The OKC Thunder Have Jump-Started Oklahoma’s Basketball Heart | Home and Away | J. Kyle Mann

The OKC Thunder Have Jump-Started Oklahoma’s Basketball Heart | Home and Away | J. Kyle Mann

[Music] having never been to Oklahoma I have no idea what I’m getting into my assumptions are ignorant will G Brooks and Bill hater be having coffee at the terminal Starbucks when I get off the plane I don’t drink coffee never have well Barry Switzer and Brian Bosworth pick me up from the airport I assume everyone wears loudly colored Pearl button Wrangler [Music] shirts we land in OKC and things go sideways more or less immediately camera guide Jacob goes down with food poisoning from an undisclosed OKC restaurant and the locals tell us that biblical weather is coming and when citizens of a region called Tornado Alley say this you tend to listen and I might be swept away in a storm and worst of all no one will be there to film it in Oklahoma the primary basketball attraction at this point is in the state’s biggest city the Oklahoma City Thunder the team that was a major pain in the ass to play during the 2022 23 season after losing their playing game to the Pelicans has now leveled up this team is led by an MVP candidate a lanky Herky jerky and well-dressed destroyer of worlds named sheay gildas Alexander but they were able to make a leap by adding some key personnel around him namely the Do-it all big Chad holgren and a two-way perimeter force in Jaylen Williams this team established a clear identity through their exacting pick and roll game where they posted the second highest points per possession Mark in the league their ability to relentlessly Drive the ball from every spot on the floor their extremely good three-point shooting and by being one of the most disruptive defensive teams in the league that helped them earn the one seed in the west and they now find themselves in a second round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks who are led by two postseason monsters in Luca donic and Kyrie Irving are they ready for this I am over the moon pumped jacked hyped ansy even to see this iteration of the thunder in person for the first time the crowd here is initiated unlike me they adore this team and they’re ready to roll the scuttlebutt that you hear around the league and see on TV is that OKC’s home atmosphere is Rowdy this is their only pro sports team so their attention is undivided [Applause] [Music] tet number two [Music] [Applause] [Applause] J [Applause] Williams to navigate this unfamiliar terrain I’ll need to enlist the help of a guide who better than my buddy Tyler the somier of all things sooner he promises me that the okca food scene is topnotch I’m excited to try places like the [Music] mule Chef D’s Creations the Patty wagon after we’ve visited his home base of operations [Music] oh yeah it’s a good Mark nice it’s really they call they call back home they call him Marg [Music] Maguire I came into this trip thinking that Oklahoma wasn’t necessarily a basketball state but the more I’m here the less I’m sure I even know what that means basketball States or basketball regions are typically identified with some tie to the success of a local team and the fanaticism for that team is used as a visible measure of credibility that you can point to in Oklahoma there is some precedent of winning and producing Talent Henry IBA LED Oklahoma State to back-to-back national titles in the 1940s with a lot of help from a dominant rim protector named Bob Kurland which led rival coach Bruce Drake at OU to pin a Saturday evening post oped pleading for a gooning rule I can and will go on Wayman Tisdale Mark Price Blake Griffin and Trey young just to name a few are all world-class talents U’s women’s team has a decorated history of success in the tournament and projects to continue to be good and yet on a national level it could be the case that their interest in the sport has simply needed a vehicle something to consistently get excited about was it as simple as a freak occurrence allowing a Hoops culture to finally find an outlet for their passion I wanted to hear some answers from the lips of the locals Joe masado Andrew schle Ryland Styles and our very own Tyler Parker are born and bred Oklahomans who’ve each covered the Thunder for varying amounts of time I don’t think the NBA would be here now without Katrina and it’s like sounds horrible to say but it was just like a random dare shut the camera off it’s a random event where you know the the Hornets needed somewhere to play okl City steps up David Stern saw how you know the the fans welcomed the team here it was extraordinary really the mayor the business Community the universities that offered to be practice facilities they said we know tragedy in Oklahoma City and we very much want to open our community to the folks and uh who the players the team and others they they’ve just been terrific Chris Paul really liked it that that a superstar level player was saying such nice things about it GE moment Chris Paul i’ been like you just just miss all this he was he was always like I mean and even then you know coming back I think that was one of the reasons he was wound up being okay coming back back in 2019 is because like why he did have a good experience yeah you got to remember my first time ever leaving Winston Salem North Carolina was coming here to Oklahoma and the fans were unreal one can make the argument that for a new franchise Oklahomans have had it about as good as you can have it their Square One involveed drafting three future MVPs in consecutive drafts and The Savvy organizational steer in of Sam prey has protected them from prolonged seasons of wandering in the directionless desert of losing their success in football could actually strain that if those days ever do come U football influences the Thunder fan base in the way that like like Andrew was talking about they’ve always been good the success has always been there the standard is always so high and that’s why the rebuild I think was especially tough on some people because the hard part was already done when the thunder came here from Seattle I mean Kevin Durant was a Seattle draft pick Russell Westbrook was the Thunder first pick then James Harden and it’s like the core was made so they didn’t have to really see how the sausage was made their next phase has become the stuff of Legend on and off the court OKC’s Ultra talented young cor surged to the NBA finals ahead of schedule in 2012 and then splintered bafflingly for a variety of reasons in 2013 and then knocked on the door in the playoffs annually before one iconic performance from Klay Thompson in 2016 16 shifted their team and the entire landscape of the league one beloved Son flew the coupe in shocking fashion and the other stayed put during that span of time from 2016 to 2019 Russell Westbrook became arguably the most complex and divisive figure in the sport he commanded the room at all times I always get a I always get the players to do our intro for our show down to dunk every year got Steven Adams who was always great I just gotten Paul George and I I thought find Russ and I’m like Hey Russ you know could you do the intro for my podcast and like here’s the line I want you to say and he just kind of looked at me was the side eye and he goes maybe then he walks away and then I said Hey Russ if you don’t want to do it it’s okay to say no and I was that was the dumbest thing I could have said cuz he turned around he came back and he kind of got close to me he was like you know me pretty well right and I was I was like yeah he was like I’m going to say yes I’ll say yes he said but he like and I said okay he like well will you do the intro for me and he goes maybe and then he just walk and then he just walks away nationally Russ’s prickliness and intensity came off as rigid and at times offputting locally it became something else entirely you can see where a circled wagons everybody else’s opinion mentality that was driven by reciprocated loyalty could rise up out of that I want to tell him thank you for staying like no matter what he does in the future or anything he always have that place in my heart he embodied like the entire city at the time where it was like you know we we felt like mistreated we felt like you know this giant chip on our shoulder you know and he just kind of took all of it one of the coolest games I’ve ever covered is when he came back for the first time with the rockets and always does a thing after introductions where you know he runs to to one corner of the court and fires everyone up and the the place just went Bonkers when they play the tribute video like people are like weeping playing this tribute video because like how much he meant to the city and to the team and so you seem like you’re getting a little CH a little choked up next would come the building of the bridge from one era to another so in a 10-day period the Thunder shipped off two key pieces from their 2019 playoff team and secured three starters for their next era of playoff success on July 6th they signed Lou Dort to two-way deal and on July 10th they swapped Paul George in a deal that included Shay gildas Alexander you know C’s been my team so um you know for me it was a chance to come back home and to be a part of something that was already special and on July 16th they finally parted ways with Russ through those two deals they now had more picks than you could shake a stick at this this is very much a prism but he talks about there being you know two mountains and that first team was the first Mountain then came the valley that was shorter than we thought it was going to be with the rebuild and now they’re at the base of that second Mountain so uh I I think that really does like have a sense of nostalgia around here I admit I’m still in a bit of a fog from the chaos of the paycom Center I along with camera guy Jacob who’s back from the toilet now in the land of the living stopped by yot coffee for a pourover on our way to catch a post Victory Thunder practice felt like a good opportunity to take a moment to understand the Youth of today you said you’re a gamer what do you play um I play a little bit everything kind of just depends what it is uh in the moment I’m playing uh Siege and Madden those are my two games okay you don’t do you not do 2K 2K I do it I do it here and there I play uh Pro M5 yeah okay are you happy with your rating on 2K uh of course I want to be better but it’s all it all depends on me I guess but uh I got a roster where I’m a 99 maxed out okay you just developed yourself yeah yeah do you think there’s any Credence to like people like learning from 2K cuz I’ve heard people talk about that like young players like learning coverages and stuff uh I mean I guess you could say a little bit but like like I’ll play with I play with a group of guys I’ve been playing video games with since I was in like 10 19th grade so it’s the same guys and we’ll like like play the game and we play pro and five so it’s five of us against five of another guys and we were inbounding the ball this literally just happened and we were inbound inbounding the ball at the end of the game and I was like y’all stay here I’m running back court to get a catch and none of them knew that you can catch in the back court and it’s kind of just like me being in the NBA knowing those rules like and I guess you can say you learn stuff from playing 2K if you think about it like that you’d be hard pressed to find a single person who better encapsulates the Dynamics of basketball in the sooner state than Lindy Waters III Lindy grew up here the son of a college standout who played at Southern Nazarene and has indigenous Heritage from both the CA and Cherokee tribes his SECU his path to the NBA took him from Norman Oklahoma to Still Water to suit up as a four-year Letterman for the OSU Cowboys to a Wandering postco state that had him delivering food and wondering about his future to an unexpected stin in the basketball league with the Enid Outlaws to the G league with the OKC blue to a two-way deal with the Thunder to present day where he’s sitting with a vitamin D deficient hipster asking him annoying questions about how he did it where was basketball in sort of the hierarchy of like was it most your friends played football or was it what what was that like when you were growing up well growing up my family um you know played college basketball um and just kind of being Native American res ball was a thing so well talk about talk about res ball really quick cuz that’s a unique style like that I think people maybe aren’t as exposed to there some people talked about it but is what because it’s it is a unique style would you describe it that yeah it’s uh it’s really running gun offensive based um you know shooting threes so that’s pretty much it um no like running and slowing the game down it’s trying to play Fast Pace and score as many points as you as you can push it in transition or is there like a lot of passing in the half court or is it ISO or what’s what’s it what’s the style like when you’re when you’re not out running uh really it’s you know throw the ball ahead and try to score layups and shoot threes like really quickly um yeah so it it can sometimes turn into ISO Ball but a lot of the times you know once you get the ball off a rebound or uh turnover it’s try to get the the best shot and the first shot like as quick as possible what what do you think the importance of like your role with the Thunder uh is for like kids who are younger because did you who were your Idols like did you have Idols when you were coming up that were like you looked at obviously your dad was a great player but like at the very very highest level did you have somebody that was like that person’s like me do you think that that’s important for kids that are this age or is there talent that needs to be kind of motivated to see that it’s possible do you think for sure um somebody I looked up to was Jim Thor um yeah and he just the athlete in general you know he did everything um and he was native so that was somebody that I looked up to and and wanted to be like and model after um even if I didn’t see it in person um that was still somebody that I I try to achieve to be like um so I think it is important for our youth to be able to see guys like myself um you know trying to give back into the community and and be able to have them put their eyes on me and know that it’s possible um and it doesn’t have to be basketball it can be anything but just showing them that it is possible from practice we set out on the road to the modestly sized town of shaune population roughly 31,000 and located roughly 40 minutes to the southeast of Oklahoma City I’m hardly an expert on the subject but this place feels Oklahoma to me the sky and terrain are entrancing things to do and some things to see for instance you could go and wander around an eerie but utterly fascinating abandoned college campus but life here seems to move at a comfortable Pace no worry no hurry there are brumms everywhere this region is home to the citizen patami Nation a Native American tribe that was forcibly and horrifically pushed into the Midwest by greedy white Europeans the patami people have responded by building and cultivating community and one of their most recent Ventures is a semi-pro Hoops team called the poto aomy fire the fire of the first Native owned professional basketball team in the world and they won the championship in the basketball league in their second season in 2023 if you haven’t heard of the TBL odds are there’s a team within your vicinity so it’s really spread out TBL has six conferences um throughout the throughout the country you got the NBA you’ve got the uh G league and then you got us Dal guy or Chuck as he’s usually known is a Knockaround point guard who came to the fire by way of Dallas Fort Worth Arkansas Little Rock for two years and then Tarlton State University in Texas for two more he’s undoubtedly the leader of this team and one of the most valuable allaround players in the TBL how old are you right now 32 32 do do you play anywhere else in the off season is this the only I’m I’m old now I mean are you pretty content with where your career is basketball I haven’t been around I mean I’m at the point I got I got four girls four little girls I’m married so it’s you have stability here in in sha this organization I mean they taking care of me I hav been to where it wasn’t it wasn’t good and I’m just stuck right now the like lifestyle of uh basketball do you have any I mean what what what else what are your other interest like if if basketball you see you seem like you’re at the point of your cruising altitude do you have any kind of ambition outside of for day I still got years to come I’m not even thinking are you one of those guys that’s going to like die on the battlefield like they’re going to drag you off know they have to take off like he be playing when he’s 50 if his wife lets him are you sort of the guy like hey get your together or do you have a do you have a gentle hand as a leader or like no I’m never gentle you going to hear you going to hear me I mean it’s just what it is uh I think a lot of people relate to me uh and they cool with me talking to them like that especially when you know that’s it’s no hard feelings with it I’m just trying to get you to be on the same page or or go get to your best so I mean I don’t think nobody downfall me for that Isaiah Wade is a newer Fire Edition he’s a 6’7 Energizer forward who started playing organized basketball in the 11th grade and the game quickly became a steadying force that paved a path towards a life in hoops I was looking at your Synergy page where they show like the teams that you’ve been on and yours is long for a young guy I was like you like you’ve had like a lot of a lot of uh stops I mean you get a chance though to log some g-league reps too though right yes sir so uh after college I had I got a agent and he got mean like a couple g-league workouts and ended up going with the Grand Rapids gold made the team then they ended up picking up North Coast so end up going to China after that nor Co over here how dare they he got a ring and experience and he sell tickets so uh so I went up going to play in China had a crazy experience out there playing basketball in China really okay like was back to the G League what was the adjustment to the life style there uh just not knowing what they’re saying you got to literally point out everything or or show a Google translate do you ever hold the thing up with the phone where it like translates it have you seen that yeah no I’ve seen it but it just I don’t know I feel weird walking up trying to have somebody talk into my phone so I can understand what they’re saying so I just point it out or I just try to figure it out myself the online community loves to gatekeep and talk about who is or is not a real Hooper Fame and Fortune those are easy motivators modest income and rooming and apartments with your teammates that’ll reveal the real ones in a hurry you may have to move away from your home you may have to move away from your wife and kids for a little while uh you’re not going to make a lot of money doing it and uh uh you know you’re going to live in apartments with other guys kind of like the college scene uh so that so they do live is you have like kind of an apartment situation dep things like that they don’t make the same money as uh the G league and certainly not the NBA so it’s obviously a step stepping stone for these guys and grow and work through that to advance and move forward this whole arena is managed by seven employees total well what what happens when if you’re if you’re managing a lot of different entertainment aspects I mean when like a fire have you had have you all had any kind of interesting moments of like this is about to go off the rails or like is there a lot of variables you’re introducing first year yeah probably so the first couple of games a lot of the staff was uh nervous you’ve got to remember I came from 35 years retired into gaming management so a casino is a living eating breathing 24/7 three ring circuits so to do an event for 3 hours in one night is just walking apart for me so you were like uniquely prepared for all the this is actually you know I can do this in my sleep you know compared to uh running a th machines two concert Halls a bar and eight restaurants at one time plus a 200 room Hotel you know things like that where I come from after I retired roster building in the TBL is the wild west The Scouting pool is gigantic and the pieces are constantly shuffling everybody’s a free agent it’s all one-year contract so when the season’s over you’re a free agent coach makes final decisions on all the players uh I’m a scout you know I look for talent I look for stats coach looks for stats I look for guys that can sell tickets you know coming from the over is that the primary he’ll tell me about a player and I’ll say how good is he on the microphone you know I mean you know is he got a 40% three and can he talk you know that’s the kind of thing you know can we talk him into the building so if a guy’s 35% from three but he’s he could have his own podcast and it would do well versus a 40% shooter from three maybe maybe a bit of a cold fish you’re going to go with the guy who we need to improve the shot a little yeah because that’ll probably even have a bearing on his contract performance value too you know I mean you know he’s actually selling the cars not only driving them uh we’re able to attract a lot of talent we’ve got the we got the recruiting ability of an Alabama uh for a TBL you know this is the Cadillac guys come check it out we are I would say we’re probably the the Mercedes or the Lamborghini of the TBL you know I mean how many teams can practice he upgraded the brand name did you notice that he correct that was smooth yeah before we head back to the big city another order of business feels important if you follow the ringer at all you might have heard of Tyler Parker the electric seamster The Sooner State Songbird the great high priest in the cult of Nick Collison Tyler’s one of the funniest people I know firmly in the running for the top spot that’s actually a take that I agree with and his journey in the Arts from training at Second City to his documented silliness both on camera and in print here at the ringer to authoring an incredibly colorful and eclectic ride of a novel that is set in Oklahoma called a little blood and dancing have distracted from what I would say is arguably the most important line on his resume my guy could really hoop TP was an all state player at Fort Gibson High School in 2006 and then went on to play four years at Oklahoma Baptist University whose campus is located in shaune coincidentally where he served as a team captain on a squad that brought home the 2010 Nia National Championship we figured it was high time that the Prodigal Son came home I cannot overstate how uncomfortable all of this attention made him and how entertained I was by that as you can see incredible penmanship I write with my toes so that’s why it looks like thaty it’s time to head back to paycom Center for what Thunder fans hoped would be a continued defensive home court but Luca Kyrie and the Mavs came out dialed in and riled up turn your attention to thion for tonight’s injury report [Applause] [Music] [Applause] aside from a $2,000 half court shot from a fan the delicious energy of game one had gone [Applause] stale no godamn l oh no I didn’t first in the last few minutes The Vibes were subop for a part of the country that is noticeably flat I can’t help but take a step back and ruminate a bit on the paths the hills valleys sharp turns in this or that direction and circuitousness of the journeys that we’ve learned about while we’ve been here our guy Tyler’s pursuit of that free flowing State both on and off the court and the Arts that might keep him firmly in the present the self-belief that propelled Lindy Waters to rally and fulfill his dream while working to widen the door for those who might follow camera guy Jacob’s Journey from bedridden illness to Arcade illness the Pure Love of the Game from those fire players Fireball another 39 for Chuck and the grace of the patami people to pour so much effort into cultivating community and creating opportunity and of course the Thunder the story book Arc of one thrilling era ending in heartbreak as I said the fireworks are not going to be as bright the hot dogs are not going to taste as good and another equally promising one just beginning to unfold I’m guessing High times are ahead on that path however the details play out but moving forward is the virtue and this place is no stranger to that state of mind let me know if you agree [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

In the second episode of ‘Home and Away,’ it’s time to hit the road again with The Ringer’s J. Kyle Mann, this time to scenic and stunning Oklahoma City to explore the basketball identity and culture of the Sooner State’s largest city and its surrounding area. Come along as we soak up the Oklahoma City Thunder’s rowdy home atmosphere at the Paycom Center to see if their prodigious young core—led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—is ready to take on the challenge of advancing in the playoffs. Watch a panel of Oklahoman media members unpack the arc of the franchise thus far. See the passion of the players and administration for Oklahoma’s first Native-owned professional basketball team, the Potawatomi Fire, and much more.

Script, Voice-Over, and Mixing: J. Kyle Mann
Videography and Editing: Jacob Weaver
Graphic Design and Illustration: Megan Mraz
Additional Photography: Zachary Lucero and J. Kyle Mann
Special thanks to Tyler Parker, Chris Cox, Matt Tumbleson, Joe Mussatto, Andrew Schlecht, and Steve Kelly

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Check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel: youtube.com/billsimmons

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