…then travel to play ther NY Knicks on Friday inside of Madison Square Garden.

From my perspective given the fact the West has in a sense collapsed with the Thunder running away from the pack…these three games could be the best three game run for the rest of this regular season.

It should be tremendous NBA regular season viewing.

Mike J

Happy 2025!

I watched all of the Thunder-TWolve game and it pretty much was the physical, passionate game I hoped it would be. No hockey line brawls, but some really good defense by both teams. There was some genuine ‘want to’ out there.

I was a little disappointed in Shai’s postgame comments to Little Nick Gallo. Shai had another great 40 point game, but in my mind the stat of the game was OKC outscored the TWolves 24-12 on points off live ball turnovers.

And I woud say this to Shai…you’ve worked hard and become a top five player in this league. But on this night I would have been singing the praises of JDub, Lu Dort, and Cason Wallace…. for all the little blue collar things they did in that 43 point Thunder barrage in the third period which enabled the Thunder to roar back from a 12 point deficit. I would have told swarmy Little Nick Gallo to do some serious loving on those guys for their excellent work in this game.

I have no idea whatsoever why J-Dub and J-Will keep placing a Thunder cape/towel on LNG during his groundbreaking postgame interviews…sigh. It must be one of those Thunder Insider secrets.

Minnesota is still trying to figure out how to play with Julius Randle. They may never figure it out. Coach Chris Finch needs to smooth some things out with his squad on the offensive end.

But I will write this…I currently have Minnesota in my top four teams in the West just in case they figure things out by late February. OKC vs. Minnesota could very well be a No. 1 vs. a No 4 matchup in the Western Conference semis.

Rudy Gobert is a slug. His missed dunk and subsequent fast break three by the Thunder was a five point swing in that Thunder third period. I thought it was of the biggest plays in the game. I circled that play in red with my lazer quick NBA blogging mind. So there on that one.

I will comment tomorrow night on the pathetic, easy path the College Football Committee has given to the Penn State Nittany Lions in this first ever 12-team college football playoff. Suffice it to say…MJ is saying there is some serious Penn State sugar-daddying going on inside that committee.

In closing on this first early morning of 2025..my song selection above is by Laufey. I was watching her on the ABC New Year’s Evefest…and I’ll be honest—she had me at hello with this song. Laufey had me at hello.

Will she become my new Diana Krall?

We’ll see.

Have a great year. I intend to.

MJ footnote: I stayed up listening to music all night. I found another video of Laufey’s song. Don’t get me wrong…there’s some rap I might listen to now and again. I like some of the new country with Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, and Thomas Rhett probably at the top of my list.

But I’m an old guy. The lyrics actually matter to me. They should tell a story. Maybe even touch the listener’s heart in some manner. How refreshing to witness something like this from someone in Laufey’s age group. And to think…she wasn’t texting during her song as well. Color MJ…impressed.

Serendipity was produced in 2001. Hard to imagine a movie nowadays without a gang rape, an assault rifle killing or two, or a truck intentionally running over live humans. Our culture is killing us. Not China. We are killing ourselves from within. And how did we remedy this with our recent election?

I think I’ll calmly touch on that in a day or two from the bunker at okcthunderground.com.

Mike J

Obviously, for all you youngsters out there today reading the best NBA content in Oklahoma here on the award winning okcthunderground.com… I don’t ‘totally’ condone starting a hockey brawl in an NBA regular season game.

But then again…I’m not against seeing it from time to time either in Adam Silver’s pussified NBA we see circa 2024 heading into 2025.

Amen Thompson….bravo, buddy.

Bravo…for throwing Tyler Herro’s white punk fanboy ass down the other night. The only thing is though…your Rockets went onto lose the game to the Miami Heat. It’s about winning if you’re gonna fight.

Fight to win…not to lose.

I’m actually a fan of Tyler’s, but you know what…I thought it was cool Amen did what he did.

NBA television ratings are down this season for the NBA. The much ballyhooed Western Conference looks more like the Big 12 we saw this season without bluebloods OU and Texas. LeBron, Steph, and Kevin look like they collectively shot their wads in Paris this summer winning a gold medal for Team USA.

The gold standard of America sports viewerwise…the NFL and college football’s first 12-team tourment are both about to hit their viewership strides. That gap between the NFL and NBA is no longer close as Adam Silver’s pussified NBA is still overly laden with tanking, lazy regular season defense, and rest management standards which make NBA regular season games tedious at times.

But tonight here in OKC on NY’s Eve we could have something posssibly special as the 26-5 Thunder host the ‘finally’ coming together 17-14 Minnesota TWolves.

Remember this… you OKC Thunder fans who are spoon fed a daily amount of nonsensical homerism by Little Nick Gallo and Michael Cage–it was the TWolves, not the Thunder who advanced to last season’s Western Conference Finals opposite te Dallas Mavericks.

As Oklahoma’s pre-eminent NBA blogger…I think this is a walking dog piss marker game for these two teams. I really do.

It wouldn’t upset me at all if someone deep on the Minnesota bench did something like Amen Thompson did the other night if the TWolves look like they need a hockey brawl to remind them of what they haven’t been to date this NBA regular season.

I can’t wait for this game.

Happy New Year’s Eve

Editor’s Note…it appears Youtube has for the time being placed an age sensitive blocker on this splendid throw-down video of Tyler Herro by Amen Thompson. I’ll come back at a later time and repost this highly excellent video. You see…Youtube and the NBA just made my point for in regards to the pussified NBA. Oh…how the NBA needs the Detroit ‘Bad Boys’ Pistons in this age of Adam Silver.

MJ

This chemo treatment stage hasn’t really knocked me down all that much. I basically had been training for this stage of the fight for over a year. I’ve stated to lose some hair, but that’s no big deal. Otherwise…pretty much not a quality of life factor so far.

It’s going to be a mid-60’s sunny December day in Oklahoma. Perfect for crappie fishing excursion on Lake Carl Blackwell just west of Stillwater. One of my nephews is going to join me. Some hot coffee will be nice this morning. Coffee, crappie, and fishing fellowship. Life is good.

I love the drive from Deer Creek through Guthrie around Langston and into Stillwater. It’s a calming, peaceful drive. One which slows down your mind.

Perfect for a December day like this.

Have a beautiful last Saturday of 2024.

Mike J

-Staff Reports-

Behind another plus forty point game from MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the OKC Thunder came back from a 15 point deficit to eventually overhaul the Indiana Pacers by a 120-114 count.

To date this is the largest deficit the Thunder have overcome this season. Minus the blowout loss to Milwaukee in the Emirates NBA Cup Final…the Thunder is perfect against Eastern Conference teams this basketball season.

Overall.. the Thunder stand at 24-5, and quite frankly are making a mockery of the Northwest Division. The discontent Denver Nuggets stand 7.5 games behind the Thunder and in my view the Minnesota Timberwolves to date are the biggest disappointment this NBA regular season. Portland and Utah are horrible, but Portland on nights can be decent.

So here’s my thought of the day before I get my game face on along with Ben Arbuckle and John Mateer for this OU-Navy Bowl game….. at 24-5 are the Thunder in a realistic position to conceivably win 70 games this NBA regular season?

I think they are because from my view so far this season pre-trade deadline…..I don’t think the Western Conference is all that good. In fact, I think I would take the top four Eastern Conference teams over the top four Western Conference teams in something resembling a SEC-Big 12 Hoops Challenge.

What was the last time an NBA team cracked the 70 win plateau?

If you know NBA hoops at all this is a cupcake free throw question.

Answer: the Michael Jordan 1995-96 Chicago Bull squad went 72-10.

I have mixed emotions pulling at me in regards to this OU-Navy game. My father was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy on a mine sweeper stationed in San Diego when I was born in Coronado. But of course…in the end I want OU to win in a close game.

Boomer-Anchors Aweigh!

MJ