Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Even after OU failed to make the Big 12 Championship Game after hanging 69 points on the TCU Horned Frogs on Friday afternoon… I was more than okay.

The fact of the matter is…. I was semi-sublime after Porter Moser’s still undefeated Sooners upset the USC Trojans by a bucket at the buzzer to win the holiday tournament in my birthplace …San Diego.

Porter Moser has himself a basketball team in Norman this season. Unlike last season’s bunch who had trouble in the uber athletic Big 12.

This group of Sooners are now 6-0 and look more like a team Billy Tubbs would have been comfortable coaching. The non-athletic players on last year’s team are gone. Three holdovers have been conjoined (word?) with two more high school recruits and six transfer portal players who seem to meld perfectly in role and style. This team is deep and can run or play at a slower tempo if need be.

I’m pretty well jacked and okay with the fact the football Sooners seem headed for San Antonio for a Dec. 28th appearance in the Alamo Bowl probably against the Arizona Wildcats. This would be my fourth football trip to San Antonio for a football game. I’m very much at home there. So this will be cool.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My Packers surprisingly beat the over-hyped Detroit Lions. My Sooners rolled last year’s national runnerup with a 69 point offensive orgy in a game in which it seemed to me the Fox broadcasters…Tim Brando and Spencer Tillman… were drunk during the game. They were hilarious.

I have no real insights on the psychotic Oklahoma State Cowboys, their coach, or fickle, oft-booing fanbase as they by some divine miracle find themselves in the Big 12 Championship Game. This is bigger than me….and I now know when to let it go.

And to close off my football orgy week-end… the Denver Broncos won their fifth straight game to now be firmly in the NFL wildcard race. My son is overjoyed as is his father.

I ate well. Read at a voracious level between football plays and channel changes. Enjoyed the natural splendor of the Deer Creek ranch and experienced a highly and wonderful Thankgiving.

It was beautiful.

I look to get back on my NBA blogging assignments by covering the OKC Thunder vs. the Minnesota Timberwolve game tomorrow night.

Life is good.

Always, MJ

Have a wonderful Thankgiving with your families. This week has been extremely special for me.

Forty two years ago, my wife and I exchanged vows on November 21th, 1982… after living togther one year.

It seems like yesterday. The years have flown by in a blur.

It was a beautiful picture perfect Indian Summer day.

We were married on my father’s parents’ boat dock at Lake Kiowa, just east of Gainesville, Texas.

Of course…we played the obligatory Wedding Song to begin the ceremony and then concluded it with the Eagles wafting from the loud speakers.

Life is truly amazing. Don’t miss a day or it will be gone in the blink of an eye.

MJ

As a blogger…I couldn’t ask for more given the three teams I’m following this NBA season are all off to interesting starts.

Let’s just focus on the Warriors and their current six game losing streak this evening. The Warriors’ got off to a decent 6-2 start and appeared to have shaken their road woes from a season ago.

But now they’re on a home stand and looking very mortal and somewhat aged coming off a very tough home loss to the surging OKC Thunder …who in the wink of an eye have once again become America’s next new hot NBA thing along with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Warriors’ host the vastly improved Houston Rockets later tonight and this is a game they need to win to get things turned around. What a great first round No. 4 vs. No. 5 that would be.

I don’t think this is rocket science. Steph is the best player the Warriors have on their roster. When he plays the Warriors’ can beat any team in this league if his surrounding cast pull their links on the porverbial chain. Not much link pulling has occurred so far.

Therein…lies the problem fourteen games into this still young NBA season. The only two Warriors I’ve observed pulling their links to date are Steph and the Warriors’ moral compass…Kevon Looney.

I would pretty much give every other Warrior player either a C+ or a C- to date. Three of these players are going to be NBA Hall of Fame honorees someday. They would be Chris Paul, Klay Thompson, and Draymond…. ‘The Rudy Gobert Choker’.

I love Draymond’s loyalty to Klay, but you can’t miss five games choking the highly annoying Rudy Gobert. So what I’m thinking here is you performed this act of terror to gain more clicks for your popular blog/podcast…..much like you did last year when you punched out teammate Jordan Poole.

Draymond….Warrior ownership didn’t give you that new contract to choke other players and blog. You’re being paid to be the Soul of the Warriors. Please start doing your job.

Klay settle in and make your shots. You’re rushing.

Chris Paul pick up the offense on nights when Klay and Andrew Wiggins aren’t making shots.

Andrew Wiggins.. do exactly what you did against the Thunder on Saturday night and that will be enough till the playoffs.

Johnny Kuminga and Moses…mentally bear down and stop turning the ball over with loose basketball plays.

Dario, buddy….stop playing like you’re going to break and start engaging every time you enter the game as if your minutes depend on it.

And Gary Payton Jr, bless your heart. Play defense, grab rebounds, and don’t shoot the ball unless it’s a layup or dunk.

That’s it for me this Thanksgiving week Monday evening.

MJ

I had a great week-end of sports as I watched both the OU and O State games with my brother and two of my newphews. We attended this function at the hallowed Half-Time Sports Bar & Grill in southwest OKC and it was cool.

Both teams are still alive, but I pretty much have aligned myself with the fact I’m still hazy on the tiebreakers… as is the current commissioner of the Big 12. It is …what it is.

In fact…I’v even started preparing for the trek to San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl if after finishing 10-2 that is where the Sooners might be headed on December 28th. I can’t wait to be amongst the the throng at the iconic Howl at the Moon Piano Bar the night before the game.

O State…bless their hearts…we should just let them go to Jerry’s World even if we win out on the tiebreakers. I mean…after Bedlam… they now have a permanent banner in their stadium which goes…ETERNAL BEDLAM…27-24.

I mean…seriously…bless their hearts. Besides…this could be the kind of ending which propels book sales for my soon to be NY Times bestseller Mullet King: The Boone Pickens-Michael Gundy College Football Saga.

I can’t wait to do the book tour. Truly….one of the top three things on my Bucket List.

I had a brief meeting with my producer this morning on the soon to be Dub Nation Oklahoma Podcast. I thought it went well. T-Cullpeppper ask me… “Do you have any idea what we’ll talk about or how we’ll structure the podcasts?”

I cooly replied, “We’ll go in their totally unprepared and somewhat flow with a few things Thunder related instead of pretending to be like the Daily Thunder nerd-wannabee GM types. Flow with my lead.”

Great game last night in San Francisco as the youthful Thunder roared back from 18 points down to beat the aging, yet iconic Warriors in overtime by a score of 130-123.

Shai, Chet, and JDub were utterly sublime. So me let me close with this…when a team ownership group like the one in OKC has three young dudes like these three on their roster…..the time to start winning big is NOW while the payroll window is still open. Since in fact you’re asking this city to almost exclusively fund a billion dollar arena when your current Forbes valuation is $3.2 billion dollars.

Sam Presti…Please you monetize some of your multitude of asstes and bring a big banger on the board to compliment Chet.

As you often say, Mr. Presti…”Scared money…don’t make money. Get a banger.” Aaron Gordon becomes a free agent soon. Why not do to Denver, what Drayond did to OKC in the summer of 2016. Just a thought.

Peace and have a wonderful Thanksgiving Week.

MJ

I guess, for some in Thunder Nation, this ‘win’ might be a big deal. Kind of like O State beating the hated Sooners with those murky pass interference calls at the end.

Whatever.

Hey…if OU beats BYU this Saturday and Iowa State beats Texas …then maybe the Big 12 office should create a new tiebreaker of which states…any team not Oklahoma or Texas with only three losses will be the participants in the Big 12 Championship Game at Jerry’s World.

Whatever!

So…the Thunder beat Golden State with the Warriors not having Steph or Draymond.

So the Thunder at full roster beat the Warriors. Here’s what you beat…you beat a team which didn’t get a point from Steph, without a rebound from Draymond, and five points from Klay…. who was clearly still traumatized by the choking he received from Richardson in the brawl seen in the above video.

Here’s how impressed El Prez is with that win…..I’m going to project the Thunder now as still in the race for second place in the NW Division.

The fact Draymond got five games for this ‘choking’ is total bullshit. Draymond, like any good hockey player, was protecting one of his stars from being physically assaulted.

But I will write this, I kind of admired the toughness in Richardson’s swagger for pulling this off. This was pure Hockey 101.

If I were Richardson….I’d consider this same ploy with either SGA or JDub the next time those two teams hook up.

Adam Silver….are f—king serious…five games?

Pathetic

I’m off to the OKC Health and Wellness Center.

My new Big 12 Championship Game projection:

O State vs. K State vs. Iowa State vs. Kansas vs. West Virginia vs. Texas Tech….You six all get championship rings.

I’m outta here.

MJ

This was supposed to be some big deal, but it wasn’t as the Thunder easily swamped the short-handed Spurs in a game which TNT switched off of in the second half.

Combined…Chet and Wemby scored 17 points. The Spurs had no point guard and in reality its hard to gauge much with this win. Although I will write… with the return of Kenrich Williams, the Thunder did add another very nice piece to their team.

It’s really hard to evaluate the Thunder since they played the Kings who didn’t have Fox, the Suns who didn’t have Devin Booker, and the Spurs who were awful in this game without a point guard. But I will write this…weeks ago I thought the Thunder along with the Minnesota Timberwolves would make for fascinating games for the battle for second place in the Northwest Division this NBA season.

I mean, the Thunder and TWolves look to be two younger teams in the West who can become top tier teams in the landscape of the Western Conference. Don’t sleep on the Houston Rockets either, as they’ve gotten off to a nice start as well since they’re no longer losing games by design.

As far as the ballyhooed Chet vs. Wemby showdown, it would be foolish to draw anything from this game because the Thunder are so much better than the Spurs. They’re both good players and completely different in their style of play.

I think Chet is going to be an excellent fit for the Thunder, and I still believe Sam Presti needs a big banger who can run the floor and rebound to make this Thunder a viable top five team in the West.

But you know, if I were a Thunder fan, I’d feel vey good moving forward with a team which has Shai and J-Dub as my best two players moving forward.

MJ

Just a great day. I feel blessed. I mean…I feel like Rocky running with Apollo Creed on the beach and then being there with Adrian.

Yo Adrian…I did it!

Life is good.

One day at a time. One week at a time. One month at a time. It is truly amzing what you can do when you close out the noise and allow your faith to lead your life.

MJ

I had a great week-end. OU finally showed me some resolve and thrashed West Virginia. You know…it is what it is, I think if OU can mentally retain this mental focus the football gods will forgive them for their uninspiring performances in Lawrence and Stillwater and perhaps allow the Sooners to backdoor their way into the Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship Game.

The fact O State lost at UCF did not surprise me in what was a classic trap game. But the fact UCF beat them 48-3 shocked me given UCF has pretty much a porous defense.

Given Mike Gundy’s performance to date this season…I think I’ll keep those thoughts to myself and see how O State responds this Saturday at Houston.

As Bush 43 famously once said, ” Fool me once…it’s on you you, fool me two or three times…it’s on somebody else or maybe me.”

Sigh.

I watched the Thunder play last night at Phoenix and was very impressed.

I mean JDub is a Bad, Bad, Smart Dude. Whereas…Russell Westbrook was a Bad Little Dude who never came to terms with making the smart play in critical time and score situations.

My TSNS Meter hit 9.5 on JDub’s performance.

I mean… whoa. I know Devin Booker wasn’t there and Bradley Beal appears to be washed up pretty much. But, whoa.

I’ve now changed my mind for the third time on the upcoming OKC Bond Vote on the arena proposal.

Pay the billion you Oklahoma Trump suckers. MJ… who lives outside of the voting boundaries on the Deer Creek ranch would love to see SGA, JDub, Chet, and Lu hang together. As for Giddey…he needs to consider the possibility of becoming the Sixth Man and giving this team a stellar bench….ala CP3.

I’ll be covering the first Chet-Wemby square-off tomorrow. Maybe Chet can wear his Steph Curry jersey for me.

MJ

Now that the drama of the last Bedlam is behind me with the series locked at 91-20-7…I’m ready to start adding much more basketball content to my sleepy little obscure blog. I’m even thinking of making Dub Nation Oklahoma into a podcast of sorts now that my life is somewhat on the cusp of normalcy.

I’ve seen five of the Warriors’ seven games and all but one of the Thunder’s seven games so far this young NBA season.

If I add Denver to this mix…I’ll in essence be blogging about the three Western Conference teams which interest me most this NBA season.

As these years from Game 6 in 2016…I would say I’ve come to love Draymond as one of my favorite players in the league. Not only watching him win four rings with Steph and Klay, but watching him grow into this very articulate young man. Draymond, with his very direct honesty about the way things are in America beyond the sphere of just playing basketball with a scowl on his face captivate my attention.

Draymond in a sense kind of reminds me of his generation’s version of Bill Russell as one of the toughest, yet cerebral players in the league.

When you listen to him talk you realize this guy should be an NBA general manager or owner at some point down the road. Perhaps, even a partner with Kevin Durant when he and his group obtain an NBA franchise for the city of Seattle.

I’ve always wondered to myself…. if I were a rich, black, highly curious black man…which North American city would I most want to live in.

I have four in my mind… Toronto, Ashville, North Caolina, some little town just north of my birthplace near San Diego, and Denver. And it’s not at all that I’m even remotely close to being lit or woke…It’s just that I’m curious about the world and actually believe all of us are just basically the same and on the same journey.

We all view the world from different spheres of perspective, but we’re all going to be ending up in the same place eventually.

So here’s Draymond talking about Chet mostly and how just he ‘kind of’ goaltended in the winning basket and almost killed Chet with with a space creating elbow in the same game.

I love it…it’s so TSNS to the core. Toughness. Smarts. Nasty. Snarl.

Next up… Golden State vs. Denver on Wednesday night.

MJ

I tell you what, despite the obvious missed interference call, this goes beyond that for this OU football team. For some reason…they misplaced their team soul so to speak after the win over Texas in the RRR.

I mean…they can still salvage their season with three wins over West Virginia, BYU, and TCU. They can still finish 10-2 where I thought they would be when I first saw their schedule. But this bullshit with playing like a mentally lazy team without an edge cannot continue because OU isn’t good enough to play at half speed.

This video is life. This is what life is about. Getting knocked down and summoning your inner faith and pulling yourself back up. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. You just gotta find that inner zone within yourself to figure it out.

This is not rocket science.

If I were Brent Venables i would call these five guys into my office before practice today. I’d bare my soul to them. I’d confess I’m not a polished head football coach and I’m still a work in progress. I’d confess I need them to help me lead this team out of the abyss they’ve put themselves into these past two weeks on the road.

The five guys would be Dillion Gabriel, Drake Stoops, Danny Stutsman, Key Lawrence, and the youngster Kip Lewis.

Most good teams are coached from within from players who take a personal ownership stake.

I know where I was at seven months ago when Dr. Showalter told me to get my affairs in order and told me he had no idea how much time I had left. I was weighing at 158 pounds and couldn’t do a pushup.

Almost eight months later….I’m now cancer free, I weigh 192 lbs. and can go forty minutes hard on the terrain bike and would destroy the average soft thirty year-old in the weight room as far as my speed reps workout routine goes.

You can’t feel sorry for yourself. You can’t blame others. You just have to believe in your faith, your work ethic, and the love and support from those around you.

You have to understand…I’m very emotional about this OU football season… because I was told I probably would not be here for Week 10. This is somewhat personal for me. So please indulge me.

I’m done with speeches about this OU football team.

It’s time to go workout and embrace the day.

MJ