What Questions MUST BE ANSWERED For OKC Thunder THIS SEASON?

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1:00Your team every day. On today's Lockdown Thunder Podcast, one of the biggest questions that the Thunder have to have the answer to this season. You are Lockdown Thunder, your daily Oklahoma City Thunder Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Let's get it going on the Lockdown Thunder Podcast. On the Lockdown Podcast Network, your teams every day. I am your host. Remember and beat writer for Thunder on s.com. Roland Stiles, follow me on Twitter at rylan underscore stars in today's show. We're joined by Brindler Bardley, Thunder.com, 1077, the franchise. And you can find both of us at the OKC Dream Team on Patreon brand. And how you doing today? The off season slowly coming to an end college football is back. And so that's always a great time of year around here. But it's also a great time of year to signify. You know what? Yeah, football to watch most days of the week now, days.

2:00The NFL starts on a Wednesday. So it's like really just all week long football. And once you have that to get through a few weeks of that, you then have training camp media day, preseason and NBA being back. How you doing? I am excited about the Thunder season and B.A. season starting up. But I am also excited about football season being back. College football, my Dallas Cowboys are back. It is weird NFL starting on a Wednesday. I'm excited about my eight fantasy football team starting up. But yeah, so we got a few weeks here before media day and training camp ramp up. So we'll enjoy football for a couple of weeks before it all starts. You are the fantasy football mastermind every season. If it's anytime before Christmas, you're being asked by everyone on the beat. Brandon, who should I start this week? This guy or this guy, Brandon, who are you starting? Because you have every player in the NFL because you have eight teams. So it's like, OK, what do you think of this guy? And I start him at the flex and you are go to for our fantasy football leagues, trying

3:00to win us some money. You're the fantasy football balls are for the beat. But we also got some news in the NBA. A year to the day of the Pablo Torre exhibition here that he put on his expose, he put on his podcast about the Clippers investigation. It comes to a close with the Clippers really being pinned over a barrel and showing the 50 states. Five, five, five, five first round fix taken away from the LA Clippers. And then the you know, Steve Palmer finance suspended. Why find his agent kicked out of the league. What did you make of this Clippers punishment? I was impressed that the hammer came down as hard as it did. You know, there's so much speculation like, oh, it's just going to be a slap on the wrist. They're not really going to punish the Clippers. They're not really going to punish steam Steve Palmer. Everybody had doubts about what the actual punishment would be. People, I've seen things like it's just going to be like a second round or two.

4:04It's going to be like a $500,000 fine. Nobody's getting suspended. Man, this is real. This is as close to the death penalty in major pro sports. I think that we can see five first round picks in an era by the way, Ryland, where first round picks have more value than they ever have had. That's that is as close to death penalty as you can get. Not to mention, you know, Steve Palmer in the front office being suspended for a year. This is serious. And five first round picks for a team that by the way, Thunder fans know this well, hasn't had first round picks for the past five years. It's a very, very serious punishment. It is going to be a really, really bad time to be a Clippers fan for the next decade. I do feel for Clippers fans. I feel bad for them. It's a bummer for them. But you know, I was impressed that the NBA took this serious. Cap's circumvention was serious.

5:05Like you're messing with competitive balance. It's the most important thing when it comes to keeping the integrity of the game in the NBA and they took it seriously. And five first round picks and $30 million while it's just like losing a couple of pennies for you and me to Steve Palmer. It's still $30 million. So I think it's a, I think it's a big punishment, but I think it fits. It does fit for sure. It fits the crime. And I think that my first reaction seeing the news was that I remember, you know, even national media, much less just Clippers fans, people just being on Pablo's case for a year about this, like not being real, this being overblown, this not mattering. And all of you, oh, public, or an apology, apology, Senator, like this guy really did uncover all of this. And the fact that we did get to a point in the discourse where even respected national NBA voices were saying, oh, why do you guys even want to head on a spike for the fact

6:05that they circumvented the cap? Hello. This is a massive deal. Like this is a precedent setting outcome for Adam Silver and the NBA where everyone's on notice, no funny business around the cap, because if the Clippers who we have public proof, circumvented the cap, they absolutely 100% did what before this penalty even came out, we knew for a certainty publicly that they did this. If they got off Scott free, we're gonna be close to it. If they just lost second round picks or if they just got fined, well then it opens the floodgates for every team in the NBA to circumvent the cap because why wouldn't you? There'd be no one's that have not to. You'd have to do it if you had an ownership group that had the means to. And the only teams with ownership groups have the means to are big market teams. And then you go from this parody era to an era where every big owner is just saying, you know what? Who cares about the salary cap? Well, let's just spend, spend, spend. And you get to this weird place in the sport. So nipping that in the bud, it was pivotal by the NBA.

7:08This is a league that has not gotten a ton right except for involving the Clippers. I got him silver. Great job handling the Clippers. So it was startling. And now this, except for the Clippers, the NBA is missed on a lot of big items recently. This one, they did get it right. But you do feel for Clippers fans because ultimately as we say the NBA got it right, the only group genuinely punished from all of this is the LA Clipper fan base. Like Steve Balmer getting suspended for a year and having to pay some money doesn't matter. Kauai only having to pay. His statement is so funny to me. He pays $100,000, which is just nothing to Kauai. And then he goes, I'll see you guys in Toronto because I'm going to get to keep playing. I'm going to get to go to the team. I'm not going to get to keep playing. I don't know where the team I want to go to and be on the team I want to go to the city I want to go to and everything else. It's like the only people that come out on the bottom end of this is Clippers fans because you now go into a decade of dysfunction, a decade in which you just cannot do anything if you're the Clippers because you will. The 100 of the picks up this year, you don't have your pick next year and then boom, you start to give away five picks and four for them away in this punishment.

8:12So the pathway out of an already bad roster, a roster that we knew was set up for a rebuild once they made the initial trade news of Kauai going to Toronto. It now just is set back even more so. And for what? For for a salary capture convention for Kauai Leonard who did next to nothing for the franchise, Paul George in that trade and it's all it was a trade for Kauai and Paul George. That looks even worse now because you gave up all that for Paul George with Chey and with the historic draft all of them. One of the picks became J.D.U. and you gave all that up as well. And you forwarded over five for sure on picks and you got nothing to show for it. A Western comments finals appearance in the bag. That means nothing for the show for these last few years here and I just think it's a shame for Clippers fans, but it's what had to happen and it's a shame for Clippers fans and yeah, like Steve Balmer, I think that what hits him the most is just that this is a guy who it's obvious that he cares about when it gets obviously he'd do whatever it takes to win including

9:14circumvent the cap. And Steve Balmer was really credited with like why they introduced a second apron. So this guy just couldn't come into the league and become the address of baseball and just spend all this money. And so it's like he clearly wants to win. Now he can't win for the next decade. It's impossible to build a team for the next decade without these assets. Not only the draft picks of drafting prospects, but the assets of going to improve your team with those picks. So having that in your disposal, what do you do if you're the Clippers? There's just nothing to do. And I think ultimately the path forward is to just be a awful team for the next 10 years because the only other path, Brandon, is that with each year that goes by as you get further into the future, you quote unquote, unlock more picks to trade. If you trade those picks, then you're just chasing your tail and you're never going to be in a position to draft a young core again. And so you just have to eat it for the next decade if you're the Clippers and that does suck for their fans. And I wouldn't begrudge anyone in the Clippers fan base if they jump ship at this point. But it's what the league had to do unquestionably what they had to do.

10:16Yes, what they had to do. And it really is, if you look at it, there's only three ways to acquire talent. And this is a death penalty because those three ways, let's look at them, the draft, well, that's out until 2034. You know, the player that we're going to draft in 2034 is 10 or 11 years old right now. So they're not acquiring any talent through the draft. Well, you can also do it through trades, but the main way to get him through trades is for a SRAM picks, which they will not have access to to trade away. And then the other one is free agency. But in this era, you know, the free agency pools aren't what they were like superstars usually either stay where they're at or they're traded. It's not usually via free agency. I noticed the bomber has more money than every other NBA owner combined, but the free agents are at their place or free agents going to want to go there to a team that strapped without picks and without assets and without a way to build out of this. So I do feel for Clippers fans. I do think it's funny that the NBA looked at this situation and decided the most fair

11:22thing to do would be to run back the SGA trade all over again. Like, you know, what is the most severe punishment we can do? Let's do the SGA trade again. Let's rob them of five first round picks. That seemed to hurt the team the first time. And so they got to go through it again. Ultimately, Paul George and Quylandard kind of cost the Clippers. Shake it just Alexander and 10 first round picks. It's brutal. It's a brutal way to live if you're the Clippers. And yeah, why would free agents want to go there? That's the only pathway to add players at this point. And sure, Mike C. Bombers, such a rich owner that he could maybe convince some guys to sign for the money. But then you look at it from a player's perspective, players can't perspective. If you sign up for the Clippers, you're signing up for whatever that roster entails because there is no pivot point to get better via trade if you find out that your roster has a weakness. And it's just not likely that Gatsall signed up for that. And you mentioned that the free agency pools have not been great.

12:22There's not been a well and a vast well of free agents who move teams in this current landscape of the NBA, which the Clippers will hopefully change in the next 10 years. That's really their only path forward. But coming up, we'll talk about the Thunder's Path Forward, who's their biggest threats in the West and in the East. And what questions must be answered for OK, see this season. But first one thing right now, but in front of us square folks, support for today's show comes from square, the system powering so many of the places that you already know and love, whether you're running to a packed game, they spot a local restaurant or a growing business square gets sellers the tools to run their business without making things more complicated. Square brings payments inventory payroll invoices, customer insights and more together and one connected system. So whether you're in a one location business or growing into multiple locations, square gives you the tools to sell, manage and grow without needing an IT team to figure out how it all works. Go check it out today folks because it's something that you really appreciate about these local

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14:29What's the number one question for you this season for the Oklahoma City Thunder that you just cannot wait to see the answer? My number one question is the young guys. What kind of role does a dimara Thomas Sorber, Bennett starts in the Colatopich have like the rest of the roster. We know all the roles. We can go through all those guys and kind of have an idea of what they're placed in the rotation is going to be. How many minutes they'll get what they're expected to do. But those four young guys, these are all guys that were drafted between number 12 and number 16. So they're all basically lottery talents and they're all basically rookies. I mean Thomas Sorber was drafted last year. But he missed this entire first season because of the ACL injury. The Colatopich obviously played a little bit last year. But it's coming back from the ACL injury and then also the testicular cancer diagnosis and three bouts of chemotherapy. So he wasn't himself yet.

15:31He was just kind of shaking off the rest. And then of course Bennett starts and a dimara are true rookies. So we don't know what the roles are going to be. We don't know how many minutes they're going to be. We don't know how many games they'll play in the NBA versus the G Lee. We don't know if Thomas Sorber is going to play every night or if a dimara is going to play her night or if they take turns playing one night it's it's maro's night is a backup big one night. It's Thomas Sorber's or maybe both of them play more than that. We have no idea. And to me, that's exciting because this is a team that you know, it's going to contend for an NBA championship. Again, this is I think still the most talented team in the NBA. And despite all that talent at the top, all the role players, all the talent on this team, there's some young talent on this team that we're going to see this year because we all know that Martin Dignol is going to find minutes for Mara and Sturz and Topic

16:32and Sorver. The only question is how many minutes, how often will those minutes come and what roles will they come and I'm excited to see those guys play. Yeah, that's going to be exciting to figure out what these young guys are and what role and responsibility do they take on especially in their regular season because I think that it's easy to point to this team having lost Lou and Wiggins and Joe this off season for nothing in return besides the cost saving of the $240 million in luxury tax that they've saved and say, yeah, but this team still got better because AJ Mitchell case and Wallace, Jeremy Kane, these guys will have elevated roles. These guys will be better. Two of the three weren't playoff impactful players last year. Lou was not impactful offensively in the playoffs whatsoever. And so like you look at it and just dismiss the loss of those three guys. However, those three guys, it's still a big loss in the regular season for what they provided you to navigate through an eight to game season. Eight to game season of the last couple of years has been spent having to deal with a lot of injury adversity for Oklahoma City.

17:33And like those three guys have stepped up in big ways through their various skill sets. And in the regular season, you're not going to push Shay, J. Dub, Chett, I. Hart, Caruso, Case and all these guys 40 plus minutes and I you're just not going to do that in the regular season. And you're still going to bubble wrap case and Wallace in the regular season. I mean, bubble wrap Alex Crusoe in the regular season. You have to that. That's a non starter. You need him healthy at the end. And so somebody else has to get those minutes in the regular season. So it's a rare claim that I both agree and disagree with. I agree that come playoff time when you you've shrunk the rotation and you've maximized the minutes that your top guys can play. These top guys are better than last year's top guys from internal development and from you know, it's the loop opening up a starting level spot and a loop opening up minutes for a case in an A.J. to continue to gain some in the post season. But with how you get through the 82 game season, it is a big question of how much can the minutes start to provide? How much can these youngsters provide in games that you need them either because it's the

18:34three night, three games and four nights because of back to back because you've got some injuries, whatever the case is, those guys can they have the regular season impact that Joe and Wiggins had in their time in Oklahoma City along with Lou Dort, Lou Dort, who even last year, he was a bad shooter the whole year for October until the end of the end of May. He was a bad shooter. But what he did do was set the tone, especially in the regular season, to keep the car on the road and to keep you energized throughout the 82 games. That spark that he provided you, other guys have to provide that this year. And so that question being who steps up in that respect for OKC is a big one. My biggest question is low-hanging fruit, but it's just what a shut home game look like against San Antonio in particular. But also just his overall game. Like what is what is he added to it with a healthy off season and off season where he's clearly going to be motivated from what happened to end the last year. And I'm not expecting massive strides from him in the sense of his overall game. Like I don't think that all of a sudden he'll be some amazing shot creator or some guy

19:37that can score at all three levels efficiently and do it off the dribble. But I do think that he can polish off the things he's already excellent at and translate them to a spur series where the spurs made him look dramatically different than he looked in the first two rounds of the playoffs. The first two rounds of the playoffs, he looked every bit the LNBA player, he looked every bit the Yoll star. He looked like a breakout player in those first two rounds. Then the spurs show up and it was a consistent trend all year and it wasn't Wimby shutting him down. It was kind of like the other side. It was the others that flew out to him and didn't let him get a shot off. It was the others who drove into him and scored over him. The others who robbed the rebounds from him on the offensive end. He's got to clean all that up and get a lot better in that specific matchup and how he looks, how he progresses, what he took to heart from last year because it's a delicate thing because last year, truly against every other team, but the spurs, he looked the part of an LNBA player. You don't want to throw the entire year out. You also don't want to rush into your laurels and you also know that you do need to get better to play the spurs.

20:38That complicated relationship with last year and how it translates into this season, I think will be huge for Chad Olbrin. I agree. We're going to find out opening nine. We find this out very, very soon right away. That's exciting. I expect a strong outing from Chad that person. I don't know if that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to get 20 points hit a few threes or anything like that. But as far as the effort and aggressiveness and all those things that we've come to know from Chad, I think will be there opening night and I expect him to play well because like people have let this final taste in the mouth from game seven of the Western conference finals kind of make you forget who Chad is. Chad is a dude who anchored the best defense in the NBA and helped win an NBA championship at 23 years old coming off of a hip fracture. He has all defense second defense of player of the year voting.

21:41He was all star all NBA, all those things at 24 years old. And so I still think he's one of the best 15-ish players, 20 players in the NBA. But you look at kind of the offseason narratives and storylines and I think that people are letting that game seven in particular kind of affect some opinions I think in a way that just is not true. But like you said, people want to see him do it against the spurs that particular matchup because it's the thunder's biggest obstacle to getting back to the NBA championship, this particular matchup. So everybody wants to see that. But I expect Chad knowing the kind of player and kind of worker that he is. I expect him to show out. Yeah, he's got to show out this season and that opening night game a big one. I think it'll stick with him the entire year for better or worse. And then that opens up a whole new kind of warms. Like if he lays another adult opening night, like what does that do to his, you know, worst

22:41of his season. If he has a great game opening night, what does that do to the rest of his season? It'll be very interesting to see. But coming up, we'll have more questions about OKC plus the biggest threats for the thunder this year. But first one to you right now, but your friends over at Indeed, go check out Indeed today because Indeed's awesome support for today's show comes from Indeed sponsored jobs. When workplace chaos hits and you need to hire Indeed sponsored jobs helps you connect employers with candidates who match specifically your needs like skill certifications locations. As less time goes by that way, you're spending more time getting the right fit for your job. People are finding qualified hires on Indeed right now. And the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours have made 27 hires on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. So go check them out today, folks, because whenever you look at Indeed, the addition that they can make to your team is unbelievable. Again, it has a ripple effect on everybody. If you have somebody who's just overtaxed, overworked, you can bring someone in with efficiency

23:44to allow your business to work more efficient and have that experience that attitude, the skill sets, all maximized for your opportunity for your business. It's been less time searching, more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes less stress, less time, more results. When either right person could do the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help you get your job to that premium sales deserves. And it comes to such podcasts. Go right now to Indeed.com slash podcast and tell them that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast terms and addition supply need to hire this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. We're back on the lock down Thunder podcast. We're on the lock down podcast. Not work your teams every day. I'm Ralein Sousa, Spurner of the Bar. We're here talking Thunder basketball, Brandon. What's another big question you want answered for O.K.C. this season? I'll go with low hanging fruit this time myself. I'm going to say who takes Lou Dorrick's spot, the final spot, and the starting lineup.

24:44I am pretty certain it's going to be case in Wallace because he's the perfect one for one replacement for Lou Dorrick as far as having like a lock down perimeter defender. A catch and shoot three guy. But he's more than 3D. I think we saw that when we played more on ball when the Thunder were going through all those injuries last season and he really showed out and played really well when he had more offensive responsibilities. I think he's still just kind of scratching the surface. It is still a question mark. There's something that think that AJ Mitchell could be inserted into the starting lineup. It makes sense. I see the vision with AJ Mitchell putting three ball handlers out there at the same time, three shock creators and the pressure that can put on a defense. For some, that thing maybe Jeremy Kane, that's not going to happen, but I'm throwing it out there because I've seen it out there, floated it out there. But yeah, it's until it's answered, it is a question mark. And maybe it'll be a deal where they change it up sometimes and sometimes it's case and

25:45sometimes it's AJ Mitchell depending on the matchup. I don't think so though. I think we will see Kase and Wallace inserted into the starting lineup pretty much permanently going forward and he takes Lou Dort's spot. But until it's answered, it's still a question mark. Yeah, I think that you're right on that being a big question for this team. I think that this is a question that kind of have a lot of answers to where Mark's always talked about how the starting lineup is overblown. I think that for this team, their best five is going to be Shay, AJ, Jada, but Chet and I, hard. Do you want to start that best five? I'll bring it in midway to the game and close with that starting five. Close with that best five. Who knows? And you mentioned the pros and cons to both. I do think that it is more open than just simply Kase and it's close to Lou, so start Kase and because I do think that Sam Prestee's quotes are always very pointed and of course his quotes on the Oklahoma about reimagining who they are. Some of that I think will be taken into account perhaps in that starting five.

26:47And you look at Shay, unbelievable player, plays the entire first quarter, entire third quarter and then closes the second and fourth quarter. A guy that really settles into a game. Well, more, more deference to his game and the starting points of it after the opening tip. And AJ being in that starting five allows Shay to do that while maximizing the plummaging on the core at that time and gives you a defensive spark of the bench with Kase and Wallace, while also allowing Kase and Wallace to be off the bench, not playing next to Shay and J. Dubb both to where he can maybe explore more of the on ball parts of his game. Now me personally Brandon, I am skeptical that Kase and Wallace will be a much improved on ball player. I think that was a fun week. It can't take it away from him. But I look at the body of work of his whole career playing for a coach who's been very willing to try things and they've never tried that except for whenever they absolutely undoubtedly had to. There's nobody else available. They have to put the ball on Kase and his hands. They've never really explored it past that. Maybe it's just the fluke thing that they will explore more this year.

27:49But you go from that week and then you can flash forward to the playoffs when you're down to him and down AJ. He also didn't step up there either. So I think the case in even if there's no massive on ball leap coming from that perspective, I think that he can still be a much better player than he was a year ago because he can become a more consistent three point shooter. He's got 48% in the playoffs last year and he hasn't shot in 40% from three in a regular season since his rookie year. I think they can get back to that and become a really efficient 40% plus 3 point guy while having world class defense. At that point, it injects a ton to this team that they need. They're going to desperately need three point shooting and desperately need him to do that offensively. If he incorporates some of his on ball talents into history and the role where maybe it's not initiated in the offense, maybe it's not creating for himself. But it is when you get the ball swung to you, can you put on the deck one time, dribble into a mid range jumper, can you get to the rim off the catch on a hard closeout, can you swing the ball to the right player for an open shot? Like those things could take bits and pieces from that week that we saw while not overhauling

28:51his game internally. I think that's more so in line with what case in will look like this year. And again, I'm with you on the starting line. If I had to predict, hey, what do you think Mark's going to do? I would lean case in, but that quote from Sam Presty is still in the back of my head when we're talking about the starting lineup. And then the big question out there for people, it really is about Jada, a lot of the times. To me, it's not a question mark. Jada being healthy and being a quote unquote injured or Kennedy's tail the other year, that question remains for all 300 plus players in the NBA because at any given time, anybody can get hurt. I'm not ready to put Jada in the injury prone camp because of the last season where last season was injury prone. But there was reasons for it. And it's all confined into that one year. And every player goes through this in their career where they have an injury-laid season. With Jada, I don't expect that to keep up. So I'm not even going to put that on the board for a question. My question is, what's the area that Shay improves on this year?

29:54Because I'm sick of putting a ceiling on him. We keep putting the ceiling on him for the last half decade. And he keeps breaking through. And I wonder if it's not his comfortability shooting off the dribble and being able to pull up from three out of the pick and roll and being able to punish him truly at all three levels. Yeah, you're exactly right. We say it every off season. We know that Shay comes back and he's improved every season. And you're like, OK, he won an MVP. He can't possibly get better than his second MVP season. It was even better than his last one. His playmaking improved. His three point shooting improved. If you're right about the off the dribble stuff, that would be incredible to make the best score in the world that much better and that much tougher to guard and defend. Those leaves he took last year and his playmaking and his three point shooting were so impressive. And I'm with you. After last year, we just can never put a ceiling on him. He'll come back and improve in some area. I don't know what it is, but it'll be in something.

30:57Brennan, who are the teams? And this can be as long as a list or short as a list as you want to. Who are the teams that you realistically could see knocking off OK, seeing a seven game series where if I told you I'm from the future, this did happen. You wouldn't even bat night at the San Antonio Spurs. That's the list. That's the list. That's that's that's I think that's truly the list. Now if if I were to I should expand it because you know, you get into a seven game series. We don't know yet what the Philadelphia 76ers are going to look like. On paper, they are so talented. But I think there are question marks about like, you know, how are they all going to share the ball? They're such high usage players. None of them are particularly great three point shooters. There's some defensive questions, some role questions. But on paper, very talented team. The New York Knicks, I feel like you got to at least put them in the running because they're the NBA champions right now. Nobody expected them to beat the San Antonio Spurs and they did.

32:01I think that the Denver Nuggets are always lurking because of Yokech and because of Jamal Murray. And if you can get a healthy season out of Aaron Gordon, but they lose Peyton Watson. They're another year older and then seeing them flame out against the hospital Timberwolves last year. It loses some of that confidence that maybe you had it. You can't help but to me mentally kind of knock them down a tear from what we had them previously when we always felt like it was like the Thunder Spurs and Nuggets. Like I feel like the Nuggets then are in the next tier in the West along with like the Timberwolves and the Lakers. But if I were to truly say who I really feel like the Thunder and Spurs are on their own tier and on their own level and sure. If you get into like possible injuries and health questions, then you know any great contender can beat another great contender under those circumstances.

33:03But provided health for every team. I really think it's the Thunder and the Spurs. I'm with you. I think that the question, the way that I was phrasing it is going to lead itself to the list just being San Antonio because that's the only team where you could tell me that you're from the future and they lost the San Antonio that I would go. Okay. If you tell me that they got beat by the Knicks in the finals, I'd say wow, like was so and so hurt or wow. So they exploited this match up. I would have more questions than that. If you tell me the Spurs beat the Thunder, okay, they beat the Thunder. That is understandable. If you told me that the Sixers beat the Thunder, I'd say okay, star power to your point. Joel and Pete was healthy the whole playoff run. I'd draw and beat state healthy and beat the Thunder. That's surprising. I would have something. Yeah, but or what happened with that? With the Spurs, I'd say okay, even assuming all things are equal and everyone's 100%. Okay. I could see that happening for sure. And that's the position the O.K.C. finds themselves in after this offseason where only one team would be undisputed.

34:06If you told you that they lost to him, you wouldn't really dispute it much or say well, how did that go on? And I think that O.K.C. isn't a really good chance this year, obviously, to go and win an NBA championship again, Brandon. We'll cover it all year long here on Lockdown Thunder, dailythinner.com, 107-7, the franchise. And we're going to be together on the O.K.C. Dream Team on Patreon, Brandon. This is a lot of fun. One more offseason show in the bag and we're creeping ever so close to media day, to training camp. But at that point, we're back in the swing of things. Always good to come on with you. Excited about this season starting and let locked on fantasy football. No, if they need a guest spot to hit me up. Yeah, go ahead up, Brandon. He's got you going for all your fantasy questions. Who to start? Who to sit? You can pepper him as well as we do. Until next time, folks, be good and be good to one another. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA podcast where there's no offseason. West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors and everything

35:11you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.