What the Thunder lose in the first two weeks

There will be an NBA season. You can take that to the bank. Or to the grocery store. You can take it somewhere.

But what there won’t be is a first two weeks of the season. Those are canceled. Which totally sucks, but that’s just the reality. The owners are greedy. The players are greedy. Everyone’s got blood on their hands here.

Blame who you want to blame, yell about it to your cab driver, write letters to your congressperson (that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?), but it doesn’t matter. Until the players and owners — very rich people, mind you — can agree on how to split up some $4 billion in revenue, we won’t be seeing basketball.

Two weeks could very well be the tip of the iceberg. Which would really suck. But it starts with two and we know those are gone. What’s out for the Thunder?

Here’s OKC’s schedule for the first 14 days: at the Lakers, at the Suns, home against the Pacers, at the Mavs, at the Knicks, at the Bulls, home against the Raptors, at the Bobcats.

Want to know something? It might be kind of a good thing those first two weeks are gone for OKC. Because there are some tough games in there. Six road games and only two home tilts, with matchups against the Bulls, Lakers, Knicks and Mavericks with all on the road? Yikes.

Then again, that would’ve been a good chance for the Thunder to already get a feel for who they are and where they stand. Opening against the Lakers would give the Thunder a solid measuring stick to see where they’re at and where they may need to go. The number of road games against good teams would be a good early test. And games at the Mavs and Bulls would just be plain fun.

If the season were to resume after two weeks, it could honestly be seen that the Thunder came out looking good from a couple weeks missed. They don’t lose a lot of gate revenue because of only two home games missed. They now have 39 home games to 35 road games the rest of the way. And they also clear out a couple tough matchups versus the Lakers, Bulls, Mavs and Knicks.

But I’d rather watch the Thunder go 0-8 in those first two weeks than risk the possibility of losing a season. Because that’s where we stand. Two weeks could turn into four, which could turn into eight, which could turn into February without any NBA.

If you need me, I’ll be in the fetal position.