Oklahoma City Thunder

Oklahoma City Thunder v Miami Heat: 3-D Blue Ray Player with the Avengers Special Edition

December 27, 2012 by Dr. Jason Johnson

I loved the Avengers, I loved that movie so much that I saw it twice, on Friday and Saturday both in 3-D and still wanted to see it again. It couldn’t possibly be as good on Blue Ray as it is in a theatre full of hundreds of people cheering and clapping but that will have to tide me over until Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 come out later this year. The same goes for The Miami Heat v.s. Oklahoma City Thunder re-match. The Miami Heat, a group of Superstars banded together to take on threats they couldn’t handle alone (namely the Celtics kept putting LeBron and Wade out to pasture) won a well – deserved Championship this spring. All but one of the 5 game series really came down to the last 2 minutes and love him or hate him, LeBron winning a championship was one of the best sports stories of 2012. Their first meeting of the 2012-2013 season won’t be as exciting as that finals series, but as a gift, it’ll tide me over until they meet again in the finals this spring.

Chicago Bulls v.s. Houston Rockets : Old Monopoly game 8:00 p.m. EST

I know a lot of families that play a big game of Monopoly on Christmas. The sad part is; that no matter how much you may actually like Monopoly, it is statistically impossible to keep all of the pieces of the board game together. There’s always something missing, the little dog piece, or one of the red houses or somehow you only manage to have three 50 dollar bills even though you haven’t touched the game since LAST Christmas. I’m sure that Monopoly was made of the same inter-dimensional material that makes one sock disappear in your laundry machine. That is essentially the Chicago Bulls v.s. the Houston Rockets. This will be a fun game once all the pieces are in place, but right now, they aren’t. The Chicago Bulls, as good as they are playing right now, just can’t be fully enjoyed until they get former MVP Point Guard Derrick Rose back from injury. The Houston Rockets, pieces aren’t quite there yet either. They are made up like an NFL expansion team, mid-level stars from various other franchises (Jeremy Lin from the Knicks, James Harden from the Thunder, Omar Asik from Chicago) who don’t fit yet. Both of these teams are missing a few key pieces before they can really get down to being any fun.

L.A. Clippers v.s. Denver Nuggets : a new Maybach (But you live in New York City) 10:30 EST

The final game of the NBA day is just your classic gift that doesn’t make sense. A yacht when you live in Nashville Tennessee, a snow mobile when you live in Miami, and a Maybach when you live in New York and can barely drive the thing over 50 miles per hour. The L.A. Clippers are one of the hottest teams in the NBA right now, with marketable stars (Blake Griffin is everywhere) and a huge market. But what’s the point of a Christmas showcase with them and the lowly small market, no star having Denver Nuggets? The Clippers are a great team, and may even make the Western Conference finals (no one is beating Oklahoma City) but they aren’t any fun going on at 10:30 against scrubs.

This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.

NBA Finals: Oklahoma City Thunder and Stolen Dreams

June 13, 2012 by Dr. Jason Johnson

One major Decision over the last three years plays a major role in what team many Americans will root for in the NBA finals. No one wants to root for someone who ripped a city’s heart out. No one wants to root for someone that was only in the game for the money and fame and not bringing a championship home. No one wants to root for somebody who took the easy way out went to place where everyone would worship him and he’d be held less accountable. That’s right, for those reasons and more; I’m rooting against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA finals. You thought I was talking about LeBron and his Decision? Not at all, I’m talking about Seattle Supersonics / Oklahoma City Thunder owner Clay Bennett.

The fact that most people think I was referring to LeBron James is one the reasons this country is politically going to hell.

Most everyone in the United States with even a nominal degree of pop culture knowledge is aware of “The Decision”. You don’t have to be a sports fan to know that LeBron James, super-duper-nova star of the Cleveland Cavaliers held a live press conference in 2010 and announced that after 7 years with the Cleveland Cavaliers he was “taking his talents to South Beach” and joining two other All-Stars on the Miami Heat in the hopes of winning an NBA championship. The story since then will go down in sports lore as one of the most reviled decisions in history. Fans burned LeBron James’s jersey, he was called a traitor in an open letter penned by the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, sportscasters and analysts piled on him for a plethora of reasons: Joining with fellow stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh was the easy way to an NBA title. He ‘owed’ it to his sports crazed home city of Cleveland to bring them a championship. The decision itself was okay but it was HOW he did it that offends people. In the end, regardless of the veracity or logic of any of these criticisms (and they’re all bunk) they have lingered. Now almost 2 years later as LeBron makes his second attempt with the Miami Heat to win an NBA championship some still hold up the “Decision” as a reason to root for the Oklahoma City Thunder over the Miami heat. Clay Bennett must be laughing himself to sleep on a pile of money and green blood.

In case you don’t know, or remember or care to the Oklahoma City Thunder have only been in existence for 4 years. Why? Because in another more damaging, more cowardly more disgusting and far reaching Decision Clay Bennett stole the Supersonics Franchise from Seattle and moved them to Oklahoma City. You see, the city of Seattle had been the proud home of the Supersonics for over 40 years, had seen the team win a championship in 1979, go to the finals again in 1996 and remain an important an integral part of the community. When Clay Bennett bought the team from Starbucks magnate Howard Schultz in 2006 he pledged to keep the Sonics in Seattle, he talked about keeping the public trust, and respecting the history and legacy of the Sonics. But Bennett was lying all along, after leveraging Seattle for tax breaks and sweet deals, he bolted for Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City, where he’d be the only game in town, held less accountable, where he could make money no matter the quality of the product, a decision that was ultimately about pocketbooks and pride instead of winning championships. LeBron was one man who left to win and cement his legacy; Clay Bennett left to chase dollar signs and buried the Seattle franchise six feet under. Cleveland fans still have memories of Craig Ehlo and Mark Price . The Cavs are still playing games downtown and Kyrie Irving was 2012 Rookie of the Year. LeBron hurt the franchise but he wasn’t THE FRANCHISE. Seattle Fans have nothing. And worse now they have to watch a nation of fair-weather fans swallow the narrative of the small town team against the smarmy city-slickers while driving past an empty arena every day. Bennett is obviously worse yet somehow LeBron stays the villain?

The existence of this narrative about LeBron and his Decision versus Bennett and his Decision is exactly what is wrong with the American people today. This is the mentality that allows our legal system to throw the book at a kid who knocks over a liquor store, but businessmen who steal billions of dollars from a retirement fund get stern lectures at congressional hearings. This is the mentality that allows Mitt Romney to say “Corporations are people too” and the American public barely blinks. We are mired in this backwards 20^th century thinking clouded by race and class deference that allows elites to walk all over us without consequence but we blame the visible individuals forever. If anything you would think Cleveland fans would know the difference. In 1995, after 34 years Art Modell took the Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore and won a Superbowl 4 years later with basically the same squad. LeBron left after only 7 years, and whether he wins a title or not you can’t tell me he deserves more hate than Modell.

In the end, the winner of the NBA championship will be decided on the court and in the minds and plans of the coaches. But regardless of who wins or who you’re rooting for, let’s remember who the real villains are in this series. It’s not the guys out on the court who have made decisions based on wanting to win, or taking care of the families or quality of life issues. The villains are the owners who lie and cheat and hold cities hostage then bolt for the highest bidder stealing 40 years of legacy and history just to line their own pockets. Wake Up sports fans, if the Decision is driving who you root for, then get mad about the right one, and root for the Miami Heat.

This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.

NBA Finals: Confessions of a Militant Sports Fan

June 13, 2012 by Dr. Jason Johnson

The next 10 days are going to be extremely difficult for me and quite possibly many people around me. I am a “Militant Sports Fan”

It is a scary, frothy mixture of being a sports fan, a political analyst and a Black man. Can’t escape just how explosive that combination is going to be over the next few days as the Oklahoma City Thunder take on the Miami Heat in the NBA finals.

The cliché that sports bring out the best and worst in us has never quite rung true to me. Sports bring out the unrefined in us, the primal, the raw uncut non-rational beliefs passions and opinions, the human stuffthat we keep hidden from public view and sanitized in front of our co-workers and associates. It’s what Eminem meant when in “The Real Slim Shady” he quipped “….cause I’m only givin you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room.”

Sports allows us to let out our racial, cultural and national id: all under the guise of being passionate fans. That’s why in the 1980’s we could put our differences aside and rally around beating the Russians in the Olympics. That’s why grown men and women can say a collective ‘Awwww’ when father’s let their daughters catch the foul ball at an afternoon baseball game. And at the same time how a chubby 5, 8’ White guy can scream “You SUCK!” at a chiseled 7’ Black man during an NBA game and not get his butt kicked.

It’s all about letting raw emotion loose.

Of course, being a fan or rooting for a team is based on zillions of random factors, like where you grew up, where you went to college, what team your Dad or your Grandpa liked, and in a lot of cases which team or player you hate more. But right beneath these legitimate reasons for fandom, there’s a thick viscous racialized subtext to sports that is hard to ignore.

Remember just 3 months ago when sports reporters were falling all over themselves (in a bad way) just because they couldn’t comprehend an Asian American point guard balling out for the New York Knicks? Or a month ago when a subset of Boston fans were having fits because a Black man scored a winning goal against the Bruins (on a goalie who coincidently made it a point to snub President Barack Obama). Whether it’s the Olympics or the NBA finals, sports allow us in polite society to still cling to and fight out our racial and cultural biases in public.

Race and culture may not be the only reasons we root for a team, but they’re ONE of the reasons and a big one. Which brings me to why I, as an unabashed Militant Sports Fan am rooting for the Miami Heat to win the NBA finals.

I am rooting for LeBron James and the Miami Heat to win, even though they’re objectively underdogs. Like most sports fans, my surface reasons are legitimate. I have been a fan of LeBron having lived in Cleveland and watched him play from day one. I like Dwayne Wade’s ascendance as the dirtiest player in basketball who never gets called out for it.

When clicking I find Miami’s style of play to be as beautiful as the Sacramento Kings of the early 2000’s. But those are my nice polite public reasons. Not the guttural intense ones that have me banging on the bar with my friends and glaring at the drunk frat boys next to me when they start cheering for an OKC team they never cared about before tonight.

I want Miami to win because I want to see LeBron stick it to all of those racist, entitled knuckleheads in Cleveland who burned his jersey and wore anti-LeBron shirts the day after his BUSINESS Decision. I want to see LeBron raise a trophy just to rub it in the face of Ohio Governor John Kasich who had the nerve to root for Dallas in last year’s finals.

I want to see LeBron win the NBA championship so that all of the sanctimonious sports writers who claim “I’m not a racist” before going into a condescending monologue about who LeBron “owes” and his “God Given Talents” while conveniently ignoring the racailized subtext to all of these concepts, have to choke on their words.

I want the Heat to win because of the impending “small town real America Oklahoma City vs. the decadent Miami” narrative that is bound to come out of an OKC victory.

I want the Heat to win because after suffering through weeks of “Lin-Sanity” I think it would be fantastic for Eric Spolestra, Miami’s Filipino-American coach, to strike a blow against stereotypes.

I want LeBron to win a trophy because he represents every other Black man or woman that’s ever performed, been elected, or earned their way into the spotlight only to be held to standards no one else has ever been held to, and then gets blamed, not for failing to walk on water, but for leaving muddy footprints on the ground after they do.

That’s what sports militancy is all about. It’s about embracing your ID when it comes to fandom, it’s about admitting you kinda started watching boxing again because Kelly “the Ghost” Pavlik started winning fights, or that you were kinda rooting extra hard for Cam Newton because you thought he was getting a racial-raw deal from the press, or that you fist pump for Tiger Woods because just a few years ago the idea of a Black man winning in Golf was a comedy sketch.

So tonight when tip-off starts I’ll be at the bar with my friends, proudly proclaiming and embracing my biases, sloughing off my polite education, progressive multi-cultural views and dispassionate cultural criticism for a week of rage, passion and intensity. Hopefully it ends with the champion I want; because I just know I won’t get the same thrill watching the U.S. beat China in the Olympics.

This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.

Oklahoma City Thunder