The Side Part: Super Sonic Purgatory

USATSI

1. This is a list of the restaurants we had in the town I grew up in. We’ve since added a doughnut place and a Boomerang Diner — great biscuits and gravy, my dad says — but they weren’t around when I left so they don’t count.

McDonald’s
Charlie’s Chicken
Subway
Mac’s Drive-In
Some Snow Cone Stand With “Paradise” In The Title
Simple Simon’s
Fajita Ritas
Sonic

There was a good three year period there before I could drive when my mom, after picking me up from school, would drive me to Sonic. We’d get a drink and a Blast or some fries or mozzarella sticks. It was a daily thing. I liked it a lot.

I went to college in Shawnee, Oklahoma. They got about sixty Sonics within the city limits there. My friends and I used to go to the original for Happy Hours in the warm months. We’d sit in my truck and listen to music we thought we were interesting for liking — Sufjan or something like that — and just sort of keep continually commenting on how good of a deal it was to get a Route 44 for that price. Then we’d go back, sit at my friend’s house, play NFL Blitz 2000 for several hours, til it was time to walk across the street to my other friend’s place to play HORSE on an upscale Nerf goal with a rim that wouldn’t break away and a thicker, sturdier than usual plastic backboard. This thing had weight. My buddy Taylor was very good at bank shots off the ceiling.

2. I love Sonic. And Kevin Durant’s recent partnership with them is the most exciting thing that has happened to the Thunder all season. That’s both a comment on how rough it’s been to watch some of these recent games, and how great America’s Drive-In and Durant are. This feels close to a perfect marriage. The only thing keeping me from giving my whole self over to it is the hope that they don’t fully replace the Sonic guys, TJ Jagadowski and Peter Grosz. Just make the front seat a bench seat and put Kevin in the middle. He’s not one of the best improvisers in the world, but he’ll be fine. I don’t know about all this healthy menu options stuff I’m hearing — I don’t go to Sonic for a salad. The best part about the place is you can get foot-long cheese coneys and large cups filled with Butterfinger ice-cream and double cheeseburgers and cheese fries all under one overhang — but, nevertheless, this is exciting. Anything that gives Durant more ties to Oklahoma I’m all for. This is where I don’t mention his free agency.

3. Sometimes our bench’s celebrations have so much movement to them I worry about people re-injuring themselves. These guys in boots rising up from the bench to take some steps forward with their arms spinning around like choppers, pounding themselves in the chest, screaming.

4. Mitch McGary’s Instagram is a buffet of athlete tropes (pictures of himself, pictures of his car, night views of cities that don’t actually look that cool), with one very large exception — The guy owns snakes. I’m generally against any kind of hashtag, ironic or otherwise, but #Zeus #Zoey #Layla seem like very chill reptiles, which is actually what I think, and not a terrible play on words because of their cold-blooded nature. These things play video games with him.

5. The Thunder are ranked corpse last in the West right now WHICH IS A REALLY WEIRD FEELING. This strangeness of watching a squad that, at times, looks helpless, but knowing that in a (relatively) short while the heroes will return. For all intents and purposes a team that’s sitting at 3-10 does not matter, but the Thunder very much do. Or will.

I don’t even really know how to think about them right now. Because at the moment they’re this scrappy team that’s sort of living in the realm of the almost. So many almost wins. They’ve lost a handful of games they could’ve easily won. They’re the semi-rare brand of a bad team that’s not actively trying to lose games — shouts out to the Sixers. They come in and out of being competitive, sometimes in the same quarter, and at moments they give flickers of legitimate fire (Jackson or Morrow going off).

With all the Cousins and Davis love that’s been thrown around at the front of this season, it’s easy to forget that, when healthy and clicking, the most exciting offensive basketball anyone can see happens at The Peake. The whirlwind Durant and Westbrook can stir up is greater than Boogie or the Brow, no matter how in vogue they are at the moment. These guys are forces now, and most likely will stay that way, but Durant and Westbrook are proven on stages larger than November in Sacramento and New Orleans. I’m saying, let’s not forget who the big guns truly are. Maybe people haven’t. Maybe they have. I don’t know. It just feels like a thing that should be typed.

The whole first part of this season is like shouting into a black hole. This is some kind of purgatory they’ve fallen into. An almost lifeless existence filled with suffering, holding onto the hope that they’ll be in heaven one day. That’s sort of how I want to think about it. They’re undergoing purification right now, to quote Wikipedia, and hopefully soon they’ll achieve the joy of heaven once more.

Follow Tyler Parker on Twitter for some chill jokes and Olive Garden tweets.