Oh Seattle

"With all due respect to Seattle I do hope they get a team someday. But let me be perfectly clear: It is not going to be this team." Sacramento Mayor and former NBA player Kevin Johnson.

Oh Seattle. All of those years without a franchise. The pains of sitting at home watching the greatest athletes in the world play basketball knowing you can't go to the game yourself and scream your lungs out while stars like Kevin Durant and LeBron James battle it out. Just when you think basketball is coming back to Seattle you see a quote like this on the television. Wait! We're not getting a new team! That's what I imagine coming from the couches of those ever so loyal Seattle fans. Those ever so loyal Seattle fans who travel to games, sitting behind the bench of Oklahoma City and mocking the players and coaches and the rest of the oraganization for leaving your city behind. The ever so loyal Seattle fans who never thought it to be a little weird that even though somebody "stole," your team, stealing another team is perfectly acceptable.
 
Seattle fans do have an interesting argument in the matter: The deserve a team. Because no one else doesn't deserve a team. Sure there are some bad teams with even worse attendance records but to think that you get a team because you deserve one is far-fetched. Why do you deserve a team? Those bad teams with bad attendance counts was Seattle. In 2007, Seattle had their chance to save their team and it dropped the ball. It appears Seattle has dropped the ball again. Which only means the city that chastizes Marshawn Lynch for fumbling the ball might ought to look in the mirror.

Deserving a team doesn't go to anyone. Appreciate the fact that you have one, or had one. Because just like your favorite player could get traded on any given day of the year, your team might be gone one day too. You don't deserve a team, unless the NBA is willing to establish a new league with 93,000 teams. Hey, those playoffs would be exciting though!

The Glass Half Full

Timeout. The glass is actually half full. The glass in reference being one decorated in orange and blue. The Oklahoma City Thunder have completed the first half of the NBA season and have done so with the best record in the NBA. Much can be said about such an accomplishment.

Does it matter that they are the best team now and have been most of the season? Well, not exactly. Is it relevant? Sort of. What is most important is to think of the first half of the NBA season, in terms of the Oklahoma City Thunder, is that their glass is half full. And, it doesn’t matter how much they seem to drain out of that glass, it just continues to remain half full.

 (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Alright, analogies aside, the first half of the Thunder’s season does bring some rather interesting notes. One being that Oklahoma City actually does have the best team in the NBA. Defeating the second best team in the league, the L.A. Clippers, by an average of 9 PPG proves there is some difference. Playing alongside the Miami Heat last summer apparently served as the equivalent of eating just one potato chip. 

With the taste in their mouth the Thunder have shown all season how hungry they are to not only get back to the NBA Finals but actually win the series. 

OKC has shown different ways in winning this season, which is why they have made their way to the top. Winning a game from the opening tip all the way to the final buzzer, winning a game that maybe they shouldn't have because they played like crap or winning a game at that final buzzer because they gutted it out and gave absolutely everything they had. Any way you draw up the win, the Thunder have won.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Growth is always part of the equation when it comes to professional sports. This is something that the fans in Chesapeake Energy Arena have seen in tremendous bunches in the first half of the season. Russell Westbrook has officially improved statistically. Despite the criticism in each of his errant maneuvers throughout the season, Westbrook has actually gotten better. You do not want to have to try and guard him and if you are trying to get around him your night is not going to easy by any definition of the word. Entering the top-10 in scoring at 23 PPG and adding 8.2 assists and a shade under two steals per game, Westbrook is shall we say, Russellin-Russellin-Everyday-He-Russellin.

Then there is the superstar Kevin Durant. Just when you think there isn't any more this guy can do, he does. For instance, Tuesday night against those Clippers. 32 points with five 3-pointers and nine rebounds. The rebounds are coming in at a career high for Durant as are many other statistics. The Thunder are better because Durant is better now. This is kind of scary because of the early accolades of the young world-star, but KD is careering it in a handful of categories.

Oklahoma City has a target on their back this season, which is something new. The Thunder are suddenly and strangely expected to win and be atop the NBA. The glass half-full attitude has translated to the way both fans and critics look at OKC. Lets hope the second half of the season tastes as good as the first.