Punkin Spunkin posted:

Pop go on chapo

Niwrad posted:

Don't the Lakers have to find someone to take Deng's contract?

Kibner posted:

I'm sorry y'all, but Davis doing the McGregor while Jrue points and laughs is just amazing to me:

https://twitter.com/MasonGinsberg/status/987337921014435841

Mr. Mambold posted:

Hey scuz, maybe C/P the article for the rest of us who don't sub to the WSJ? TIA? TYVM RSVP HAND

quote:

Nanae Yamano, an Oklahoma City Thunder superfan who happens to be a stay-at-home mother in the Tokyo suburbs, had never been to an NBA game before this week. She had never been to Oklahoma City. She had never been anywhere outside Japan.

She didn’t know how she would handle watching her favorite team in person—an idea was so far beyond the realm of imagination that she had no reason to believe she would ever find out.

“And then this happened,” she said.

This was the long series of unlikely events that culminated with Nanae Yamano sitting courtside at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s playoff game on Wednesday night as the team’s honored guest.

It all started last month when The Wall Street Journal published a story about Yamano, whose Thunder artwork had become so popular online that it reached her subjects: the Oklahoma City players were sharing it around the locker room. They knew who she was. They did not know she was a 43-year-old mother who lived very, very far away from Oklahoma City.

The NBA contacted Yamano after the story and offered to pay for her trip to a potential Thunder playoff game. She got a passport, but she didn’t allow herself to get too excited. “We didn’t even know if the Thunder would make the playoffs,” she said.

When they clinched a spot in the last week of the season and home-court advantage on the last night of the season, she had to get halfway across the world faster than she expected. Her original flight was canceled. Her rebooked flights were delayed. She finally made it to Oklahoma City after a full day of traveling, and her chauffeur took her directly to the Thunder’s arena.

It was 3:30 a.m.

The rest of her pilgrimage was surreal in pretty much every way. She was recognized on the street by fans. She was officially welcomed on the JumboTron immediately after the Kiss Cam. She was introduced to Thunder players, local dignitaries and the halftime performer Red Panda. She was presented with two No. 0 jerseys—one that said “WESTBROOK” and one that said “NANAE-SAN.”

The same person who was used to watching the Thunder on her iPad found herself watching the Thunder from NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s seats.

Her carefully planned itinerary started with a personal invitation to City Hall by the mayor of Oklahoma City. She visited the Thunder offices and took pictures with team employees. She tweeted many photos of many buildings and was fascinated by “No Firearms Allowed” signs in windows. She dined at the steakhouse where Thunder players are regulars, and she apologized profusely when she couldn’t finish her enormous slab of meat. The next morning, after clearing her plate of fried green tomato eggs Benedict, she was treated to a guided tour of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, where she admired John Wayne’s Buddhas and Ronald Reagan’s cowboy boots.

It might not be long before Yamano’s art is hung in museums here given the way her work has been embraced by the city.

She turns her iPad into a sketchpad after every Thunder game, and the results are undeniably adorable. Oklahoma City staffers print their favorite Yamanos from Instagram to hang around the office, and they watched her draw in chalk on a wall inside the team’s arena upon her arrival. They spoke with Yamano through her translator, Reo Onishi, an NBA writer in Tokyo, but she also understands English well enough that she’s funny and charming in both languages.

Before the game, as she giggled and gasped and generally convulsed with joy meeting the strangers she’d only seen on social media, she realized she wasn’t exactly meeting strangers. “It seems like I know everybody,” she said.

What she did not expect was for everybody to know her. Or for someone to approach her as she walked around town and say: “I follow you on Instagram!” Or for her fans to want autographs. She had never signed her work before, and she was blown away that she had fans.

It would be reasonable at this point to ask how any of this actually happened.

Yamano was bored doing laundry one day in 2012 when she turned on her television and found herself mesmerized by Russell Westbrook and the Thunder even though she didn’t know who Russell Westbrook was or what the Thunder were.

But that one game was all it took to enthrall her. Nanae Yamano became obsessed with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the deeply enigmatic Russell Westbrook became her artistic muse.

She watches every game without having to clear her schedule—“I have no schedule,” she says—and usually by herself with her husband at work and her son at school. As the game approached on Wednesday night, she realized she was going to be surrounded by 18,000 of her people.

“Maybe I can hide my craziness,” she said, “because everyone else is crazy.”

She walked into the arena hours before Game 2 of the Thunder’s series against the Utah Jazz. The only people around the court that early were there to watch Westbrook or to watch Yamano watch Westbrook.

Westbrook always ends his warmups by shooting corner 3-pointers until he makes one and sprints away, and Yamano was asked by the small army of Thunder and NBA employees around her to predict how many shots it would take. She said he would make his fourth.

He missed the first. He missed the second. He missed the third. He made his fourth.

Westbrook went through his entire warmup routine on the other side of the court without acknowledging Yamano. “He was exactly the way I thought he would be,” she said. There had been whispers of a post-game summit with Westbrook, and it seemed plausible that he was aware of her presence and couldn’t wait to meet her. It also seemed plausible he didn’t have a clue who she was.

But of all the basketball teams in all the world, she picked the one that perfectly embodies this city of booms and busts, and she got the full manic Thunder experience when they lost to the Jazz. She didn’t have to be told that Westbrook would not be in the mood to meet.

Andre Roberson came instead—she loves Roberson and Steven Adams almost as much as she’s inspired by Westbrook—and enveloped Yamano in a hug. There was no need for an introduction. He already knew her work, and she already knew he was a hugger.

She presented him with a beautiful wooden box handcrafted by her husband. Inside was a book of 82 drawings that she’d printed on a 7-11 copy machine—her depiction of the Thunder’s season. She told him it was for the team. As he flipped through the pages, Roberson said he was going to keep it for himself.

“I know we lost,” he said, “but did you enjoy the game?”

Nanae Yamano was so overwhelmed by the game that she couldn’t even draw afterward. That any of this had ever happened, she said as she left the arena, was like her version of the American dream.

She was barely able to sleep before she woke up early the next morning. She was leaving Oklahoma City after two magical days and flying right back to Tokyo.

Nanae Yamano had to be home in time for Game 3.

Metapod posted:

I love this

Mr. Mambold posted:

You're a good man scuz. I tried incognito, but maybe it already was wise to my antics. I tried roughing up the dame at the front desk, but she wouldn't squeal.

Spacebump posted:

"Professional athletes smoke weed. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of them do, according to new player estimates. Some even smoke before games.

"All of my best games, I was medicated," says Matt Barnes"
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2771410-athletes-smoke-weed-interviews-nba-nfl-420

Lockback posted:

I went Saturday and going tonight as well. It was pretty crazy in there and they did a good job with the atmosphere.

Bobby Digital posted:

A politician pandering well I never

Cool Buff Man posted:

A fuckin voiy boiy LONGneck

pubic works project posted:

So pretty much everything you do right now?

R.D. Mangles posted:

i am incredibly disappointed that the 2013 bulls could not win a playoff series

zoux posted:

I must rescind my membership in the KoL, I cannot support an inveterate Goal Tender.

Cool Buff Man posted:

That Houston/Minny series was dreadfully boring

PremiumBlend posted:

I think that this is what a basketball blockchain is.

Spacebump posted:

This one is much funnier than the previous episode.
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/989610071280771075

scuz posted:

Where is this "what's closer the west coast or the moon" clip cuz oh my god.

zoux posted:

https://twitter.com/IndyMayorJoe/status/989605811365261312

*national groan*

FrankeeFrankFrank posted:

wow Shaq could be turned into a flat-Earther very easily.

Salvor_Hardin posted:

Maybe its just a privilege thing but I never understand why anyone wouldn't fill up the tank every time.

Ghost Dog posted:

a super fan of stairwell strife then

dokmo posted:

Here are a bunch of Lebron passes to open players that led to nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eseTJVwU-40

zoux posted:

Oh hey it's the one guy who didn't see it this weekend.

Spacebump posted:

A Jazz Sixers Finals would own.

IcePhoenix posted:

Intruder posted:

Getting owned by Lebron shouldn't run this deep

Ghost Dog posted:

toronto can never be good till they remove the curse of vince. apologize, give him the team and then also get rid of the we the north poo poo. then and only then will you be able to beat 49 year old lebron james in a best of 7 series