DANNY ONEIL

Here’s to you, Ch-Oklahoma City

May 30, 2016, 11:24 PM | Updated: Jul 5, 2016, 9:32 am

Here’s to the pain.

Oklahoma City’s pain to be more specific.

And as I raise an extra-special bitter beer to toast the conclusion of another championship-less season for the basketball team formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics, I now know the answer to one of the great philosophical questions of our time: Would it be better for the Thunder to be swept in a four-game series or to lose a seven-game series in heartbreaking fashion?

It’s the latter. Definitely the latter. It hurts way more to think you have something and lose it. It may not hurt quite as much as having your city’s first big-league champion Shanghaied two time zones away, but that loss the Oklahoma City Thunder just suffered is definitely going to leave a mark. Here’s hoping it stings with a capital “S” for Seattle.

Dave Ross celebrates OKC Thunder’s crushing defeat with ‘Chokelahoma’

The Thunder won three of the first four games of the seven-game series against Golden State, an advantage so prohibitive only 10 teams had ever lost it in the NBA playoffs. More than that, the Thunder were up seven points with five minutes to play at home in Game 6 on Saturday only to have the Warriors storm back to win that game. So when Golden State rallied from a six-point halftime deficit in Game 7, well: Cheers to you, Ch-Oklahoma City. Population: Bummed.

I’m a Seattle resident, a long-time Warriors fan, and a Thunder hater, but not necessarily in that order. I’m not necessarily proud of this, but I’m not embarrassed by it, either, and given the mood of our city I’m definitely not alone.

I don’t want the Thunder to win. Ever. I realized this in 2011 while watching the franchise clinch its first playoff series since the owners high-tailed it out of Seattle. The very visceral disgust I felt as the Thunder pulled away in a Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets was kind of puzzling at first. I loved the way Oklahoma’s team played. I thought Kevin Durant was perhaps the most perfectly designed scorer the NBA has ever seen and loved Russell Westbrook’s tenacity. But something about seeing that city and its fans, and mostly the owner Clay Bennett, celebrate a playoff victory cemented a feeling inside of me.

It was like watching an ex-girlfriend sloppily make out with some overdressed dude at the bar, except that’s not quite right. The ex-girlfriend of a team never actually chose him so much as it was picked up and moved. So it was more like watching a thief brag about the Rolex he lifted, except now we’re getting into the finer points of thievery and I’m not interested in parsing who stole what and who lied to whom.

So here’s what it was like. It was like having this city’s first big-league pro sports team belong to a local business giant who talked a great game and used words like “public trust” and “civic responsibility.” Then, when the city flinched at buying the local business giant a fancy new home for his toy, he threw a fit and sold the whole thing to some Frankenstein-looking guy from the middle of the country who not-so-shockingly ended up moving that civic trust to the middle of the country.

In the big picture, it wasn’t all that shocking. For our city, it was heartbreaking.

This was a franchise that should have never left this city, and now it was in the dust bowl of Oklahoma where a bunch of frackers crowed about how goll-darn great their basketball team was.

So I became a hater. And I hated hard. Here. And here.

And last season when an injury-riddled Oklahoma City team failed to make the playoffs, I started a tradition. One Red Hook Extra Special Bitter to be consumed each season when the Thunder finished short of the championship.

I’m drinking that beer right now as I sit on the deck of my Capitol Hill apartment. I can see the Space Needle through the trees with the American flag on top. It’s fitting not just because it’s a Seattle landmark but because the boondoggle that is the Seattle process still doesn’t recognize that the arena at the base of the Space Needle won’t work for this league.

Wait. Sorry. I got distracted. We’re talking about Oklahoma City’s pain, not Seattle’s.

And, man, did I enjoy Oklahoma City’s pain. I enjoyed the calm reassurance that Oklahoma City felt even after it lost Game 5 in Oakland, keeping it close throughout. I relished the Game 6 collapse when a Thunder team that lost 14 fourth-quarter leads in the regular season reverted to form, and I was absolutely giddy when Oklahoma City’s six-point halftime lead evaporated in the third quarter of a loss in Oakland.

Even the end was cruel: the Thunder cutting the deficit to four points before Golden State’s Steph Curry – the NBA MVP – craftily drew a foul that put him on the line for three decisive foul shots.

So now I drink to the pain. Oklahoma City’s pain. Bottom’s up.

Red Hook

One Red Hook Extra Special Bitter to be consumed upon the Thunder’s timely demise.

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Here’s to you, Ch-Oklahoma City