Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Josh Giddey is on a roll in case you haven’t noticed. Even though I’ve pushed the Thunder down to around sixth or seventh on my blog per current local sports relevancy…I have been keeping track of Giddey, Aaron Wiggins, Tre Mann, and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl…plus of course Poku.

They’re getting better is what’s happening. Game by game you can start to see the possibilites for this team after this summer’s NBA draft when the Thunder should be able to make a run for a Paulo Banchero caliber of player.

Giddey and Wiggins in particular fascinate me as far as what the Thunder could do with their rebuild this summer.

I hate the tanking…I’ve made that clear. But the Thunder need to at this point finish with a top three lottery pick this summer and see if with all those assets in their assets trove they can turn it into a difference maker like Banchero.

From the beginning of this season I made the comparison that I thought the Thunder are a year behind the Memphis Grizzlies as far as rebuilds go. If this Thunder team were allowed to be coached straight up by a legit NBA head coach in my mind they could be a 34-36 win type of team right now.

If you look at the NBA standings today the Thunder are 13-24 holding onto the 14th slot in the West while the streaking Memphis Grizziles stand alone as the solid No. 4 seed. Hate to say I called it, but I called it.

The West really isn’t all that good beyond Golden State and Phoenix. Age and Russell Westbrook have decimated LeBron this season…so in reality looking ahead to next season with Chris Paul another year older…the Thunder should be a young team with some exciting possibilities if they decide to end the tank and possibly at some point put some money towards hiring a head coach with a track record of some sort beyond running a developmental team.

I hate to be snarky in this regard…but every head coach in the Big 12 has a more impressive resume than what Coach D has done to date. Turn him loose and let’s see if he can coach to win at some point. Maybe that’s what you do next season…we’ll see.

At some point …. Presti is going to have to turn these guys loose and add some rim protection and muscle to the interior. But other than that if you closely follow the NBA…you can start to see the possibilites. in Oklahoma City or Las Vegas.

I have a confession to make…right now I might actually pay for a ticket to see the Thunder play beyond just wanting to see Tyler Herro and Ja Morant vs the Thunder. The reason being…Josh Giddey.

His overall game is becoming something to marvel at from the view he’s only nineteen year of age and in essence became the youngset player in NBA history to record a triple double and then almost did it again on Wednesday night at Minnesota when he had a 14 point, 15 rebound, 6 assist night.

So…at the risk of Hinkie-Presti benching all the starters tonight in search of loss No. 25—I’m going to give the Thunder a serious look tonight as they host the Timberwolves who are currently the 10th seed in the West.

This is one of those games for Hinkie-Presti where he has to decide on exactly how to turn this potential exciting game for his fanbase into a loss instead of a feel good win.

And of course…Anthony Edwards for the Timberwolves was one of the top two rookies in the NBA last season. So—this is a game I’m going to watch with a sense of anticipation.

I would maintain this video above shows why. If you claim to be a major political party and Little Marco Rubio and Lyin’ Ted Cruz are the best you can muster….then you need an act on the debate stage.

The mainstream GOP figured out how boring they are and that if they ever again wanted to give tax cuts to millionaires and appoint federal judges to put a cap on tort reform and keep dark money flowing they need an act.

And the act’s name is Donald Trump and these same Republicans are so joyful of the fact they appointed three Suprme Court Justices and redid the entire federal appellate court they’re willing to humilate themselves and devolve the country into a reality television show.

And currently the Donald Trump act is killing the rest of the potential GOP presidential field heading into 2024.

Tell me who’s second in the GOP currently?

There isn’t one.

Since Trump tried to hang Mike Pence…I wonder who his running mate will be in 2024?

Ivanka? Pencil dick Don Jr? Roger Stone? Mr. Pillow? Tucker Carlson? Joe Manchin? Marjorie Taylor-Green?

This won’t be your grandparents’s GOP ticket that’s for certain.

The end of Trump Insurrection Week: One Year Anniversary special.

Liz Cheney and father shouldn’t feel alone in this because every other previous Republican president from Lincoln thru Teddy Roosevelt thru Bush 43 are with her in spirit as she attempts to protect the Constitution from Donald Trump and his army of dimwits and rabble.

What do we call the Party of Trump? Do we call it the Party of Spoiled Trust Fund Brats who were never told no as a child?

Liz Cheney looks very tired in this video. She was the only Republican who showed up today to honor the Jan. 6th ceremonies to honor the people who prevented the Insurrection from being a successful coup.

So would we today be a Banana Republic if the Trump’s plan had succeeded?

Probably… to a degree. Because what he basically did was attempt to throw the legislative and judicial branches away in the name of proclaiming himself a strong-armed dictator.

The people who still defend this amaze me. It is a complete abdication of civics, of adult responsibility, and a complete ignorance of our Constitution and democracy.

If you believe in Zero Tax just say so and don’t embarrass yourself any longer standing up for this human junk bond. Do you think he or any of his lawyers made one singular phone call to any of those idiots who were arrested after January 6th and offered them pro bono legal representation?

Let me give a hypothetical. Let’s say Trump stayed in office. Then a lawsuit was filed by Joe Biden and it reached the United States Supreme Court like Gore vs. Bush in 2000.

Let’s say Chief Justice John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch actually sided with the plantiff Joe Biden and by a 5-4 decision ruled in favor of the plantiff, thus declaring Joe Biden’s win as legitimate.

What do you think Donald Trump would do?

You think he would peacefully and with calm accept the Court’s 5-4 decision?

If you think that you’re a complete idiot. He would do exactly what he just tried to do with Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

The Trump rabble would have proceeded to the lawn outside of the Supreme Court, built a gallow, and have started chanting, “Hang John Roberts.”

If you think otherwise–I don’t know what anyone can say to you at this point?

At the end of the day …I firmly believe as a serious student of history even Richard Nixon would be repelled by Donald Trump.

And that’s why as an American…I’m proud and gladful Liz Cheney has the guts to be doing what Mich McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy should be doing.

1960 Richard Nixon’s Concession Speech If California and Illinois had flipped…Nixon would have won the election. He lost both of those states by narrow margins and decided against contesting both of those states because he didn’t want to divide the country. I did a paper on this election as well.

McConnell’s speech was great. One for the history books. There’s only one problem…after he gave the speech he didn’t have the political courage to vote to impeach Donald Trump.

To impeach… seventeen GOP votes were needed. Only six Republicans voted to impeach. Even after McConnell’s speech and that of Lindsey Graham …Donald Trump wasn’t even censored by the Senate.

Pretty much the same thing in the House with Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy denounced Trump then pretty much within several weeks became a Trump puppet….again. Feed him some drinks at Mar-A-Largo and turn down the lights and Trump had another Lindsey Graham love affair back on his hands. Maybe those three should consider a threesome.

In a real court of law with a jury pool from which to select a jury from the voir dire process you would think there would have been a conviction depending on the jurisdiction. I don’t think you could get a jury in Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana which would ever convict regardless of the evidence. But in real courtrooms with real judges it would have been a conviction in most jurisdictions.

So when McConnell speaks of Trump’s dereliction of duty I kind of roll my eyes. Pot meet kettle, Mitch McConnell.

They’ll probably survive it though looking at how the mid-terms might go later this year….which is incredibly sad for our country moving forward. History has been very unkind to the party of a sitting president in his first term.

The irony is that in Oklahoma a senator like James Lankford who tries to straddle both sides of the Trump fence in a state like rogue red state Oklahoma is being primaried in 2022 by another Trump evangelical. This will be intriguing to witness in Oklahoma. Usually…without fail in Oklahoma this is the death of a GOP candidate. That is a GOP primary I’ll keep track of on here.

Lankford is on Trump’s death list because while he voted to acquit, he did vote yes on certfying the election. Inhoffe did the same, but he was just elected to a another six year term and with him already being in his mid-eighties… I think he’s safe from being primaried.

This was pretty much the case in both the election of Kevin Stitt in the governor’s election and Stephanie Bice in the 5th Congressional District race.

Bice in her quest to unset Kendra Horn basically disavowed her aversion to Trump in 2016 and attached herself to Trump campaign money and television ads embracing Trump. She was originally a Carly Fiorina supporter. But like all of them…when push comes to shove–they wilt.

I changed my mind this morning on how I want to handle Trump’s Insurrection Day Anniversary. I don’t want to look back at Nixon and Al Gore’s concession speeches. What would really be the point since history means nothing to the Trump people. They disdain history as some sort of premeditated plot as if were written by Antifa.

When I saw Amanda recite her beautiful poem last January… I just assumed at that point both parties would grow up and think of that one line, ‘There is light…if you’re brave enough to see it.’

I assumed with the preponderence of evidence which was available… Donald Trump would either be impeached or at the very least given some sort of legal option to resign with the promise he wouldn’t be prosecuted after he left office.

In my wildest dream I couldn’t imagine there weren’t ten to twelve Republican senators who could muster this level of courage.

I was clearly wrong as only six came on board.

The GOP would have been absolved from Trump if only they’d had the courage to get rid of him right there and then.

Instead they waffled. They each calculated their own political survival odds and voted no not only to impeach, but voted no to showing any courage and honor whatsover. The six who voted yes will always be on the right side of history.

The three leaders of the GOP as a whole… Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy will forever br branded not only in American history but in world history as well.

They voted no to having the courage to do the obvious right thing for our country moving forward.

This wasn’t Nixon having some operatives breaking into a hotel. This was an attempt to overthrow an election with the singular purpose of overthrowin both the executive and judicial branches of the government.

Since we hear all this talk about there are GOP senators in private who say they want to be rid of Trump. I say bullshit. This group of gutless people should never have been elected to six year terms to hold the offices you still hold.

You simply don’t have the courage to be a United States senator. That’s why a senaotor gets a six year term…to give them an extra year of cover to make the tough votes.

The six who stood up to Donald Trump have the right to call themselves a United States Senator. The others not so much. Especially my two senators in Oklahoma…James Lankford and Jim Inhoffe.

I’ve to date called both of these ‘men’ four times apiece since they’re inability to confront Donald Trump on anything became obvious to me. I’ve requested a lunch date with them to talk about some things. So much for our two Oklahoma Profiles of Courage. I’m sending both of them this Amanda Gorman video today.

Isn’t it somewhat odd that it’s women in our government who stand up up to Trump and not the men. Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Elizabeth Warren, Carly Fiorina, Kamala Harris, and Nikki Haley….just to name several.

Our men in office under the GOP brand are in a several words a collection of very weak little sissy men men. That is the one thing Trump has consistently been right about since he ran for the GOP nomination in 2016…and that’s precisely why he knew he would win the GOP nomination against this collection of very weak little sissy men.

Nobody is asking you very weak little sissy men to vote yes on all the things the Dems have proposed…but just once on this issue show some strength and resolve.

Not one Howard Baker or Barry Goldwater amongst them with the political strength and courage to get his party to do the right thing at a pivotal juncture of history.

Trump knew none of them could be brave enough to fight for the right to see the light. I give Trump credit for being right about that from the start back in 2016.

So here we sit today as two countries within the same borders sitting in the dark.

What do you really say at this point? The polls today say only 55% of Americans believe Joe Biden was duly elected president. That’s interesting because in another recent poll conservative U.S. Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts had an approval rating of almost 65%.

I don’t undertsand how these two numbers can correlate because Roberts’ own Supreme Court would even hear the case because they thought, like Attorney General William Barr that Trump’s claims were total bullshit. Sixty-one of sixty-two combined state and federal appellate courts pretty much said the same.

Our Republic live in precarious times.

Unless you totally do not believe in the three branches of government, the U.S. Judiciary, and the United States Constitution…I’m not sure what your argument is if you’re a Trump person who believes he was jobbed of the presidency.

William said it was bullshit, Mitcch MCConnel said it was bullshit, and Lindset Graham said it was bullshit. And btw who do you think were the people who picked Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett to be become U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Do you believe they had the premonition Trump would try to hang his own vice-president his own government two years in advance and attempt a coup to stay in office?

This must be what you believe in at this point aand that Ted Cruz’s father wa sresponsiblew for the assasination death of JFK.

I need to pause before I lose it. When I return I’m going to post Richard Nixon’s concession speech in 1960 when as the incumbent Vice- President running for president he didn’t screw around with some process to overthrow what was a historically close election between Nixon and JFK.

Let’s do this before the Nixon video. Let’s go staright to PBS and sr=tay from partisan cable news takes.

And btw if it was me…Donald Trump would serve time in federal prison for what he initated on Janaury 6th, 2021. Just wanted to make that clear.

I’ll do the Nixon thing tomorrow, plus the Al Gore concession speech. I get depressed writing this much about this miserable wretched human being. Who else would take the St. Louis Blues’ inspirational song on their run to the 2019 Stanley Cup to use it for theme music to hang Mike Pence. The dude has no moral bottom…as in none.

I’m going to go watch the Thunder tank for about thirty minutes.

Just saw this story on the NY Post. Rachael after being yanked off the air because of what were perceived as racially insensitive comments toward then fellow ESPN enetertainer Maria Taylor finalized her contractual exit from the network yesterday.

I love Rachael. I’ve missed seeing her on air at ESPN. I thought the whole thing by ESPN was a bit draconian.

I’d love to do some podcasts with her at some point. We think alike as far as the NBA. But I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

The irony is Maria Taylor isn’t even with ESPN any longer and is with NBC.

To be blunt…Maria never has done all that much for me on air. Not because of the color of her skin, but because I find her boring as shit.

No one more than me wants equality, but I want some talent attached to it.

Rachael…by some bizarre off the radar screen crazy kind of way you would ever read okcthunderground.com….you would always have an open ended deal with me to do some podcasts.

You don’t need an intern and I don’t need an intern..so we could work out the way the podcast is structured.

Sam Presti should offer her an opportunity if the national guys feel they need to let some more time go by before putting Rachael back on the air.

This is just me thinking outside the box, but Presti could take some of that money he’s not spending on player payroll currently and offer Rachael a two year deal.

What I would do is give Rachael a dual role replacing Little Nick Gallo as a sideline reporter and then having her replace the Hall of Famer on the studio shows as well.

The worst case scenario is she says no.

I know…this would be too much to ask of Hinkie-Presti and the Thunder as they strive to keep the worst possible on air product in the thirty team NBA.. but I’m just throwing it out there.

These are the kinds of things if given the role George Costanza was given to the New York Yankees … I would do as the GM’s assistant in Oklahoma City.

Good luck, Rachael.

This is the calendar spot where I transform from a college football zealot minus next Monday night to a passionate college hoops fan. Big 12 hoops is the part of me of which I’ll miss once the Sooners head to the SEC. The SEC in my mind is the third or fourth best conference in basketball while the Big 12 is the premier college basketball league in America.

You think that’s hyperbole?

Baylor is the defending national champion, currently ranked No. 1 and now riding a twenty game win streak after their hard earned home win over OU on Monday night by a deceiving score of 84-74.

Texas Tech with Chris Beard the tournament before was the national runner-up and lost a heartbreaker to Virginia in that national championship game.

The cancelled Covid year Tournament had Baylor and Kansas as the top two seeds in the entire draw.

So what I’m saying is for three years running the mens’ NCAA basketball champions has run thru the rugged Big 12 conference pretty much like what we’re seeing in football with Alabama and the SEC in football.

Am I comparing Scott Drew and Baylor to Nick Saban and Alabama…not quite, but this Baylor team which lost Davion Mitchell, Jared Butler, Teague to the NBA doesn’t appear to have lost much of anything so far this basketball season.

If the bracket were drawn up today alot of us who follow college hoops would probably have Baylor vs. Duke on their bracket sheet. I hope Sam Hinkie-Presti takes notice and is watching Paolo Banchero play as much as possible so as he can put a major piece of his Thunder rebuild in place after Year 2 of his sustainability thru tanking death march.

Porter Moser’s team hung with Baylor in Waco…that’s the storyline from Monday night. They never led, but with fifty seconds left OU was down by five and had the ball. Coming out of timeout…Coach Moser drew up a nice play to get Moj Gibson a three point look from the left baseline, but Baylor’s Flo Mamba made an incredible play and partially defelected the shot. Ballgame.

OU never backed down from Baylor. They were within striking distance for almost all of the game’s forty minutes. When Coach Moser and his team look at the film today they’ll realize if they had taken care of the ball better and kept Baylor somewhat off the offensive boards this was a game the Sooners could have conceivably stolen on the road.

That will will be the mantra in the film room today. Little things. Little things which lead to possesion of the ball and take away extra posessions from your opponent. Otherwise…OU shot the ball well from both the field and from the line for most of the night. A ton of positives to extract and extoll to your team today in that film room.

I’m sure in private and away from the team Coach Moser and his staff are extremely pround of the effort…but as the season moves along Monday night in Waco should be a learning moment on what it will take for OU to make the Big Dance and then make some noise in the Big Dance.

Great effort and game plan by Coach Moser. Everybody gets a helmet sticker. EJ Harkless…we need more from you, dude. We need you to be the best player every night…just not every two out of three nights. I’m almost certain Coach Moser will say that to EJ in private away from the team…because as EJ goes this team will go.

Next up the most improved team in college ball this season as the Iowa State Cyclones visit Norman on Saturday. Huge game for both teams. I guess Caleb Williams won’t be there…pffft. I think I’ll go to this game and enjoy what should be a great Big 12 basketball game

I did watch the second game of the night between Kansas at Oklahoma State, and in fairness to Mike Boynton — I’m not going to write anything about O State for at least two weeks because I’m a fair and reasonable person. I will write this though–I could barely recognize Avery Anderson, Rondel Walker, and the Moncrief kid from what they were a year ago. Some serious competitive introspection will be needed in Stillwater in the next several weeks.

From the moment I picked up a copy of Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins as a junior at John Marshall High School he made an impact on me as to how I view the world.

He almost got me suspended for three days when Juanita Elijah my American Lit teacher caught me reading Semi-Tough when I was supposed to be reading various Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe suggested readings.

She caught me reading Semi-Tough at a point in the book where the oilman Big Ed Bookman’s daughter Barbara Jane was performing oral sex on her high school boy friend Billy Clyde Puckett for the first time in their relationship.

I cannot convey the rage in her eyes when she was reading the page to herself. I tried to tell her Dan Jenkins was the J.D. Salinger of his time, but her rage didn’t allow her to hear my words. She said, “Michael, we don’t read pornography in my classroom. My classroom isn’t a brothel.” It was a life changing moment for me. But I never fell out of love with Dan Jenkins.

So as I’m sitting here in the corporate headquarters of okcthunderground.com today trying to grasp this 2021 college football season the day after OU lost Caleb Williams in unrestricted free agency…I’m thinking to myself..”How is it Dan Jenkins couldn’t have stayed with us another ten years to help us plow through all of this?”

So I’m going to interview Dan from sportswriter heaven today on the blog.

I’ll start by asking, “Is NIL really that big of a deal with all the money which has always been involved in college football from boosters?”

He would say,” We’ve always had NIL to some degree. Every team in the Top 10 maybe minus Notre Dame has at least one Big Ed Bookman, a Phil Knight or a Boone on a mission. OU has always had their share…they just stay in background, unlike Boone. Texas has too many of them. You can’t have five of these guys calling the plays in the huddle at the same time though. Then it gets messy and you have what you have at Texas.”

On the transfer portal, “The portal is the best thing going it keeps guys like Switzer from stock-piling players four deep. Switzer could have been Saban if he’d had more personal discipline.”

Me– “But what about Alabama?”

Dan, “If you were a NFL prospect and thought you had a future in the NFL where you could go in the first two rounds… that’s where I’d go. If they play by Saban’s rules and if they stay the course they’re set for life. Period. Not complicated. Pure transactional free enterprise. Quid pro quo.”

Me–“You think OU can spend its way to the top of the SEC at some point?”

Dan, “If they can keep the right coach and come to the understanding they’re going to have spend money to get there…sure.”

Me– ” Will a team from the Big 12 ever win a national championship in football again?”

Dan, “Not likely. They won’t have the cash flow to attain that status of the top tier. They would need four or five Boones to keep pace with what’s getting ready to transpire.”

Me– “Boone or Big Ed Bookman from TCU in Semi Tough…who was the better mega booster?”

Dan, “Easy. Big Ed Bookman. He won national championships at TCU and would have fired Gundy the first time he dangled the Tennessee job to get a raise. Probably would have kept the coordinators and hired his lawn guy to be the head coach.”

Me–“Favorite novel you wrote?”

Dan, “Dead Solid Perfect. Not even close. Kenny Lee winning the Open and getting Beverly Tidwell back was the best I ever was as a novelist.”

Me–‘Why isn’t people didn’t know you love chick flicks and were a hopeless romantic?”

Dan, “I didn’t feel it was any of their business.”

Me–‘What are your three favorite chick flicks?”

Dan, ” You tell me your three first, slick.”

Me–“1 Serendipity, 2 Four Weddings and a Funeral, and 3 Sleepless in Seattle with Dead Solid Perfect making my Top 10.”

He’d smile and say, “Gone With the Wind, Love Story, and Thomas Crown Affair.”

Me–“Alabama or Georgia?”

Dan–“Alabama, the gap at the quarterback position. I thought Kirby Smart was going to kill his quarterback at the end of the first half on Friday when the clock ran out.”

Me– “Dan…thank you for taking the time today to help me through all of this. It was an honor.”

Dan, “Sorry your American Lit teacher didn’t have a sense of humor. We all need to laugh at ourselves more. Take care, kid.”

2018 Hawaii High School Player of the Year. Played at UCF for Jeff Lebby. 2nd Team All-AAC quarterback in 2019 before Covid became an obstacle for all of college football.

Nice quick left-handed release. Nice pocket presence. Good runner, but not a great runner like Caleb. Goes through his progressions well. Seems to see the field and be able to check off of receivers.

Dillion kind of reminds me of the former Boise quarterback Kellen Moore who is now the offensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys.

A football junkie with a tremendous work ethic. The UCF coaches literally had to tell him to go home at times. A great work ethic which is a good thing to have from your QB. Caleb to me was the same way unless I missed something. Not much difference other than one runs like Super Man and has an official minimum $4 million offer tender attached to him playing another down of college football… and the other one doesn’t.

I’m surprised Team Caleb didn’t ask for the money at halftime of the Texas game in retrospect. I wonder if Jerry West called him after the Alamo Bowl.

Dillion will be a fit with Jeff Lebby. At least OU has a quarterback.

OU is probably going to at the minimum lose Mario Williams and Caleb’s high school mate. So OU will be in look of at least two more wide receivers who would be a fit with Dillion’s game.

No sweat there… the state of Texas is full of guys who can catch a football. Not as much the case with NFL bound linemen on both sides of the ball.

He won’t have that home run threat with his legs like Caleb, but in reality what other QB in college ball does. I would think his quarterback draw game and flush runs from the pocket will be fine.

Would I take him over Bo Nix and Casey Thompson? Yes… because both Dillion and Jeff Lebby already have a sense of trust with one another and they should understand from Day 1 what they need to bring to the OU offense.

I think considering the cards which were just dealt…a solid move for OU with two years left in the Big 12 before moving to the SEC.

Would I take Dillion over Spencer Sanders? Not the Spencer Sanders I saw in the second half of the Fiesta Bowl. Would I take Dillion over both of Baylor’s quarterbacks? Yes. Texas will be the wild card with their free agent QB they just signed from Ohio State. Big 12 is going to be very interesting next season.

Dan Jenkins’ fictious Big Ed Bookman the oil man from TCU in Semi-Tough would be very much at home in these NIL days in the Big 12 and beyond.

Joe C better get the oil and gas guys in line. There’s going to be a need for a fund to sign free agents playing in the SEC. But I think he knew that already. West Texas crude closed at $78 today. It’s time to get the oil guys in line with some more liquidity until the SEC money starts flowing in.

I know this may repel Kayse Schrum and the purists at O State even though her stadium bears the name of one of the greatest oil and gas leveragers of all-time…but Boone would be a trip with NIL. I wish he was still with us. But all things considered…he’s happy right now up in hydrocarbon heaven. His team beat Texas, Baylor, OU, and Notre Dame all in the same season while Mike Gundy stopped wearing Trump shirts, got his hair cut, and grew up. Bless his heart.

Go figure. What a year of Big 12 football.