National Basketball Association

OKC Thunder: Sunday Social Swag and Shade

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 11:32 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Tamberlyn Richardson/FanSided via Thunderous Intentions

Welcome to TI’s new weekly column about the Oklahoma City Thunder, Sunday Social Swag and Shade.

As you may have deciphered from the title, this segment will dive into social media to capture the best of the week in social media. Specifically, T.I. will feature tweets, vines, snap chats etc from the previous week focusing on the OKC Thunder and it’s roster. We’ll give particular precedence to items falling into one of two categories: Swag or Shade.

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T.I. hopes you enjoy this week’s compilation and invite you submit your suggestions for next week, and interact on our twitter and facebook page. You never know, that tweet or post might show up here next week.

So with no further adieu, here’s the inaugural Swag and Shade column.

Shade out of the gate…

This week there were a few extra eyes focused on the Oklahoma City Blue as Cameron Payne geared up for his season debut with the varsity team.  If you’ve watched many D-League games, the following tweet may ring a bell.  That or it would give credence to what a great job the camera men at the National games are doing:

Westbrook misses first cut.. Say What?

Continuing on with the shade, it’s hard to fathom a player who is doing something not accomplished since 1962, wasn’t the lead vote recipient, let alone at his position.

To that end, I learned earlier this week Kyle Lowry received a number of votes with his name spelled incorrectly, which subsequently didn’t count. Turns out Russell Westbrook was also penalized for a similar infraction.

It did have me pondering how many Giannnis Antetokounmpo votes were spelled incorrectly, or why the NBA wouldn’t just count these votes anyway. I mean it’s not like Kyle Lowry or Russell Westbrook are players who could be confused with anyone else, right?  Bottom line for those of you who would like to see Kyle Lowry in the NBA All-Star Game drop that “e” you’ve been adding to his second name. And for Westbrook fans there are two “l”s in Russell.

Definitely Swagalicious…

Speaking of the Greek Freak, if you caught the Thunder – Bucks game this week, it’s clear why NBA fans are excited to see how high Antetokounmpo’s ceiling will be.

In the same game Russell Westbrook threw a little shade of his own. Or perhaps it was Russ paying homage to a former teammate, as the third tweet below attests to.

Zebra Shade:

It’s been an odd week in terms of the officials. Hey, it’s not like you’ll ever hear fans say “man, those officials were outstanding tonight”. Suffice to say shade comes with the territory of being an NBA official. That said, this week in particular was a tough one to swallow as countless games ended up being decided by an officials call, which for the most part was the incorrect call.

Moving forward, I’m sure the zebra’s will get their fair amount of shade in this column.  Let me just extend an olive branch, if at any time I witness a game in which an official’s decision ends up reversing a bad call so the deserving team wins, I’ll be the first to grant you a swag spot on the T.I. list.

Just had to run this tweet, as the originator of “Ball Don’t Lie”, I’m sure Rasheed Wallace would have made millions by now if he’d patented the phrase.

Russell had a weird week with the officials in general as he had 2 technical fouls rescinded and inadvertently hit an official in the head.  Further there were a number of no calls on obvious fouls and missed calls on no fouls. Suffice to say the zebra shade is thick at T.I. this week!

Major Swag to take you into next week

With Cameron Payne returning there was lots of excitement here at T.I. His improved 3-point shooting is a major bonus, but more so because now there will be a guard capable of running the bench unit.  Not to mention as fans the inevitable pregame dance is back.

Must Read: Are there a new big 3 for OKC?

As per Cam’s post game comments he got into the flow of the game quickly and felt comfortable.

As noted his three point shooting was a focus this offseason. The three he hit in the game was silky smooth.

Speaking of threes, Westbrook has taken a bit of heat here at T.I. and elsewhere for tossing up the three too much especially in late game situations.  His 15 made threes in the past 2 games makes me wonder if he’s reading our articles and saying.. “oh yeah, watch this”.

Related Story: Does Russell Westbrook need a shot limit from three?

This one should have warranted 4 points it was so deep:

Okay, so I lied a little more shade (but not from us), from a fan:

Fittingly, the closing tweet of the inaugural edition of Sunday Social Swag and Shade applauds Russell Westbrook garnering his 17th triple-double of the season.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to return next Sunday for the best social media of the week and remember to interact with Thunderous Intentions on social media.

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