The Thunder exhale

"Fun," that's what I heard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander say four times in 183 words, "fun." I guess I wasn't paying attention to the parts where he talked about pick and roll, or whatever. Blah blah blah closeout.

"Joy," that's the word I used Alex Caruso use twice in 100 words. Sat at the podium and informed the media that "this group has a joy about them," like he's some NBA blogger, trying to tell readers about a team that passes a lot.

Caruso cited his career's low points, working for Oklahoma City and Los Angeles' minor league affiliates before winning championships with each respective major league lineup.

He also mentioned a purgatory point, his time with the Chicago Bulls, referred to here at the championship podium as "the second contract," like a divorced parent referencing their ex but only because they're on the way toward saying something about their graduating kid.

Jalen Williams mentioned off-court struggles more than once, Isaiah Hartenstein credited his coaching staff and teammates for helping him through rougher moments away from work. Luguentz Dort wanted us to know he was grateful to be from Haiti, proud to be of Canada, happy to be an NBA champion. Chet Holmgren noted the ibuprofen he required to make it through 2024-25, Mark Daigneault twinned the word "grateful."

Each of them encouraged the idea that there is much, much that goes into making an NBA champion that they could ever express with words. As if us schmucks and our little laptops would understand, anyway.

No team, not one not ever, runs fat and sassy on the way toward an NBA title. Every single one – pick your least-favorite, supposedly-lazy superstar with a title – put in outrageous amounts of work between October and June. Nobody comes out of that thinking it'll happen again. Some of them come out of it thinking they don't want to do that again.

So you can bet the team that knows the least amount, in NBA history, about what it takes to win a championship, you can bet they understand every ache and pain.

This title will not be lost on the tenderfoot Thunder. The title probably hit the Thunder harder than any championship club, all but one didn't have that old-man strength to inexplicably drag them around. The 31-year old Caruso looked the heartiest in repose on Sunday night, ready to carry some kids from the car.

Clearly, I'm not buying the idea that OKC's relative youth will keep them from understanding what they just did, because I just watched each of them admit they don't understand what they just did. Or how or, in the case of Jalen Williams (fresh off his life's first sip of alcohol), when.

It wasn't the spirited Pacer resiliency leaving the Thunder wide-eyed in conquest, rather the enormity of the accomplishment. To have a championship expected, October and January and June, and still perform, still walk briskly. They had to be present, another word used several times by several players on Sunday night, throughout the regular season, it made certain an MVP season and NBA championship.

To say you don't know, is to tell me you're ready.

These Thunder? They have a joy about them.

RISKS WERE EXPLAINED

There will be a movement, in fact there already is darn nearly a certification, that the NBA connived the kibosh on repeat champions with its new salary cap structure.

Negotiated collectively with the players' union, the increasingly prohibitive tax penalties for excessive player payroll could force groups with teetering payrolls – championship contenders, typically – to cut costs, players, talent, titles.

That's the pitch, at least. What's probably getting in the way are the things that stopped NBA champions from repeating once – ONCE!! – between 1969 and 1988. Travel, fatigue, fatigue, travel. Games, games ... games.

I'm ready for another. The Thunder and Pacers were ready for Game 7 on Sunday. They can't handle a single more.

Tyrese Haliburton could handle Game 7 but his legs could not follow. Jayson Tatum couldn't manage a title defense. They gave out, cruelly, on national television and its infinite number of replay angles. We're digital, now, it's really just one big screen.

Since David Stern smirked through his mustache for the first televised time, the NBA has credited itself, correctly, for thinking on its feet and successfully selling a second-tier winter sport as top-budget entertainment. Basketball used to suck its gut in just to rank in America's top six or seven sports, but thanks to Stern and Adam Silver NHL hockey isn't a rival anymore, let alone boxing and horses runnin' round the track. MLB and NFL can't touch the NBA internationally, combined.

And the NBA credits this growth, every June in the Finals, accurately pointing out how many international media are around, and how well the Finals will do against last autumn's World Series, or the ongoing NHL Stanley Cup. They are correct to sell that success.

And they've successfully shorted that success.

The 2025-26 NBA season will not feature Haliburton, or Jayson Tatum or Damian Lillard. All three worked through nagging calf injuries until their leg said "stop," and stopped. It is not the same to be a point guard or scoring forward in 2025 as it was in 1969, 1988, or when the Lakers and Bulls and Rockets and Spurs won back-to-back titles.

It is more like 1989, when half the Lakers pulled hamstrings in the attempt at winning back-to-back-to-back.

The Warriors and Nuggets and Celtics and Bucks were too tired to defend their titles, nothing else. It ain't the second apron, but it is the 200 games.

And now, the pace. And now, the threes. Those Laker teams, pulling hamstrings? They had seven three-pointers per game to guard.

And we don't want the games or the pace or the threes to go away, but we do want debilitating stress and overuse injuries to return to the mark of a thirtysomething past his prime, something a veteran does at the end of a career, not a danger a 25 or 27-year old risks because he's really diggin' in.

There is more running, jumping, contesting than ever. Hard stops and quick starts are quintupled because every position must be capable of a certain closeout on a three-pointer but also the ability to dash to the front of the rim. Nobody's knees or calves or fascia or formerly fractured feet is immune from this expectation.

It is a different game, but the schedule is the same. Will the league understand that 2025-26 is the year it caught up to them?

LEARN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT THE NBA EVERY DAY

And late Sunday night, on my way out of the arena, I learned the 2025 NBA draft is on Wednesday, not Thursday.

So I guess I can't drive there. Fine.

THERE WAS ONE PART AT HALFTIME

Toward the middle, where I was like, well, I could go get a free Diet Coke and a cold bottle of water or I could just sit here, not move, and watch MJ and Scottie and Horace over here.

I was watching Shai and J-Dub and Chet practice halftime jumpers. I'm back at the hotel room and I just realized they happened to be in a triangle at the time, of course they were, I am moved by simple shapes.

Those three dominated the third quarter. I'm glad I stuck around. I didn't need another Diet Coke. Those things are terrible for you.

Anyway, after the game ended I grabbed a Diet Coke before I left. Those things are delicious.

THE CROWD SANG ALONG TO TWO SONGS

America's National Anthem, as performed by Kristen Chenowith.

and

"Move Bitch," by Ludacris.

At this point it is beyond hacky to make the joke about interchanging a pop song with "The Star-Spangled Banner" but ho-ly shit would Luda's hit be a fiiiine representation of American values, expectations.

BRICKTOWN BRIDGE

Several squad cars careening in, police officers rushing by me, combat shoes clacking on the corner of Sheridan and Gaylord. It is well past midnight but still humid and sweaty out here, and the crime stinks.

More and more SUVs circle the incident, officers scream into walkie-talkies, here comes a tank. A tank. The tank is here. The SWAT team is rolling and I am about to put my hand over my heart and sing some Ludacris.

And for what? Fender bender. I heard the crash, Thunderstix are louder.

Little 1990s Civic lost its bumper trying to sneak a left through a yellow light, the woman inside was fine.

But not before they brought in the tank.

I walk a couple dozen feet and under the Bricktown sign a young lady is buying a small bag of I-don't-need-to-know from someone clearly familiar with these sorts of transactions and absolutely nobody notices but me and the gentleman in charge of these transactions, whose gaze I immediately avert in favor of find anything else to look at.

Every officer in Oklahoma descended twenty-eight feet in the opposite direction, screaming, and these two set to unhurried barter and confirmation and movement like she was buying a pear from a fruit stand.

I don't laugh and I don't know how. Another woman stops me with a "sir" to tell me how "fine" I was, I know this, but was happy to hear that I hadn't dropped anything while crossing the street. I drip into the alley next to the American Banjo Museum and walk toward my car, reversed into my parking spot so nobody would notice my Indiana plate.

There's a man with a Thunder flag in the lot, rolling the flagpole between his shoulderblade and left forearm, phone in the other hand, begging his buddies to come back to the parking lot, back to the car.

I'd wish I'd done that, back when I was drinking, carried a flag for when I got really drunk and needed the guys to come back to the car.

I DROVE AROUND LOOKING AT BARS

I didn't want to but I had to, many streets were backed up, I had to drive all around and up and down to make it east to my hotel room (which is literally on the same street as the Thunder arena). This meant I got to roll down the windows and crank the AC because who cares about gas mileage, not me, haha, not at all.

The bars are hoppin' and everyone was happy and but the biggest, longest gathering, and the reason I was dissuaded from taking the straight route to my lodging was because the line to get to the Casey's gas station filled my navigation system with red lines. And they don't get red lines, here in Oklahoma City.

Dozens and dozens of motorcycles, every rear-drive sports car left in production, lotta trucks, big noise, no trouble. Chill party outside Casey's.

It was as if they heard that every cop they'd ever seen, ever, was situated on a small area around absolutely nothing, and decided to hang out (by the hundreds) in another area that would be difficult for enforcement en masse to make their way toward.

TEAM INTROS IDEA

Announce your own team first, then the visitors.

Four decades since the Bulls began dimming the lights for intros. Forty years for teams to settle into the routine of rolling out to listless intros before sitting, standing, waiting for the other team to finish its stupid thing with the mascot with the lights off.

So switch it. Run your team out full of fire, lights off and typical fireworks, and then give us the visitors.

And give them, silence.

Indifference. An awkward turn, if we're lucky, while their sneakers sadly squeak out to the court.

DON'T HAVE TO HAND IT TO HIM

Clay Bennett.

OKC

I want to do this every June because I love this place. This place does not look like you think it does, or what is represented by crowd shots at OKC Thunder games.

BE ON YOUR MERRY WAY

Thank you for reading! We will talk about Indiana next!