It has been just over two years since Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 in OKC just moments before tipping-off against your Oklahoma City Thunder.
Later that evening, the NBA indefinitely suspended the season, a move that cost the league millions of dollars and saved me a couple hundred in Downtown parking fees. It took four months for the league to establish a COVID-free bubble at Walt Disney World, where the weird remainder of the season and the finals took place.
At some point during that artificial weirdness, I quit following NBA basketball, and it must have been during that time that Sam Presti sent everyone in the organization packing. I never considered myself to be a fair-weather sports fan, but the Thunder are currently next to last in the Western Conference with a roster full of people I've never heard of. Loud City is not as loud as it used to be.
These days they rarely talk about the Thunder on ESPN, but you know who they do talk about? Kevin Durant. Russell Westbrook. James Harden. Enes Kanter. And based on what I've heard, none of those guys are as happy as they were when they lived and played right here in OKC. With only what's best for them in mind, I have a simple request for every single former member of the Oklahoma City Thunder:
Come home.
Earlier this week in a game against the New York Knicks, Russell Westbrook scored a measly five points. To paraphrase my dad, that's only five more points than I scored, and I don't play basketball. Journalists have begun referring to the all-time king of triple-doubles as "Westbrick," there's talk of removing him from the starting lineup, and even the home crowds in L.A. are actively booing him. You know who didn't boo him? Oklahoma City. When the Thunder returned to Oklahoma after losing the finals, fans lined up along the chain-link fence surrounding the airport in the middle of the night and cheered.