The Oklahoma City Thunder got an historical butt whooping on Thursday night at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies. Despite the fact that the Grizzlies did not have Ja Morant, who is still out nursing a knee injury, the team picked up an eye-popping 73-point victory by beating Oklahoma City 152-79.
Now, Oklahoma City is in the midst of a gigantic rebuild, and while the league doesn’t like the word “tanking” all that much, it’s hard to say the team is doing anything other than tank. There are plenty of reasons for optimism — a war chest of draft picks that is quite vast, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just signed an extension, Josh Giddey is a promising rookie — but things are quite rough around the edges right now.
The team is scheduled to play on Monday night against the Detroit Pistons in a game that will air on NBATV. Upon learning this during ESPN’s broadcast of a Sixers-Hawks game, Jeff Van Gundy, as he is wont to do, lost his mind.
Jeff Van Gundy wants the commissioner to step in and remove the Thunder game from national TV
pic.twitter.com/uGtMnhUq9Y
— Internet #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) December 4, 2021
“We can’t put Oklahoma City on national TV,” Van Gundy said. “That’s where the commissioner has to come in and take that off of TV. That’s a horrible game, and Oklahoma City just lost by 73 points.”
It remains to be seen if Van Gundy will get his wish.