DNHQ Rooting Guide: (1) Oklahoma City vs. (5) Dallas; plus open thread

New guys vs slightly less new guys

See the master index at Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide For Other Teams

Oklahoma City Thunder

Ex-Warriors

• None

Friends

• None.

Unrequited Love

• Jalen Williams was the runner-up in our 2022 DNHQ 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.

• A lot of people wanted Josh Giddey in 2021 (he was just edged out in the second round by Bouknight of all people). Envy might be lessened after Giddey’s weird scandal.

• Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Isaiah Joe.

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.

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Dallas Mavericks

Ex-Warriors

• Tim Hardaway Jr is the son of Warriors great… wait for it… Tim Hardaway.

Friends

• For completeness, I will list Coach Jason Kidd’s local connection to Cal basketball and growing up in Oakland.

Warriors Villains 

• None, yet.

Petty Rivalries

• Luka Doncic was hailed as the successor and supplanter of Steph and everyone else for MVP consideration. Despite eye-popping box scores, somehow his teams have never gotten over the hump to the Finals. Luka’s flopping game seems to be getting more prominent as he gets to play more important games.

• Kyrie Irving. Hit the Finals-winning shot in 2016, then

  • forced his way out of Cleveland to get away from all the LeBron-stan reporters wanting him to appreciate LeBron’s being his father figure(?!?!),

  • got more of a reputation as a team-killer by joining a strong Celtics team and dragging it down,

  • perplexed everyone with his dedication/trolling about flat-earth crackpotism,

  • conspired with KD to form a superteam with the Nets,

  • endangered the public by publicly being anti-vaccination while torpedoing the Nets season by not getting shots,

  • was so unprofessional and annoying that he triggered James Harden into blowing up the superteam,

  • and dragged down the 2023 DAL team out of the playoffs.

  
  So on balance, even though KI has been a public menace, basketball-wise, Kyrie has done huge amounts for the GSW cause by sabotaging outstanding rival teams. There is an argument about whether Kyrie, Harden of Kawhi deserves the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend prize.

• Mark Cuban has had some back and forth with Draymond and others, but it doesn’t seem specifically about the Warriors. He even said KD joining the Warriors was good for the NBA.

Team Grudges

• If anyone should have a grudge, it’s DAL. After all, GSW most recently beat DAL in the 2022 WCF.

• And before that of course, GSW We-Believed them out of the 2007 playoffs and ruined Dirk Nowitzki’s MVP season.

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