[upbeat music] Well, it's time for another Bedlam Buds episode, and this one is a Thunder edition. We'll start with our usual sign-ons. We got Snoopy over there. Merry Christmas, Jeremy.
It's Ryan here. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year and all that. B- Boomer Sooner from me. Oh, sorry, yep. Go Pokes from me. But a Thunder Up from both of us, right? Always Thunder Up.
Always Thunder Up. And did you watch the game Christmas Day? I didn't get to see all of it, but I did get to watch, unfortunately enough.
[laughs] I watched all of it, and I, I didn't watch the 130 to 110 loss two days prior. I did watch the NBA Cup game, and that was a great game.
Christmas Day was kind of a disappointment, and it led me to think, and it led you to think, and we started texting each other, that, folks,
y- if you think Oklahoma City's gonna cakewalk to a, a, a repeat NBA title, you'd be wrong. But Oklahoma City doesn't have an everybody problem. Oklahoma City has a Spurs problem, a San Antonio Spurs problem.
They were really good. What was your reaction to the 117-102 loss to San Antonio? Well, a- as you just said, Oklahoma City does not have, uh, uh, a, a...
like, an NBA problem, or even, like, a Wemby problem, a Wembanyama problem. They have a Spurs problem, and, and it's the whole Spurs team that is doing it to Oklahoma City. Fox scores 29 points, right?
He's their leading scorer. It's not Wemby that's their leading scorer. Scory... I'm sorry, Cassell scores 19 points. The, the Spurs are spreading their scoring out. They had five guys in double digits.
This is a problem for Oklahoma City. Three of the five losses for Oklahoma City have been to the Spurs this year. They have not beaten the Spurs this year, and so it is a Spurs problem.
It is a big problem because in my estimation, and we can get into this maybe here a little bit more in a minute, but my estimation is that they're one team, and there's only one team that can keep Oklahoma City from winning a title, and that's San Antonio.
And we are seeing that it's a major problem because San Antonio's beaten them in San Antonio and in Oklahoma City.
Let's talk a little bit about the pieces that are making up San Antonio right now because I will tell you, I didn't watch Oklahoma City and think that they did anything wrong.
I'm not looking at Oklahoma City and saying, "Ooh, you gotta make changes." The Thunder are fantastic, world-class, could win 70 to 73 games this year or so.
Uh, I don't know that they're going to set the record at this point now, but when I watch San Antonio, I think, "Oh, my.
Not only do they have the star in Wembanyama, but they have the Jimmies and Joes," and that's a problem. Harrison Barnes, he's got that experience with Golden State.
You, you can't help but suck that up through by osmosis being around Stephen Curry, right? And Draymond Green, who you hate Draymond Green, but dude's a pro. Dude's a pro. And then you got De'Aaron Fox.
Uh, De'Aaron Fox I put in the good dude club. I remember when De'Aaron Fox was at Kentucky, and I think he was just a freshman.
It was a hard-fought, painful loss in the tournament, and he was really emotionally upset, and I don't look at that as a weakness. I said, "That's a guy who cares." I was like, "That's a good dude.
I want that guy on my team." He spent... He did his time in Sacramento, and he was the leading scorer. But then you've got, uh, other guys like Cornet, good player. Harper, I believe Harper might be in his first year.
They just have a lot of these little pieces working from them, and probably even though Mitch Johnson is the coach, probably Pop working in the background, playing a little chess with this and advising them how to go.
I just... When I see S- San Antonio, I just see a team that is very well put together. They're extremely well put together. They have a lot of high-quality pieces.
Uh, they've kind of followed a little bit of the Oklahoma City model, meaning you make your superstars.
Now, Wemby is, was clearly a superstar, but it's taken him time to develop, but San Antonio has given him that time to develop. They haven't really overly rushed him, and they're even managing him pretty well now.
And then when you put these other pieces around, like you said, just good dudes, uh, the right type of Jimmies and Joes, and that's kinda what Oklahoma City has done. They don't have a, a real superstar, SGA, and...
but they made him into that. He became that in Oklahoma City within the confines of, of Oklahoma City.
And so, uh, and even Chet was hurt and took a little bit of time, and so, you know, th- they've done that same type of development, which is why San Antonio should be scary for Thunder fans because this is a long-term project that is coming to fruition early, right?
Just like Oklahoma City last year and the year before, really coming around, and last year in particular when they just exploded onto the scene, but it had been developing.
That's what we have here in San Antonio, and Oklahoma City's gotta find some type of kryptonite to, uh, to take out what is developing into a Superman type of, uh, archrival, which I guess would make Oklahoma City Lex Luthor, so maybe I should reverse that.
[laughs] I would re... [laughs] Yes. So the... I... You know,
Oklahoma City's going to probably be the one seed, although I would say that ideally with Oklahoma City looking to repeat, as we get toward the end of the year, that they probably want to position themselves in such a way that Denver has to play San Antonio in the semifinals because Denver, an experienced team with, uh, Murray and JokerThey, they may be able to beat Spurs, and I think still Oklahoma City would beat Denver in a seven-game series as they did
en route to the championship last year. But teams are hesitant to do that. They're like, "We're going to play hard."
I'm like, "Maybe you just need to find yourself in a certain position to where you can avoid the Spurs and the Rockets." At game one, watching guys like Sengun out there, I was like, "Oh my gosh."
And, and going up, up against KD again. Uh, I'm like, there are a couple of teams that are being built to beat Oklahoma City. Well, and why couldn't we be in the East? The East is...
The West is just so much better than the East right now. Uh, the, the East has some teams, you know, there's some qu- a little bit of quality out there, but the West is absolutely stacked.
One through four you could easily make an argument could win the whole thing. Just as you mentioned, you wanna try to avoid that. You wanna try to avoid, uh, you know, the Spurs early or, or Denver.
And you're right, I think that Denver presents some, uh, some serious matchup problems for the Spurs, and that's who I would like to see have, you know, uh, meet up earlier in the playoff to...
And even if they don't take 'em out, they would wear them out a little bit. You know, I think that, that series would go deep. So gosh, I mean, you know, that's a long way away.
There's still injuries and, and a lot of season left to play. But, uh, Oklahoma City is well-positioned. But as we've said, the, the Spurs are right there.
They've kinda become a giant killer when it comes to Oklahoma City. And but, you know, th- that's what it takes sometimes. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
And if Denver could take out the Spurs and then Oklahoma City could take out Denver and Oklahoma City still wins the title, that's all that matters. That's, that's all that matters.
And but do you see, is there anything that Oklahoma City needs to do, do differently? I mean, who could, who could you bring in to counter Wemby? I don't think there's anybody. The- well, there is nobody.
And, and all you do is you continue to play because you have to understand that right now when Oklahoma City has played their main five that they finished the playoffs with last year, they've lost because those guys haven't played together enough.
And so you gotta take a few lumps to get your, I guess, NBA legs, C legs underneath you again, and have that top five get used to playing with each other a- and come back around.
And so that's all you can do because you can't bring in anybody. You have a, an entire loaded roster. I mean, the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 guys off the bench are still coming in and scoring for you.
So what you have to do is you gotta get those first five, those first six or seven back used to playing with each other, building up their, uh, chemistry again, like I mentioned, and then take it from there is, is b- what I think the only thing you can do right now.
Tend to agree. And, uh, so there's no need to panic. You just keep playing and figure out something from a coaching perspective. And Mark Daigneault, great coach, the only coach to ever win anything in Oklahoma City.
So I feel like it's like just trust the process, trust what Sam Presti does, and hope for the best against him.
But I wanna mention this because there are a lot of people who will look at Wemby and say, "We've never seen anything like him."
And I would say, au contraire, we absolutely have, and his name was Lou Alcindor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There's- Okay... two inches difference between them. Wemby is two inches taller, but...
A- and Wemby can hit from outside. Wemby hit a couple threes against the Thunder. I don't think Kareem was skyhooking threes.
But their impact on the spacing and the way the game flowed, I, I hated the Lakers growing up, hated, hated, but Kareem was always a massive presence, and he played till he was 40.
Imagine if Wemby plays till he's that age. Well, I was thinking, uh, Olajuwon, uh, because he would occasionally step out to the elbow and hit some, hit some shots out there. And, and Wemby absolutely will do that.
Those... We bring in these Europeans, and these dudes, I mean, Jokic and Wemby and some of these guys, man, they are not afraid to throw it up from 30 feet all the way in, and that's what they do over there.
And so it's not surprising at all to have these guys come in and score like that. It was a 117 to 102 loss, Thunder to the San Antonio Spurs. We will be in this sort of off period.
We'll have a lot of OU, OSU basketball, a lot of wrestling, but we will talk some Thunder occasionally. For now, this is Brian, Boomer Sooner, and Jeremy. [laughs] And I'm Jeremy. Go Pokes. We will talk to you later.
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