(Good morning DT readers. Thank you for your support. LET’S CLINCH TONIGHT.)
This was an AP feature done recently and I must say, I really liked it. One thing that’s becoming more and more obvious about Thunder fans isn’t just how great, loud and proud they are, but this awesome faction of fans that turn each game into a costume party. I love that. It’s like people have this alternate personality they unveil at Thunder games. It’s cool. It’s also cool to hear national stories talk about what a model franchise this is and what a great basketball town OKC is. I’ve said it two billion times, but boy, we’re lucky.
(Want to make your voice heard? Want to speak to the billions upon trillions of Thunder fans? Send in your story to dailythunder@gmail.com. Today’s guest lecture comes from reader Thunder Tim.)
An NBA fan is born
I would consider myself a bit of a sports junkie. I love the passion of the players, the competition of the teams and the tension of the unknown. As far as entertainment goes, sporting events take the cake. I’ve lived most of my life in Wichita and Tulsa and, as a kid, I fell in love with the Kansas City Royals, the University of Kansas basketball program and the Denver Broncos. Since I didn’t have a local NBA team to cheer for (I didn’t even know Denver had a team until a few years ago!), I never got into the NBA. Sure, I had a love affair with the Bulls when MJ was doing his thing and with the Knicks when John Starks (from Tulsa & OSU) was there (I still Hate the Rockets, and, yes, I appreciate the irony of Coach Brooks being on that team), but the NBA remained a mystery to me.
I understood college basketball because it looked a lot like the kind of ball I played – kids playing their hearts out on offense AND defense, jacking up shots, boxing out, diving on the floor, throwing everything they have at the game, every game. And then I’d watch an occasional NBA game and they, well, hardly looked like they were even trying. They were all huge, they beat each other up (picture somebody driving against Anthony “the thug” Mason of the Knicks back in the day) and it was just generally not an enjoyable game. In my mind, the only redeeming factor of the NBA was that the playoffs were 2 months long and the players looked like they were actually trying in the playoffs, so it made it much more enjoyable. But heck, even hockey is kind of exciting in the playoffs, but I wasn’t about to get all emotionally invested in either one of those lame sports, especially when I had pro baseball, pro football and college basketball to cheer for. Read more…
KD is ‘cool’ with being in the MVP race: “Nah, it’s pretty cool,” Durant said in Boston on Wednesday night. “It’s cool, man. A kid like me, coming from where I came from and how I’ve grown as a player, for people to say that I’m in the talks for MVP in the NBA, that’s something I never really dreamed about. Never really envisioned it. It’s pretty cool, but at the same time, it’s something that I’m not worried about.”
Henry Abbott yesterday writing that Eric Maynor matters: “And watch the highlights above. There’s Eric Maynor connecting on a huge fourth-quarter lob to Kevin Durant in a win in Boston Garden. It’s not like he’s an MVP candidate at this point, but he’s a rookie not just getting minutes but also producing at point guard for a really good team that also has blue-chipper Russell Westbrook at that position. Maynor’s a young player the Thunder trust, and he shows a ton of promise.” Read more…
Barring an historic collapse, Oklahoma City is going to taste some playoff basketball this year. (edit. Which reminds me, buy a t-shirt.) With all teams having approximately nine games remaining, the only way the first team out in the Western Conference picture, currently Memphis, overcomes the Thunder is if OKC loses all nine and the Grizz go perfect. As the Tree and Leaf shirt proclaims, “NEXT is now!”
Less clear at the moment, what the seeding will be for the Thunder. While it is still theoretically possible for the good guys to move into the upper half of the seeding and get a first round home court advantage, it is more likely that Oklahoma City winds up somewhere between five and eight (where the teams are virtually deadlocked right now).
So who should they want to play? Here are the likely possibilities: Read more…
Shoals came up with seven biblical nicknames for seven players: “Serge “Plague of Darkness” Ibaka. This one’s tricky, since in the majority African-American NBA, “darkness” is always going to sound like race thing. So let’s go ahead and make fun of that, with a rising young stud who happens to hail from the country that provided the setting for Heart of Darkness and a continent that, in the colonial days, was known as “Darkest Africa.” Plus, all racial connotations aside, I think this does something to convey what an intimidating player Ibaka — with his feel for the game, ridiculous bounce, and height — could be in a year or two.”
Kevin Durant will guest on Jay-Z’s newest rap album. The report says it’s a small part on one song. “I saw that Nike ad and the kid had flow,” Jay-Z said. “I met him in New York a few months back, we talked and thought it might be fun to do.” Read more…
