they also murdered the lakers who everyone hated and the lakers acted like bitches on the way out AND the heatles were acting like hos AND AND dirk didnt do any foul baiting any bullshit AND AND AND the mavs had already lost a title to the heat when dwade had the most generational whistle in the history of playoff basektball

Dirk also completed one of the greatest individual playoff runs of all time

Knocked off Brandon Roy & Lamarcus Aldridge Swept Kobe & Pau

Gentleman’s sweep KD/Russ/Harden

Beat LeBron/Wade/Bosh

2014 Spurs and the 2019 Raptors were hella likable too! 2022 Warriors I would say also were likable to a degree. I certainly did tune in just to hope Steph would finally get an FMVP

I mean it was also legit the hardest road to a title that I’ve seen. I dont know how you can even come up with slander for that team

People hater the Lakers and legit wanted the Heatles to fail as miserably as possible , you got NBA twitter in its infancy in fucking solidarity against Miami ; 95% of NBA fans became Dallas fans for one series

I’m not expecting this OKC team to get as much vitriol as the Heatles , but you could tell that it’s pretty much anybody but OKC

The cherry on top of the whole thing was Dirk destroying them, after LeBron and Dwayne Wade openly mocked him for having the flu, by laughing and fake coughing. Dirk is such a good, decent, likeable and genuine human being……you cannot say as much about the other two. I think a lot of people saw it as good triumphing over evil.

If the Pacers won last year it wouldve been one of the most loved Championships of all time, and they were so close.

He’s absolutely right though

It’s one of the few times Nick Wrong is spot on though. Halfway through the season, every post about other stars was flooded with OKC fans whining about SGA not getting the same love. Like idgaf, you have your banner and Shai gets his MVP/FMVP. Nothing else is owed to you.

Well at least the media gets an endless content farm once Bron retires and the Thunder continues winning.

Habitual line stepper

You have more haters but most people grudgingly have to respect your victory because humans have a strong winners bias and tend to assume that the winners are the one’s who’s in the right. This subreddit is a perfect example of this, upvotes/downvotes as well as responses change drastically depending on if a player wins or not.

Indeed. Jokic didn’t have many haters outside Philly before they won a championship. Nobody hated the Raptors until they won it all. Now OKC gets a lot more hate since they’re the champs.

If the Pacers had beaten them last year I guarantee you Hali would have a ton of haters hahaha

Agreed. Thunder were loved until they got good, and then suddenly the NBA is bending time-space to help the major market known as Oklahoma with their Canadian face. At this point Thunder are just one of the more dominant teams we’ve seen. LeBron and Jordan were also accused of foul-baiting all the time when they were winning, but today you’d never believe people hated every core of LeBron’s being for playing well.

I’m noticing a strong anti-recency bias lately. Anything to dump on the best current teams and players, as a way to prop up the past.

Raptors, Bucks and Nuggets gained more fans after a chip tho

I feel like the OKC thunder chip has way more detractors than average, mostly centered on Shai’s style of play and Dort, even though their team top to bottom is so good.

Like I feel like Bucks 21, GSW 22, Nugs 23, Celts 24 didnt get nearly as much eye rolling. Celts mostly was making fun of Tatum being corny. Other 3 i feel like most people were legit happy for their wins

The annoying thing, at least for me, is that OKC didn’t get more haters after winning the championship. We went straight to maximum hate as soon as SGA was challenging the leagues darlings for MVP.

And the narratives around him are all super inconsistent and super reactionary. It’s never how many free throws he gets, until he shoots a lot of free throws. It’s always that he benefits from an unfair whistle until you have a game like Tuesday’s where he didn’t get any calls and then it’s just a vibes conversation about the aesthetics of it.

And as fans, suddenly everything related to the only pro sport we have is super hostile for no good reason. We can’t be dismissive of criticism and point to the championship bc then we’re arrogant and insufferable. We can’t go the other way and defend the team or we’re insecure and have a victim complex.

Idk, shit is just exhausting.

If you look at the comments any time the Thunder get criticized, you’ll see that many Thunder fans very much do care.

Because fans will defend their teams, and OKC fans aren’t used to the hate like the Lakers and Celtics fans are. Those two are used to success breeding hate.

Most of them do not care what others fans think. The ones who go to posts to defend it are the ones who want the external validation, and that’s what gets seen by the public.

“I’d rather you all hate me for everything that I am, then love me for something that I’m not!” - The Miz

I’d rather have another ring than be loved if I’m the Thunder.

Why would OKC fans care if their team got love from other fans lol

They shouldn’t, but it’s pretty clear many of them care a lot. People just care what other people think about them a lot more than they should.

I can see why some of them don’t like going on the internet hearing how their team is a terrorist organization that only won a ring because Tyrese Haliburton snapped his achilles in half. But we can’t always get what we want.

If your team had an MVP player that ²⁹⁄₃₀ fanbases said was an overrated foul baiter, you would probably get sick of it after awhile too, especially when he isnt the first, only, or last guy who is going to do it.

Im a bucks fan, I didnt care when people said Giannis wasnt skilled, but it got old after a certain point when people ignored his actual production just because it was more based in brute strength than style.

You say that but ever see a comment when there’s any criticism of OKC? Bunch of their fans come out and act personally offended and go through massive mental gymnastics.

Not exclusive to them either, all fan bases have a large portion of fans who feel the need to be validated by other fan bases

I don’t really care if they are liked or disliked, but it is the best era of Thunder basketball and it would be nice to have actual discussions on this team and what they are doing from a scheming and personel perspective with the broader NBA community.

Like 95% of the posts and 100% are the same regurgitated talking points of “Shai flop” and “on defense they foul”.

Like in our last game clips of a couple of legitimate fouls and a couple of flops by SGA are all that’s being talked about in a game where he shot 3 FTAs. Just straight up didn’t have an impact on the game.

There are more interesting things to talk about like how the Lakers were legitimately disruptive for SGA with the way they doubled and tripled. SGA has been great at attacking double teams but really struggled with it vs. the Lakers. There are interesting conversations to be had, but this sub wants to circlejerk to the same conversations they’ve already had a thousand times.

OKC fans are hungry for the approval of the rest of the league senpais

You would think that… but as an Eagles fan I can very easily attest that most fans do still want validation from other fans, even after their team wins a championship

My armchair theory is that OKC as a city finally had national spotlight on them and something to be super proud of / brag about. They were bad for so long they thought everyone was going to love them as an underdog story and they’d be super popular (and they are pretty popular). But then their fans had to wrestle with the reality that tons of people really dislike their state, star player, style of play, and so they dig their heels in. I get why they’d do that. Why would they just accept everyone else’s conclusions. But deep down I think they are hurt because they know what is being said is somewhat true and it is taking away from the celebrations of what is a truly great team.

Can’t tell you how many times in the ‘00s that I had to hear from national media talking about how BORING the Spurs were.

DID NOT CARE

That shit wasn’t boring in San Antonio!!!

Yeah it really swapped like 2019-2020 era. I think Reddit getting way more popular in general drove tons of kids to these subreddits.

Not to mention almost every huge sub (not just /r/nba) getting crazy astroturfed by engagement bots.

Right?

”I don’t respect his championship” okay, but the championship still goes to the winning team.

This is normal sports stuff. With all the nonsense about Klay and Meg, Luka and his custody issues, pre-game outfits, etc., you picked an odd post to make this complaint about

Which means he knows what he’s talking about, everyone was happy when KC won their first ring… But once we kept winning? People started respecting the team less and less (You can look at how everyone was blaming the refs for everything during the push in 24-25). Winning championships doesn’t automatically translate to people respecting you as a team lol

He’s a massive Luka stan too

Thats the thing though, if anyone fully understands this phenomenon, it’s Nick Wright. He’s the biggest Chiefs Homer and Warriors Hater out there. He’s been a big player in the media on both sides of hating on a dynasty

And everyone hates the fucking Chiefs. They want to see them never make the playoffs. Mahomes always whining to the refs. It’s shitty play. No one wants to see it

Which means he is as qualified as there is about this topic

People in the NFL fucking loathe the Chiefs , the amount of calls the Chiefs seemingly get in their favor is higher in comparison to other teams

Philly and KC are hated for very different reasons , people think Hurts is a bum and KC gets all the calls

If Josh Allen wins a SB , it’ll be hated the next season simply because the superstar gets the RTP call

Indeed

My take is that Real championship are so much nicer than people’s choice awards championships

I will always take winning like this over being a lovable underdog like in 2017

He’s got to shit on SGA as much as he can because he can’t accept he passed his King, Luka

I’m crying, shaking, and throwing up after seeing this video this morning

Exactly. We were the lovable underdogs that couldn’t get out of the western conference finals every year. I’m much happier letting the wolves take that role and moving into everyone hates us because we pulled it off role. lol

yeah they are a really strong team. but the most floppy flopper AND the dirtiest player in the nba on the same team? im going to root against them forever.

It’s unfortunate. Seeking validation or victim mentality appears to be rampant in our society nowadays.

I mean last time Luka saw them in the playoffs he took them out tbf

They pretty salty about still no respect

Good thing your mom reads for me every night.

When you can’t say anything about the team so you just insult geographic location

Good one.

The dude looks and acts like the rat clock streamer

That’s not the conversation. The conversation is how you get them.

Are we supposed to watch the games or look at box scores? I get mixed signals from thunder fans depending on the topic. But perception matters. When you’re out there looking like a looney tunes character half a dozen times a game it’s going to seem worse than it is.

Add in thunder games are just brutal to watch and it all comes together. Perception. Theres a ton of stoppages on both ends of the floors cause their players are always hitting the deck. A stagnant halfcourt offense especially when SGA is out. Very little ball movement and off ball movement in general. A lot of individual breakdowns and kick outs.

Reaves shot 2 FTs game 1. FOUL BAITER ARGUMENT DESTROYED

idk why yall are so scared to say it when it comes to SGA. It’s not just about his attempts but when he’s clearly baiting for fouls or flopping or whatever it’s horrific tv. I hate when Reaves and Luka bait. It’s super boring to watch. I wish they wouldn’t but I’m not gonna sit here and pretend they don’t.