Kyle Colvin

[Thunder Film Room @ThunderFilmRoom]

Lu Dort says goodbye to OKC on IG along with a special video:

“Dear OKC,

There are no words that could ever fully express what the 405 means to me, but one thing will always be true:
I'Il forever be grateful.

Thank you to the Oklahoma City Thunder organization for taking a chance on a young, overlooked kid from Montreal seven years ago. To the coaching staff, thank you for pouring so much into me day after day, year after year. To this city, thank you for making this HOME
- not just for me, but for my family. And to my teammates, thank you for every battle we fought together and every challenge we faced along the way.

To YOU, Loud City- I will forever appreciate the relentless support. Through all the highs and lows, you never stopped believing in us as we chased the goal of bringing this city its first championship.

I wouldn't trade my time here for anything. This place helped shape me into the man you see today, and I'll always carry these memories with me. I leave with nothing but the deepest sense of love, gratitude, and appreciation for everyone who made this chapter so special.

With love,
Luuuuuuuuu

5 out”

[Kyle Colvin @KColvin_]

@Aurelionkok @PlayGuildrun Same with the act keys when in the last shop of the act would be nice also. Forgot to buy the act 1 key once.

[Brandon Rahbar @BrandonRahbar]

Aaron Wiggins headed to Atlanta.

The man who saved basketball helped OKC win their first ever championship and delivered a title speech for the ages.

Wiggins will remain a Thunder legend.

He’s a good player and should get minutes with the Hawks. Wishing him all the best.

[Kyle Colvin @KColvin_]

@DParkOK Are you stalking my Goodreads? I read stormlight archive, red rising, and count of Monte cristo last year. Next for you, if you are stalking, would be dungeon crawler Carl.

[Clemente Almanza @CAlmanza1007]

Probably the best moment from what Sam Presti said today. Went scorched earth on all of the SGA narratives that have been bubbling up over the years:

Of all the things that I've talked to Shai about, this is actually one I've never talked to him about. He's probably going to kill me for talking about this, truthfully.

First of all, let me just start with the opposing coaches for one second. The post-game press conference has turned into the bully pulpit to create competitive advantage. I mean, we know what that is. It used to be you'd get up there, you'd talk about your own team. Now everyone gets up there and they talk about the officials and they discredit the other team. Again, like they're great competitors, so we know why that's happening, and I don't fault them because I think they may think it works.

So the question is why are they continuing to do it? Because there's financial incentives not to do it. But everyone's competing. Let's also recognize that it's the bully pulpit for competitive advantage, and that's what it's kind of turned into, which is part of competing. We all get that.

Relative to Shai and the narrative on that, he's playing against six people. He's got five defenders, and the sixth defender is social media. That's a reality. He's not going to be the last player that the machine decides to target, but no one's going to handle it as gracefully because, when they turn it on somebody else, they're not going to step up there every night and not acknowledge it.

A couple things more just on the whole topic. We think all the time or we hear all the time about things that people don't like about the NBA, which are inaccurate, but they're narratives that exist on the alternate reality.

One, players don't play defense. Shai's a two-end player. Now, he plays with four or five All-NBA defensive players, so sometimes his defensive ability gets undersold, but he plays two ends.

Second, all NBA players do is complain, bitch and moan and try to intimidate the officials with bad behavior in the games to give foul calls. He's gotten three technical fouls this year. None for complaining. One for waving a towel in support of someone that hit a shot that doesn't play very often. Okay. So he's not doing that.

The other thing is load management. Nobody plays. They take all these games off. Shai plays every night. He missed a bunch of games this year for an oblique strain, and we might give him a night off two or three times a year, maybe. But he plays back-to-backs. He plays heavy minutes. He plays against good teams. He plays against teams that are bad teams. He plays every night. His consistency is well documented. So you can't get him on that.

The next one is all you do is shoot 3s. NBA players, all they do is shoot 3s. Okay. Well, he's brought the mid-range back to an art form. He's transcendent for any generation, any player. That's why like older players love his game.

It's also one of the reasons he gets fouled a lot. Because he plays in the mid-range because we don't call the landing space fouls in the mid-range the way we do at the 3-point line, right, because he's avoiding that oftentimes because there's too many bodies in there. With the 3-point shot, you can see it easily, and I think a lot of times he's trying to avoid that. So he's not a guy that's just launching 3s. So we can check that off the box.

The other one is like these guys are just totally inaccessible. They're in their own world. Well, the guy signs 400 autographs before every game. Before the Western Conference Finals Game 7, he's signing autographs.

So we've got a litany of things that generally the narrative is about NBA players that they do wrong. Well, based on those narratives, I don't agree with them, but he would be doing them right. And he doesn't really complain about any of it. So if we're just talking about trying to draw fouls, well, every other great player in the NBA, that's part of the game is drawing fouls.

He drew 415 fouls this year; 11 were challenged. 11. Four of those were overturned. So that's like 2 1/2 percent of the foul calls were actually challenged. Again, that's part of the bully pulpit part of this thing, which I get and it's part of competing.

As far as those fouls, I think in the fouls drawn -- I had this written down here -- he's tied with Embiid for 8 and 9 in terms of number of fouls drawn in the season. 6 and 7 are Jaylen Brown and Wembanyama. So that's kind of the group of players that he's in.

But I understand, if you listen to the narrative, you'd think he's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. He drew a lot more fouls before we got much better, and when we got better, obviously people pay much more attention to him.

We'll have to see where that goes, you know what I mean? We don't know. He'll never say anything about it. And the only thing I'm pointing out is I don't think he's being unfairly handled, I just think, instead of talking about something that we are looking to find as a negative, can we please also acknowledge that he also does a lot of positive things for the game, most of which are the things that people are very unhappy -- not unhappy, but they don't like on social media. And I know that a lot of us live on social media. I would think they would love him for that reason.

This is like the world we live in today. There's a lot of financial incentive to create these things, career ambitions, like I said before. The best thing we can do when those things happen is stay above it.

Now I'm pointing it out now at the end of the season, but we're going to have to stay above it because it's probably not going to change. But he does a lot of good things too.

[ᵂᴵᴸᴸ @BiasedHouston]

This was happening in the OKC series, ESPN just convinced everyone OKC was the only one.

[ThunderChats @ThunderChats]

Few things worse than when an mf you work with that knows nothing about NBA runs their mouth about your team 🫩

[Brett Usher @UsherNBA]

we really got Spurs-Thunder in the WCF and it went 7. as hoops fans, from an objective standpoint, this was the dream, right? we had an absolute classic G1, and it's been a back-and-forth, ultra-physical chess match ever since. and here we are: Wemby and his squad vs. Shai and the defending champs on a Saturday night playing for everything. it really doesn't get any better.

shoutout to everyone who had a hand in taking the shine off this series, forcing the focus to what it's been the last week-plus. the big aggregator accounts. the engagement farmers. the twitter algorithm. so much of the national media. that gambling company. the guy who compiled that original viral video of Shai falling five times in one game. and of course Fall% Tom, for his groundbreaking work in bringing to life what will surely prove a revolutionary basketball metric.

congrats on the engagement, y'all!

in all seriousness, though, I rest assured in knowing the real ones have enjoyed this. and I sincerely hope everyone can enjoy the game tonight. these don't come around very often!

[BBALLBREAKDOWN @bballbreakdown]

@BillyBlueee Here's what I see: Barnes left arm grabs the outside of Joe's left arm, and it's what causes the torso rotation and we also see Barnes's left elbow jerk back quickly. I just can't believe Joe could fake that type of trunk rotation.

[Matt Sanders @MattSandersNBA]

OKC is now tied for 6th in total MVPs w/ HOU (BOS, LAL, PHI, CHI, MIL ahead).

In # of individuals to win MVP, OKC is tied for third.

Year each franchise was established -

BOS - 1946
LAL - 1947
PHI - 1946
CHI - 1966
MIL - 1968
HOU - 1967
OKC - 2008

Take a bow, Sam Presti.

[Shams Charania @ShamsCharania]

Breaking: Oklahoma City Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won his second consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player award, becoming the 14th player in league history to win back-to-back MVPs, multiple sources tell ESPN.

[Michael Martin @MichaelOnSports]

This "Mark just grabbed 5 random names out of a hat" lineup is so much better than I was expecting it to be.

[Boomtown Hoops @BoomtownHoops]

Flagrant Foul 1 by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

[ThunderChats @ThunderChats]

I forgot Jim Rome existed but he’s spitting so hard

[Cameron Freeman @c__freeman]

Jokic a loser what the heck!

[BBALLBREAKDOWN @bballbreakdown]

I try to never play the "u didn't play so you don't know" card. BUT: the way OKC plays defense is EXACTLY how a good coach teaches it at high level varsity and above. The only way to feel outrage in my mind would be if you only have pickup as your primary playing experience

[𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒆 🌩 @Three_Cone]

WHAT A PASS JWILL

CHET THREE BALL BUZZER BEATER

[Enes Kanter FREEDOM @EnesFreedom]

This picture broke my heart and made me tear up.

This is what the @okcthunder means to the state of Oklahoma.

A child wrote a letter to their dad.
Wishing they could watch a Thunder game together.
Wishing for one more moment that can never come back.

Today, when the Thunder step on that court, it’s bigger than a playoff game.
It’s about a community.
It’s about memory.
It’s about carrying each other forward.

It’s more than basketball.
It’s fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. Families holding on to something that still connects them.

That’s what people don’t always understand about Oklahoma.

April 19th is not just a date here. It’s something people carry with them.
168 lives taken. Families changed forever.
A pain that never fully leaves, but a strength that never fades.

When I see this chair, and that jersey, and those words, I don’t just see loss. I see love that never disappeared.

Oklahoma doesn’t forget.
#Oklahoma stands together.

And today, we remember.

#ThunderUp