Over the past 48 hours, I’ve written – and deleted – about 35 different intros for the one article I’ve been waiting my entire life to write:
THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!!!
But every time I make it to the third or fourth paragraph, I get overcome by the moment, lose focus, and end up falling into some bottomless algorithmic wormhole of Thunder content on YouTube or social media, leaving me salivating at the screen like Kendrick Perkins eyeing the Vegas buffet, and losing all sense of reality.
After reviewing my figurative sheets of paper—written in various states of inebriation before being ripped from the typewriter and thrown into the wastebasket—most of my drafts quickly devolve into the ramblings of a nostalgic 40-something-year-old, lifelong Oklahoma City man who’s proud of his team, proud of his city, and still in disbelief regarding most of it.
You know the drill—something bittersweet and reflective that conveys my emotional connections to OKC, and what this championship means to me, an OKC lifer who grew up on the mean, rundown streets of Capitol Hill, in the southerly shadow of a lifeless downtown, wishing and dreaming that someday I’d have a pro sports team to cheer on as my own, but knowing I never will.
But as I mentioned, after I get past that third or fourth paragraph, I lose all thought and focus, and in a near orgasmic release of excitement and jubilation, I realize:
THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!!!
Seriously, it still feels and sounds surreal, doesn't it?
You’re telling me that out of all the infinite parallel universes out there, we just happen to be living in the one where OKC not only has an NBA team, but an NBA Finals championship team? It makes as much sense as an airplane flying.
If you were to invent a Flux Capacitor, go back in time to 1995, and tell me—a 16-year-old lad selling programs inside the Myriad for the Blazers—that in 30 years I’ll be screaming my voice out during Game 7 of the NBA Finals in an arena just across the street for some team called the Thunder, I probably would have asked if you got hit in the head with a puck.
While most article drafts went that nostalgic route—for example, have I ever mentioned on here that there probably wouldn’t be a Lost Ogle if the NBA never came to OKC?—others were a bit more current and topical.
For example, I thought about pointing out that dickcheese Ryan Walters hasn’t acknowledged the team’s championship on social media. Yeah, I know he’s more concerned about the gender of athletes than their on-court accomplishments, but you’d think he would play along with something so cool for Oklahoma, because you know…
THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!!!
I also had a loose draft for an article about the 10 Biggest Winners and Losers from the NBA Finals.
I didn’t have the whole list figured out, but I do know that three of the losers were going to be my voice, my wallet, and Kevin Stitt, the only person to get booed at the championship parade:
But, once again, after I got about three or four paragraphs in, I’d get distracted and/or had to rewatch the ABC Finals telecast that I missed because I went to the game on Sunday.
On the topic of the game…
As a Thunder superfan whose job is to live and write about Oklahoma, I decided to fork out about half a year’s worth of subscription revenue for seats to Game 7 so I could, you know, document the experience for our readers in a totally legitimate for-tax-purposes manner.
I screamed loud and I screamed often and still don’t have a voice, and it was totally worth not being able to go on a summer vacation as a result:
Like any good Thunder fan, I also made sure to celebrate the victory…by buying the bar a round or two of shots at an impromptu victory party at the Cock O Walk.
I guess another thing that’s made writing this article such a challenge—alcohol.
I hate to break it to you, but writing on the internet isn’t some mindless job. You can’t mail it in like a heart surgeon, airline pilot, or copyright attorney who specializes in copyright law. You have to be motivated, sharp, and on your game. And I hate to tell you this, but it’s hard to write words when your head hurts, your body aches, and Zach Lowe just dropped an hour-long video discussing the one all-consuming thing in the universe:
THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!!!
Another thing that made it hard to stick with an intro was the fact that OKC had a giant victory parade on Tuesday.
My youngest brother lives in an apartment on Walker that was on the parade route, so we gathered there to watch the buses roll by. Hopefully, you’ve seen all the photos, watched all the moments, and heard Robin Marsh reach a vocal orgasm in a way that, without a doubt, will cement June 24th as one of the most joyous days in our city’s young history…
After a long, hot day walking around downtown enjoying the moment, I marched on foot to my car through the west side of an empty downtown. It struck me how quiet, serene, and normal everything felt. It was like a typical hot June day in Oklahoma City, yet it was anything but. You never would have known the biggest event in our city's history took place a few hours earlier.
It’s something I had to discuss then and in the moment…
When I got home later that day, I opened the laptop to get to work and write about the Thunder championship, the parade, and whatever else hopped into my mind.
But as I stared at the screen and hammered out a sentence or two, I closed it back up. I still wanted to watch parade highlights and the trophy celebration one more time. The article I've been waiting my whole life to write could wait until tomorrow.
After all…
THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER ARE NBA CHAMPIONS!!!
And I couldn’t be prouder to call this city my home.
