I think the Oklahoma City Thunder is my favorite team in the NBA. Am I the first person outside of the state of Oklahoma to ever utter that sentence?
(By the way, is it even a proper sentence? If the Celtics were my favorite team, I’d say the Celtics ARE my favorite team, not that the Celtics IS my favorite team. So, do I say that the Thunder IS my favorite team, or the Thunder ARE my favorite team? Oh, wait, I forgot… this is a blog for people who like basketball, not for dorks who waste time thinking about boring grammar questions. I should save my moronic grammar musings for my next blog that nobody is going to read: grammarvations.com)
Anyway, I’m all about the Thunder. There are a bunch of things about that team that I like:
1. They have a quiet, unassuming star. And he’s young. And he’s getting better. And his nickname is Durantula.
2. They built their team through the draft. I’m not sure why I find this so appealing, but I like that the main guys on the Thunder have been on the Thunder, I mean the Sonics, I mean the Sonics / Thunder for their whole careers. Nick Collison was drafted by Seattle, and never played for anyone else. Same with Jeff Green (actually, he was traded to the Sonics, but he never played for a different pro team). And Kevin Durant. And Russell Westbrook. And James Harden. This team didn’t get good just by signing one star and trading for another. This team was built methodically. Each draft pick complemented the others, and, collectively, they constitute an actual team.
3. They’re young, and, yet, accomplished. This team has multiple guys who played well for premier college teams. Durant was the Player of the Year at Texas. Harden was an All-American at Arizona State. Collison was an All-American on a Kansas team that went to the Final game. Russell Westbrook started for a UCLA team that went to the Final Four and Green started for a Georgetown team that did, too.
They have Serge Ibaka. That has to count for something.
These guys seem like good dudes, they’re young, and they’re good. Ever since the Knicks dissed my boy Ewing I’ve been a free-agent fan. I think I found my squad.