Latest / Bring The Thunder Podcast / Bring The Thunder EP.21 - Discussing Upcoming News!

Transcript

Bring The Thunder EP.21 - Discussing Upcoming News! · Bring The Thunder Podcast

• 0:00
  What is up Thunder fans? Welcome back to the Bring the
• 0:03
  Thunder podcast. Today is the day for our weekly
• 0:06
  episode. First, before we start going to
• 0:09
  give a shout out to everybody who likes and subscribes and
• 0:11
  comments and just watches our content.
• 0:14
  We love hearing from you guys. We're so thankful that you know
• 0:17
  a lot of you are sticking for the ride here and we're going to
• 0:22
  get right into this episode. We hope you like it.
• 0:24
  Again, if you are enjoying the content, just leave a hit the
• 0:27
  subscribe button, leave a like comment especially this is a lot
• 0:31
  of opinionated episodes, so leave your opinions in the
• 0:34
  comments and we'll get to them as soon as possible.
• 0:38
  But with that being said, the NBA schedule for the 2526 season
• 0:44
  is officially out. Finally, some real news that we
• 0:48
  could talk about that we could really get into.
• 0:52
  Crazy schedule. Oklahoma City, with 34
• 0:54
  nationally televised games, tied for most in the league, one of
• 0:59
  the smallest markets in the league, has the most televised
• 1:01
  games. Very happy that the NBA, you
• 1:04
  know, did the right thing, especially after this past
• 1:06
  season where, you know, the reigning one seed in the West
• 1:09
  barely got any national nationally televised games.
• 1:13
  But we're just going to highlight, you know, some that
• 1:15
  are really intriguing to us. And I'm going to let Jack start.
• 1:19
  Jack, just break down a few that really pop off.
• 1:24
  Obviously, we have the Houston Rockets for opening night.
• 1:27
  Katie gets to see us raise a banner, get on rings, so it's
• 1:31
  pretty neat. Christmas Day, we have the Spurs
• 1:34
  at home, finally back on a Christmas Day game.
• 1:37
  Not sure why the Spurs are here, but yeah.
• 1:41
  I can, I can I comment on that real quick?
• 1:43
  Yeah, sure. Why?
• 1:44
  Why the Spurs? That's two seasons in a row.
• 1:46
  The Spurs are getting Christmas games.
• 1:48
  Yes, they have immense potential to be great in the coming years,
• 1:52
  but come on. Come on.
• 1:54
  Anyway, continue. I just had to get that off my
• 1:56
  chest. I know it's stupid, but New
• 1:59
  Year's Eve would play in the Trail Blazers again and then the
• 2:03
  weirdest 1 is just posted today. The NBA has revealed Rivals Week
• 2:09
  where the Thunder and the big rival is the Milwaukee Bucks,
• 2:14
  which no one knew about. I don't really.
• 2:17
  You didn't know about that, but you didn't know about that.
• 2:20
  I must be living under a rock with everybody.
• 2:25
  It's stupid how they could just label that as a rivalry.
• 2:33
  I mean to think, to think of a few, we got the Nuggets, the
• 2:36
  Mavs, I mean the paces you could throw in there.
• 2:39
  Like rivalries, but even throw Houston?
• 2:42
  Exactly. But I we, we play Milwaukee,
• 2:46
  what, twice a year and twice? A year hasn't really been any
• 2:52
  bad blood between the teams. There has been bad blood through
• 2:55
  US. I mean, Kyle Kuzma definitely
• 2:58
  does not love the podcast. But other than that, yeah, I
• 3:01
  don't understand the rivalry. Unless they're trying to build
• 3:05
  off the NBA Cup. But for us, it wasn't even a
• 3:09
  game like that. Was just a scrimmage faster but.
• 3:14
  The NBA Cup still confuses me. You know, good for the players
• 3:19
  on getting that extra what, 100K or whatever, but that's still
• 3:23
  confusing me. I also want to point out a few
• 3:24
  of these games on Rivals week, the Rockets and the Pistons.
• 3:31
  Maybe at one point they would be called rivals, but I I don't
• 3:34
  believe their rivals. I would see like if Jalen Green
• 3:40
  was still on the Rockets, maybe that would still be a rivalry
• 3:43
  because Jalen Green and Kate Cunningham won two in that
• 3:45
  draft. Don't get that one.
• 3:49
  Apparently, the Warriors and the Lakers have a bunch of rivals.
• 3:53
  The they're getting a bunch of recognition during that week and
• 3:58
  another game. Cleveland and the Charlotte
• 4:00
  Hornets. They didn't know that was such a
• 4:02
  big deal. I mean, I must be living under a
• 4:05
  rock. Like Jack said, Let me know if
• 4:07
  you guys, you know, were, were, you know, on top of this and you
• 4:10
  know, more ball than I do because I did not know Cleveland
• 4:13
  and Charlotte. Didn't even hear about that one
• 4:16
  until now, so that is ridiculous.
• 4:18
  Yeah, that's on the same day. So Wednesday January 21st, 7:00
• 4:23
  on ESPN. It's Cleveland, Charlotte 930 is
• 4:26
  OK C and Milwaukee huge rivals. Anyway, Jack, another question
• 4:32
  for you. We have a 5 game stretch toward,
• 4:35
  you know, later part of the season.
• 4:39
  Wednesday, starting Wednesday, March 4th, we start in New York
• 4:43
  to face the Knicks, televised on ESPN, home against Golden State
• 4:47
  ABC, home against against Denver Peacock, home against Boston
• 4:51
  prime home against Minnesota ABC.
• 4:54
  When has OK C ever gotten this much recognition and how how
• 4:59
  good does it feel? I mean, five straight games
• 5:01
  nationally televised in a row. This is fantastic.
• 5:04
  I'm super pumped. Me too.
• 5:06
  I'm pumped. And that means nothing to me
• 5:08
  because I'm not in America. So none of these streaming
• 5:12
  platforms. I just watch it through NBATV.
• 5:14
  But having that is pretty cool. Like just the recognition.
• 5:20
  Finally, like you said, last year, we didn't really get the
• 5:23
  recognition we deserve, but finally they're waking up and I
• 5:26
  think we're tied with the Lakers and the Warriors or the Lakers
• 5:30
  and the Knicks maybe for the most nationally televised games,
• 5:34
  which is pretty sick. Super awesome and Speaking of
• 5:37
  those platforms and we got new you know in in America here
• 5:40
  anyway, we got new platforms we're watching these games on
• 5:43
  TNT is officially over. They've transferred over to NBC
• 5:47
  first game of the season for us you know the Houston game is on
• 5:51
  NBC. Obviously ESPN stays around,
• 5:54
  which a lot of us, you know, maybe thought they should have
• 5:58
  been the ones kicked to the curb.
• 5:59
  But, you know, that's fine. But we got NBC this year.
• 6:02
  We got Amazon Prime making an entrance into the NBA.
• 6:06
  They have a lot of dates. They have like Sundays, Fridays,
• 6:11
  Saturdays, like they have the whole weekend on Amazon Prime.
• 6:15
  They got Peacock coming in on like Mondays and like Tuesdays
• 6:19
  and Thursdays. It's very interesting.
• 6:21
  It's a definitely a new generation of, you know, the NBA
• 6:26
  in, in media and I feel great about these platforms.
• 6:31
  I know that NBC has some great, you know, commentators and
• 6:35
  broadcasters on their team. I also heard that Michael Jordan
• 6:38
  will be one of the analysts for NBC.
• 6:41
  So that's pretty exciting. I, I have, yeah, Michael Jordan.
• 6:46
  That would be pretty cool. I haven't heard much about the
• 6:49
  others. You know, hopefully Doris Burke
• 6:51
  still isn't on ESPN 'cause that's, you know, the one that
• 6:54
  kind of hosts the finals still ABC and ESPN.
• 6:57
  But I mean, this is, this is all exciting to me, man.
• 7:02
  Yeah, I had a couple stats here. So the Thunders longest road
• 7:06
  trip is five games from March 15th, March 17th to March 25th.
• 7:11
  They play the Magic, Nets, Wizards, Sixes and Celtics.
• 7:15
  And then on the flip side, their longest home stand is five games
• 7:18
  from March 27th to April 5th. They play the Bucks, Knicks,
• 7:21
  Pistons, Lakers, Jazz. So yeah, I think that that home
• 7:27
  home stretch will be really cool.
• 7:29
  Yeah, I did notice while looking through the schedule here, I
• 7:32
  think the NBA is really cracking down on traveling.
• 7:35
  There's a few stretches where OK, CS home for four games, away
• 7:38
  for four games, but all in the same area.
• 7:42
  So the, I, I believe that the NBA is really trying to, you
• 7:45
  know, not tax their players as much with the travel, with the
• 7:48
  games, 'cause obviously we've been seeing some injuries that
• 7:52
  haven't been, you know, ideal to star players.
• 7:54
  So look at through the schedule. I mean, even the road trips,
• 7:58
  which is normal. But I mean, the Brooklyn,
• 8:00
  Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, it's all in the same
• 8:03
  area. You know, we play all out West,
• 8:05
  Denver, Lakers, Clippers, all on a row.
• 8:10
  So it's cool to see the NBA, you know, paying attention to the
• 8:12
  injuries and and making, you know, sure their their players
• 8:16
  are not as attacks as they've been over the past few seasons.
• 8:21
  And on that, we have 13 back to backs, which makes up, I just
• 8:25
  Googled it now, I'll be honest with that.
• 8:27
  But about 32% of our games will be back to backs.
• 8:30
  I remember last year we had maybe 18, I want to say.
• 8:33
  So a lot less, which is really good.
• 8:37
  Just more on that like injury management and all that.
• 8:40
  And then probably the biggest news of the schedule release,
• 8:45
  the Wizards come to OK C on October 30th and if you're
• 8:50
  there, you'll be able to see Dylan Jones receive his
• 8:52
  championship ring. So.
• 8:54
  That is a game to. Watch Might.
• 8:56
  Be able. To get some some cheaper tickets
• 8:58
  and yeah, see Dylan Jones. But yeah, again, like we said,
• 9:04
  just I mean, the schedule looks amazing back-to-back games to
• 9:09
  start off the season on on, you know, television.
• 9:11
  We got NBC and ESPN. Like I said, I'm super excited
• 9:15
  for NBC. That so Jack, I don't even know
• 9:18
  if you know, years ago the NBA was on NBC and the theme song
• 9:27
  was like, I know you've heard it.
• 9:30
  I believe that's making a comeback as well.
• 9:33
  So I'm pretty excited for that. And I mentioned Jordan and they
• 9:37
  have good broadcasters going up. I think one of Minnesota, the
• 9:40
  Timberwolves broadcasters will be on either Prime or NBCI,
• 9:44
  can't remember, but he's good. They got good talent going over
• 9:47
  there. So, you know, I am happy in a
• 9:51
  sense that, you know, it's not Doris every night or like Reggie
• 9:55
  Miller every night. But on the other hand, I mean,
• 10:00
  do you think like this is too much like all these different
• 10:03
  streaming platforms? You got NBCESPN, Prime and
• 10:08
  Peacock this year along with ABC, which is pretty much ESPN.
• 10:12
  But I'm, I feel like, you know, both sides.
• 10:16
  You could argue both sides. It's better or worse.
• 10:19
  Yeah, I just don't like the games that are streamed where
• 10:24
  they cut out Michael Cage and Scott, what's his name?
• 10:28
  Nick Fisher, because I just automatically switched to their
• 10:33
  stream because I really like what OKC has in terms of
• 10:36
  broadcasters. But I think it's it's good to
• 10:39
  have that diversity of broadcasters, especially when
• 10:42
  some can be so annoying. So they won't be on as much.
• 10:46
  I don't really know what it looks like in terms of Americans
• 10:49
  having to buy like 10 different streaming platforms just to
• 10:52
  watch every game. But that's not my my worry at
• 10:55
  all. So.
• 10:56
  Yeah, so I mean, one thing I can explain with the, you know, it
• 11:01
  is a lot like you're going to, you're going to have to get
• 11:03
  Prime, you're going to have to get Peacock if you want to
• 11:06
  watch. The good thing is a lot of NBA
• 11:11
  fans, you know, do watch the NFL and the NFL has already been
• 11:17
  doing Thursday night games with Amazon Prime.
• 11:21
  They've they've done games in the past with Peacock.
• 11:23
  So maybe people already have these streaming sites, but you
• 11:27
  know, we'll see. I'm, I'm excited.
• 11:30
  I think it's a a new generation of basketball and I'm, I'm
• 11:32
  pretty excited to get this thing rolling.
• 11:34
  I wish it was already October. For real.
• 11:39
  OK, Other games that I missed on the schedule.
• 11:45
  I mean, there's some cool games. There's some, you know, we got
• 11:48
  Cleveland twice on TV, which is nice.
• 11:52
  We mentioned the Rivals Week games.
• 11:53
  We mentioned the five straight, New York, Golden State, Denver,
• 11:57
  Boston, Minnesota. We get New York twice on TV.
• 12:02
  Actually, we get Detroit on TV. We get the Lakers, Denver a
• 12:06
  couple times. I mean, OK, CS loaded this year
• 12:09
  and it's really exciting. It's it's an exciting time now.
• 12:13
  Let us know in the comments what you guys, you know, what games
• 12:15
  you're looking forward to, what you think about all the
• 12:18
  streaming platforms and and all that.
• 12:23
  But Jack, we are going to move on from the schedule.
• 12:28
  You have something to announce that we are about to be doing.
• 12:32
  Yeah, so last week we made starting 5 spaced out of one
• 12:36
  position, which is point guards. And this year we're this year
• 12:39
  this this episode we're going to do the same with shooting
• 12:43
  guards. So if I can try pull mine up?
• 12:50
  I believe last week we had some comments.
• 12:53
  We had some comments on our point guards team, good and bad.
• 12:58
  That's what we love. That's what we love.
• 13:00
  So here's my shooting guard team.
• 13:02
  If you follow me on Instagram at the Thunder coverage then you
• 13:05
  would have seen this series already.
• 13:06
  But in hindsight, I would probably move James Harden to
• 13:12
  the one, Victor Oladipo to the three, and Alex Caruso to the
• 13:16
  4th just based off the way Caruso could defend Jokic
• 13:20
  against the Nuggets. Which the comments.
• 13:23
  Made sure to let me know. Yeah, pretty much.
• 13:25
  Just explain like what this means.
• 13:28
  So this is the five best shooting guards that you think
• 13:31
  would fit together. You know 5 OKC shooting guards
• 13:33
  that you think would fit together in these positions,
• 13:36
  right? So Alex Caruso would be.
• 13:37
  In a starting line up, yeah, got you so topless.
• 13:40
  Sephalosia's the only shooting guard who's really played power
• 13:43
  forward for the Thunders, so kind of slot him over one more.
• 13:46
  I think he played power forward for the Rockets in his last
• 13:49
  year. So I mean, it's all
• 13:50
  hypothetical, but yeah, I think yeah.
• 13:56
  And I ranked this team #5 overall, but I mean, pretty good
• 14:00
  perimeter defense, but no interior defense, and just not
• 14:07
  enough shooting or scoring surrounding Harden or
• 14:10
  consistent, consistent shooting or scoring.
• 14:13
  So that's why I had the five. This has been OK CS backbone for
• 14:18
  years. The shooting might be a little
• 14:20
  horrendous in the shooting guard department, which is ironic, but
• 14:24
  I mean, look at the defense. For me personally, I'd go with
• 14:27
  Harden at the one, Caruso at the yeah, I'd go Oladipo at the 2,
• 14:33
  Doord at the three, Caruso at the four and Tabo at the five.
• 14:38
  But either way, I mean, this is a absolute clamp lineup, You
• 14:43
  know, Lou Caruso, Tabo, all excellent defenders, all NBA
• 14:47
  defenders. Harden obviously can run the
• 14:51
  show and, you know, looking at it, I can make the argument for
• 14:56
  like Kevin Martin or VO, but VO fits this team much better if
• 15:04
  he's going to be, you know, with these guys.
• 15:08
  I'd also like to think that like VO, we got a little bit of
• 15:11
  Indiana Pacer VO instead of, you know, just OK C But yeah, I
• 15:16
  completely agree with the team. Sweet.
• 15:26
  Yeah. So, so to finish up, we are
• 15:28
  going back to the schedule. We're going to throw out some
• 15:31
  really early record predictions for this Oklahoma City squad.
• 15:35
  We're not going to take you guys game by game because that's a
• 15:37
  lot of games. That's 82 straight win loss
• 15:40
  predictions. But we'll kind of give a general
• 15:43
  analysis and and give our prediction at the end.
• 15:46
  So, Jack, I'm going to let you start first here.
• 15:48
  Well, we here, we finished with 68 wins last year and we know I
• 15:55
  think we played maybe 10/10/15 games as a full unit.
• 15:59
  So it logically has to be higher than 68.
• 16:05
  But the rest of the league, I mean, there's been so much
• 16:09
  movement that I can see it being around 74, I want to say 7475.
• 16:18
  7475 wins this year, breaking the all time record this year
• 16:22
  you're thinking. For sure.
• 16:25
  Yep, 74 wins. Sapir has the same.
• 16:28
  Sapir from our panel has the same.
• 16:30
  I mean, this is a record-breaking defense.
• 16:34
  We're only getting better, so I don't know.
• 16:38
  I agree. I agree with you in that that
• 16:42
  last take there. I do agree with the first take
• 16:46
  as well where we played about like 10 games fully healthy
• 16:48
  maybe all season. Last year pre playoffs, I went
• 16:55
  over the schedule. I can't sit here and say, all
• 17:01
  right, we were really good last year.
• 17:03
  We're going to get so much better this year, which I do
• 17:05
  believe is true. But I think, you know, becoming
• 17:08
  the champion might have a little bit of regular season regression
• 17:13
  in the sense that maybe a few games we save our legs a little
• 17:16
  bit, maybe a few games. You know, guys like Case and
• 17:19
  Wallace, now that he has a ring isn't going 110% the whole game.
• 17:26
  Not saying that it's going to happen, but it's a possibility.
• 17:29
  I'm going to stay stick around like the same 66 wins, 68 wins,
• 17:33
  about just about like last year, 6814.
• 17:36
  There are some long road trips, there are some long home stands,
• 17:41
  but I'm going to say 68 and 14 yet again.
• 17:45
  I think, you know, towards the end of the season we'll be
• 17:47
  sitting our players again. We may pick up a few losses, we
• 17:53
  may not. I mean the end of the season we
• 17:55
  get are in the in Los Angeles for against both teams and then
• 17:58
  at Denver and then we come back home against Phoenix.
• 18:01
  I expect to be sitting a lot of our players those those last
• 18:04
  four games seeming hoping that we already have the one seed or
• 18:07
  two seed wherever we fall. I do believe we'll have the one
• 18:12
  seed if I'm predicting 68 wins. But yeah, I think, I think that
• 18:17
  last week we'll catch a few losses and maybe, you know,
• 18:20
  maybe early on we got a little bit of hangover, like
• 18:22
  championship hangover. So I could see, you know, I
• 18:26
  could see them break, but I'm not going to predict it.
• 18:29
  Yeah, you make a good point where they either go out hungry
• 18:32
  again to play like they did last year, or they cruise through the
• 18:36
  season then turn it up in in the postseason.
• 18:39
  But not not to the extent that Indiana did, but a bit like
• 18:42
  Indiana last year where they, you know, they were just going
• 18:45
  through the the regular season, then postseason came around and
• 18:48
  then they gave their role. But.
• 18:51
  I do believe that we are better than maybe 100% of these teams
• 18:57
  that we're playing. But I, I do believe that this
• 19:00
  year there will be some nights that they don't go 110%.
• 19:07
  Maybe a little bit of a more rotation because we saw, you
• 19:10
  know, we, we're expecting to go far in the playoffs now we're
• 19:13
  expecting to go, you know, towards the finals yet again
• 19:16
  for, in a, in the, for the second season in a row.
• 19:20
  So we want to save our guys. Then we want fresh legs for the
• 19:23
  playoffs. We saw a lot of our guys huffing
• 19:25
  and puffing towards the end. They were a bit exhausted, yeah.
• 19:30
  I don't know if that will translate into losses, but I
• 19:32
  could see that translating into a few more losses.
• 19:34
  That's all I'm saying. Yeah.
• 19:37
  But then on the flip side, we'll be healthy.
• 19:40
  Well, hopefully. So there'll be there'll be a a
• 19:45
  bigger rotation. So then more like we saw Alex
• 19:49
  Caruso rest a whole lot during the regular season, but that's
• 19:53
  because he he was available for most of it.
• 19:55
  So I mean, the strand was pretty, pretty heavy on the
• 19:58
  body, especially when he's playing the five.
• 19:59
  So I think, yeah, I, I'm, I'm going to stick with my my 70.
• 20:05
  Well, break breaks the win record, but yeah. 7474.
• 20:10
  Yeah. Well, I mean you you also make
• 20:14
  another good point because we have a deeper rotation now.
• 20:16
  We got rookies, towpitch, AJ Mitchell, second year AJ
• 20:19
  Mitchell will be healthy. We got Sorber coming in.
• 20:24
  We have about 15 rotational players like.
• 20:28
  It's not. Like we have guys on the end of
• 20:29
  the bench we can't fit in, like even even our two ways, Yeah.
• 20:34
  You're making me feel like I'm being a little, you know?
• 20:39
  I'm an optimist. What can I say?
• 20:40
  Yeah. I, I think, I think it's
• 20:42
  realistic, but I guess that'll end our episode for this week.
• 20:47
  Again, we appreciate everybody who watches you know, it's been
• 20:51
  quite the ride so far first year winning the championship and now
• 20:55
  we're in our offseason. You know the the dog days of the
• 20:57
  offseason. I'm very happy that you know,
• 20:59
  the schedule came out. So we had some, you know, pretty
• 21:02
  big news to talk about. Again, if you're enjoying
• 21:05
  enjoying the content, hit the subscribe button.
• 21:07
  It's free to do like the video, leave a comment.
• 21:10
  We want to hear from everybody. We mean that I right when I see
• 21:13
  a comment, I comment right back. So leave comments, you know,
• 21:17
  give us your opinions and we will see you guys next time.
• 21:21
  And I think this episode deserves a Thunder up baby.
• 21:23
  Let's go. Season's almost back.