Apricot’s Rooting Guide: (1) Oklahoma City vs (4) Denver; plus open thread
Battle of the Bigs
See the master index at Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide For Other Teams.
Denver Nuggets
Ex-Warriors
Shockingly fired DEN head coach Mike Malone was an assistant coach for the Warriors from 2011-2013 under Coach Mark Jackson. (He did a great job, getting honors as the best-regarded and best-paid assistant coach in the league, and lots of praise from Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.)
Warriors Villains
No one is a real villain.
Petty Rivalries
Nikola Jokic. The dazzling playmaker who plays like a guy at the YMCA made a deal with the devil. He’s beat out Steph Curry for MVP in recent years. But there is massive mutual respect between Draymond Green and Jokic.
Russell Westbrook.
He was voted Warriors Villain, but not Villain For Life. Ah, remember the days of the media blitz to give Westbrook an MVP for his combination of talent, box score stuffing, stat padding, and in order to punish Steph Curry and Kevin Durant for teaming up?
His star has fallen so far, with multiple teams trading a bunch of assets for him and then having their team crater. So I can’t even list him as a Warriors Villain any more. And frankly, he did the Warriors a huge favor by undoing that LeBron James - Anthony Davis superteam.
Even this year, I found myself rooting for his maximally chaotic play. I felt I had unlocked the puzzle, where Russ can hit Turbo to be great for a play, but by the principle of equivalent exchange, he has to give it back in the next bad play. In any case, he’s been pivotal in upending the Clippers, who I would argue are worse Warriors villains and putting OKC on the brink of a massive upset. He also was the hot topic that caused Malone to get fired, destabilizing a Western rival.
But just for old time’s sake, here is an old writeup about Russ.
Westbrook has an incredible engine and uses his athleticism to grab rebounds and force layups and generally drive an offense. But to my knowledge, he has never complimented an opposing player except the passive-aggressive, cover-my-ass “he made tough shots”. And he definitely loves his statistics, chasing triple-doubles hard, to the point where his OKC bigs boxed out for him to allow him to get easy rebounds.
And the media exalted his 2016-17 season as a cross between a bride abandoned at the altar, a modern-day Oscar Robertson, and one man standing against the zombies with no help in sight. All this in direct opposition to Kevin Durant’s first Warriors season. And Russ played up the martyr image all the way to an MVP and many dramatic cupcake-themed grudge matches between OKC and GSW.
Russ had plenty of chirps at KD, but also threatened to revenge-injure Zaza Pachulia, and even got happy-go-lucky Nick Young enraged at him.
So there are plenty of reasons for Dub Nation to be annoyed with Russ. But I suspect the chill really began with this smug press conference with OKC up 3-2, where Russ mocks and laughs at the idea that Stephen Curry had underrated defense. Then Steph proceeded to help put the clamps on Mr. Westbrook as the Warriors completed the epic series comeback.
Team Grudges
DEN has played GSW surprisingly tough in the Dynasty years. But GSW had the upper hand in the 2022 title run, beating a not-ready Nuggets team (injured Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon self-reportedly not high enough IQ yet).
If they weren’t playing OKC, it might be worth rooting against wild last-minute coaching firings. But maybe it’s good if the rest of the league decides that’s a good way to do business.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Ex-Warriors
None.
Friends
None.
Unrequited Love
Jalen Williams was the runner-up in our 2022 Apricot Draft Tournament, barely losing. There wasn’t a good chance that he’d drop to #28, but OKC took no chances by grabbing him unexpectedly high at #12.
Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Isaiah Joe.
They snarfed up my darlings from the 2024 Apricot Draft Tournament, Dillon Jones (#7 final vote) and Branden Carlson (#10).
Warriors Villains
The whole OKC franchise, which was born out of oil fracking moguls defrauding Seattle out of their Supersonics team.
Also, the OKC fans were the ones going nuts in the KD GSW days with the dancing cupcakes (which were actually kind of cute) and other spurned vengeance.
Petty Rivalries
They’ve all barely been in the league, no time to build up rivalries…
Team Grudges
OKC was the best team in the early GSW dynasty and an outstanding foil to bring out the best from Game 6 Klay Thompson and Steph Curry. Also thanks to OKC for alienating Kevin Durant, and hosting Russell Westbrook's peak petulant stat-padding seasons. But now OKC went through a long rebuild and collected a zillion draft picks, so who can really be too mad today. The current group of players seem likable enough.
And yet, I admit I find it tiring to hear how OKC did the rebuild right and everyone else is a bunch of idiots. Yes, they put themselves in great position by hitting on draft picks (but missing on plenty of others) and ripping desperate teams off for picks in trading their stars (so many picks… and yet, we’re still waiting for them to cash in big). So, plenty of respect, but people overrate the rebuild. They had three straight years of missing the playoffs, preceded by four straight years of losing in the first round.
New thread up.
And Denver is gone.
But my desire for a new champion (if the Ws didn't win it) has come to pass. With the Pacers vs. Knicks and Thunder vs. Wolves, we're guaranteed of another year of the champ not repeating.
All of the other recent champions are done. Boston is out and in trouble, both because of injuries to their stars and salary cap difficulties; they're probably going to have to jettison some important guys. Denver is out and fired their championship coach AND GM; they have to rebuild the organization's leadership. The Bucks had yet another first-round exit, and Giannis may leave them. The Lakers are out and need help but have limited cap flexibility. The Raptors missed the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
Here's to the last true dynasty -- your Golden State Warriors.