The Side Part: There are flickers
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The game on Wednesday was depressing, as is the remainder of this schedule, so I want to avoid talking about them for a little while.
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I went to one of those barcades the other day. Retro arcade games all spread throughout the bar. They’d project the live Street Fighter II matches on the wall, some very small girl really unleashing on people with Ryu. She held court there for the seven matches I watched, crowd gathering, nobody really even touching her. I made my way over to NBA Jam Tournament Edition. Watched a guy beat the computer, Anthony Peeler putting in work for him, and then he left. I put a quarter in, and so did another couple guys. They’d play me.
The one closest to me, third player position, was wearing a shirt that looked like the walls of some primitive cave. All these shapes and swirls, some vague sort of creatures roaming on it – four legged monsters that sort of looked like bears, wolves and deer. Horizontal diamonds. Shined, too, the edges and outlines of the shapes and the animals glowing golden in the low light of that place. He spoke first.
You ready to get smashed, dude? And so I came back at him. This aggression, man.
You already coming at me like that? Guy with the fancy shirt?
And they both laughed at that. I played with the team I always played with when that game was in heavy rotation, Golden State. Mullin and Hardaway. I’d control Mullin. He had a 9 rating on threes and really, if he missed, it was news. Let him get a clean look, we could start running to the other end, trying to shove somebody. They went with Stockton and Malone, because they were unoriginal and lacking any sort of creativity, or joy.
Chris Mullin put on a laser light show. A complete aerial assault. Golden State beat Utah by 23 – it wasn’t really that close – and Mullin put Hardaway on his back and carried him. On two separate occasions he caught actual fire. He made 21 threes, that flattop adorned with a flame that twirled off him, those computer people sitting all along the court, their fists pumping, clapping and holding up their vague foam fingers, getting sparks flung up on them, their pompoms turning into fireballs.
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Anthony Morrow is shooting with more efficiency than a computerized and enhanced version of Chris Mullin. It’s really been something to watch. That signing, among others, is really paying off.
That Morrow is shooting this well right now, with this kind of NBA-Jam-Character-With-A-Nine-Rating-On-Threes firepower, is frustrating. I say that because think about how open he would be if he were sharing the court with Durant and Ibaka, in addition to Westbrook and Kanter/Adams/Me/Singler/Waiters/Your father. That is a very particular kind of open. Wide open. Defenders miles from him, on the other side of the ravine.
Yet the injuries. All of those injuries that do not stop. There’s not been enough talk about just how amazing it is that the Thunder are even in the playoff hunt, much less in them, should the season end right now. That’s a testament to Westbrook, Brooks and Presti. Brooks will always leave people wanting a little. His substitution patterns, his unwillingness to change, and his (at times) inability to draw up inventive plays in crucial situations. But you don’t trot out the rosters he’s trotted out at different points during this season in the West and still have a winning record without knowing what you’re doing.
And Presti, after taking grief for a few seasons for some of his moves, has pulled the right strings, and gotten people in the door that can help now, and in the future. Waiters is a chore to watch at times, but it’s clear he’s trending upward. A year in the system, a year of being told to get to the rim, to avoid those suicidal 19 footers, and filling out the lineup around him, it could get very fun. Kanter is a matador on defense but has been a revelation in the post offensively, is young and talented, and wants to be in OKC. Augustin is what we’ve needed as a backup point all along. Singler is coming around, and gives good minutes. And Morrow. Morrow is the signing that is proving to be, perhaps, the most important. He fits.
It’s a crime that we haven’t had an opportunity to see what this Thunder team would look like at full strength. The clamps would come down – granted, they’ve nowhere to go but down – and offensively it would be an even greater terror to deal with.
I know that this is a tumultuous time, 1.5 games up on the Pellies, them holding a tiebreaker, that remaining schedule, but the thing that this season has taught me is that we cannot count out the Thunder. They have looked dead in the water often, and they always compete. Whether we make the playoffs or not, I don’t know. But I have had fun cheering for this team this year. They’ve played hard, and not used excuses, when it would have been so unbelievably easy. Hard to remember a contender in the past decade that has dealt with the kind of adversity the Thunder have dealt with this year, and they’re still playing, still giving themselves something to fight for.
It’s a dark time right now, but there are flickers. There is still a chance for some fire.
