Looking for a good place to gather with like-minded Thunder fans to watch the team play? Well, officially, that place is now going to be Brix in Bricktown. It’s now the official bar of Daily Thunder and throughout the season we’ll be holding watch parties there for certain games.
The first of those is Monday, Jan. 16, with the Thunder playing the Celtics in Boston. The game tips off at 7:00 CT, so get there early and stake yourself out a spot. We’ll have some giveaways, something sponsored by Totally Tickets (hint, hint) and there are beer and food specials for the game as well.
So come on out and enjoy a Thunder game with some other smart, savvy Thunder fans.
Media day is mainly about the start of training camp, the moment the NBA season has officially arrived. Players meet with the media, talk about how excited they are and such and such and then get set for a couple weeks of hard work and preparation for the new season.
But they also get portraits done for some reason. I’ve never really understood why, but it happens every year and each time, there’s a batch of photos that one could put in the categories of awkward, weird, funny and boring. Here’s the best from Oklahoma City’s media day album. Read more…
Do you like random old trade rumors? What if I told you it was pretty funny? OK, here it is, via Chris Broussard of ESPN.com:
After last season’s playoffs, the Celtics offered Rondo and Jeff Green to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins, sources have told Broussard. The Celtics, looking for another scorer who can create his own offense, thought Westbrook might be available after his erractic postseason play. But Oklahoma was not interested in the deal.
Basically, this is Danny Ainge calling Sam Presti and saying, “Hey, I’ve still got the receipt on Jeff Green. Any way I could return him?”
And then Presti probably had a good laugh. And then he hung up.
Whoa boy, here’s another log to throw on the pretend Durant vs. Westbrook fire. Via Tom Ziller of SB Nation:
Under the NBA lockout deal reached Saturday morning, players with six or fewer years of service in the league can sign contracts with a maximum first-year salary equal to 25 percent of the salary cap, or roughly $14.5 million for the 2011-12 season. But if that player has already made the All-Star or All-NBA team, he can sign a deal that pays him 30 percent in the first year of his second contract, which is also the max for players with more than six seasons of service.
This will affect young players signing their second contracts, usually following their third seasons. (This contracts go into effect after the players’ fourth season.) In the immediate, it will come into play for Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook, each of whom have finished three seasons and have All-Star appearances on their resumes.
Under the old rules and assuming the salary cap, as reported, remains static at $58 million, those players should be able to sign extensions starting at $17.4 million. By contrast, Kevin Durant last year signed a deal that this year will pay him $14.5 million. Westbrook (a year behind Durant in service) making more than the two-time reigning scoring champ should go over well in Oklahoma City.
The Basketball Jones put some photos of their time in OKC on Facebook. Check ‘em out!
Royce takes a look at Kevin Durant’s lockout travels: ”There’s a pretty good chance you saw Kevin Durant play some kind of sport this offseason. Which should be a little weird since A) the NBA is locked out and B) he’s a basketball player. But Durant had to get his sporting fix somehow. XBox just wasn’t cutting it anymore, I guess.Besides playing in basically every basketball event he could, including your Saturday morning rec league (probably), he even went and played flag football with a Twitter follower. I guess the question is: What’s next? Golf? Dodgeball? Wall-ball after school behind the playground? As long as there’s no NBA season, there’s really no telling where he might show up next. Maybe Germany. Maybe Israel. Maybe your driveway. If you bounce it, he will come. Or something like that.” Read more…
The Basketball Jones were in Oklahoma City recently and let me tell you, it was great. Their stop in OKC was part of the No Season Required tour. Our lovely city was stop number four behind Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and LA. The guys spent 3 wonderful days here and I’m sure they will tell you it was and most certainly will be their favorite stop on tour. Okay, maybe not. But they did recap each day and you can check those out here, here and here.
Now, If I were Royce I would have done something really cool like embed the podcast in the post (or whatever it’s called). But I’m not so if you would like to have a listen to the best TBJ podcast around click here. Here’s to eggs.
Royce is out of town for his annual hunting trip so Bolts will be slim. Bear with me!
Darnell Mayberry says the NBA’s most recent offer could be beneficial to the Thunder: “Although players ultimately rejected the offer, two significant issues surrounding the Oklahoma City Thunder emerged from that final slide: a possible preview of what Russell Westbrook’s extension could look like, and a glimpse of how the Thunder might be able to retain its core. Under the league’s proposal, a team should be able to field a 15-man roster in 2013-14 for $75 million, or the projected luxury tax line annually established to penalize teams that greatly exceed the salary cap.”
Kevin Durant still loves his Texas Longhorns: “For the time being (and perhaps the foreseeable future) Kevin Durant is a basketball player without a game to play. With the NBA lockout in full force, the Oklahoma City Thunder forward has no league and has taken the unwanted time off to rove around. Lately, that has meant spending time around the Texas basketball program. A former stud with the Longhorns during his one year in college, he joined them Tuesday for their game against Rhode Island and hung around. Saturday night he, along with former Longhorns Royal Ivey and Chris Mihm, sat a row behind the Texas bench. But Durant wasn’t just there to watch. During timeouts he would stand in the huddle and coming out of them he would pull a player aside to give a few quick words.” Read more…
There’s not an NBA season right now. But that doesn’t mean everyone is just packing up and going dark.
Everyone’s favorite podcast, The Basketball Jones, is hitting the road to bring their show to the people. They’ve already had stops in Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
This Thursday, they come to Oklahoma City. Where? At Tree and Leaf’s store (8405 N. Rockwell Ave. STE #13 Oklahoma City). When? 7 p.m. Why? I don’t know. But I can tell you one reason maybe not to come: I’m their special guest.
RSVP on this Facebook page. Let me say this too: Portland had more than 100 people show up. Right now, OKC has 23 people RSVP’d. And we think we’re the best fans in the league…
So come on out and try and forget that the league we love so much is basically imploding right in front of us while watching some people talk awkwardly in front of you. Trust me, it’s going to be good times.
On a trading card, at least. Panini American, who does not make sandwiches, believe it or not, is an Italian card company that purchased Donruss a few years ago.
The NBA’s got an exclusive deal with them for trading cards, so the company decided to take advantage of the buzz around KD’s flag football performance in Stillwater. The Redskins need a quarterback — I mean, John Beck and Rex Grossman? — and we all saw KD toss four touchdown passes and run for another two. So why not?
Another question: How much would a KD Redskins card go for? Via Panini’s website:
And just to take our little project one more logical step, we asked Beckett Media Senior Market Analyst Rob Springs to speculate on the secondary-market value such Durant cards might have. His estimate: Between $150 and $200.
Ryan Seacrest asked the socialite Friday, on his KIIS FM radio show when she and her hubby, free agent forward Kris Humphries, would settle down and have children.
She said: “I think we want to figure out where he’s gonna play and where he’s gonna live” regarding her husband, who’s currently locked out along with his hoopster peers.
“What if he signed with the Oklahoma Thunder?” Seacrest asked her. “What would you do?”
“Is that a real team?” she asked, before turning to her sister in the background, asking, “Khloe, have you heard of that team?”
After a moment to think, Kim decided, “I would go to Oklahoma City … we’re not going to live a separate life.”
I like how Oklahoma City was the example Seacrest used, probably in a worst-case scenario type of way. Like, “OK, say he signed in OKC. You wouldn’t go THERE, would you?”
Obviously it seems like a slight that Kardashian has never heard of the Thunder, but then again, for someone’s that married to an NBA player, I think that says more about her than it does OKC. Guess she wasn’t exactly paying real close attention to that triple-overtime game the Thunder won in New Jersey last season. Which is weird, because she was there.
With all the talk about KD’s tattoos and what they mean and don’t mean, I’m sure this full back tattoo featuring his home state of Maryland will generate chatter. But all I can think about while I’m looking at it is: ouch.
It’s pretty cool though. The homage to his home state, the angel wings and the fingers holding up a “3″ and a “5″ which is obviously KD’s number but means so much more to him as he wears it to honor his deceased friend and mentor Charles Craig.
Google pretty much runs the world. All the innovations, all the technology — we’re not far off from Google House where you can see satellite pictures from inside everyone’s home.
Anyway, as I often do, I was running a quick Google search looking for Bolt-able items and in one of the autofill searches struck me. As I typed in “Russell Westbrook Kevin Durant,” the two results were “russell westbrook kevin durant feud” and “russell westbrook kevin durant argue.”
Oh geez. You too Google?
So I went through checking what Google’s opinion of the Thunder is. What does Google’s algorithm have to say about other players? Coaches? Mascots? Have a look. Read more…
Looking for a good place to gather with like-minded Thunder fans to watch the team play? Well, officially, that place is now going to be Brix in Bricktown. It’s now the official bar of Daily Thunder and throughout the season we’ll be holding watch parties there for certain games.
