Thunder: Harden’s “brother from another mother”
There are so many things about the Thunder that have captured the hearts of Oklahomans.
The way they act. The way they play. The way they win.
This is an easy bunch to love.
And I was reminded of that by Thursday’s Sixth Man of the Year announcement. As you well know, James Harden received the award as expected in a landslide vote. (As a friend of mine said upon hearing about Harden’s win, “In other news, darkness expected after sunset today.”)
But what came as a little bit of surprise were all the teammates who showed up for the announcement at The Peake. I wasn’t able to be there myself, but I watched the whole thing via streaming video from NBA.com. From that and from reports from our folks who were there, the number of teammates in attendance was close to double digits. I spied Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and a bunch of others.
I’ll let you in on a little secret — that sort of thing doesn’t happen all the time.
The first season that the Hornets took up temporary residency here, Chris Paul was named rookie of the year. The team, much like the Thunder, had a press conference at the arena. None of Paul’s teammates showed up. Granted, I seem to remember that the announcement came right after the season had ended, and guys may have been out of town already. But hey, CP3 was a highly popular guy with his teammates. It wouldn’t be crazy to think that some of them might’ve made special arrangements to be there.
But no.
Thursday was an entirely different scene.
A few hours after the pomp and circumstance for Harden — The Beard wore a jacket, a bow tie and everything! — his off-the-bench buddy Nick Collison tweeted a picture of the two of them, plus a bit of congratulations and fun.
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