C. Renzi Stone
| Guest Columnist
It is hard to get what you want.
That’s it. That’s my summary of the Thunder’s championship.
“One game for everything you ever dreamed of. If you win it, you get everything. If you lose it, you get nothing. It’s that simple,” said series MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Afterward, he was asked what it felt like to be a champion. “It feels amazing. So much weight off my shoulders. So much stress relieved.”
The binary nature of sports championships is the reason this is so sweet. We won. Everyone else lost. There is always a winner and a loser in sports. Only one parade. The winners get the glory. The losers, dejection. Winning is euphoric and exhausting. Losing is heartbreaking and motivating.
Of course we’ve all had our fair share of — let’s call it — not winning. Every person and city suffers from this. Both in terms of sports and individual and collective goal achievement. Different from sports, for you to get ahead or for our city to win in economic development, health, education, etc. another person or city does not have to lose. It is hard to measure how much winning or losing we do day-to-day because life is not binary. This is why championships are awesome. We know who won (us!).
How we got here
The day after the win, I started reflecting on this year’s journey and reminded myself of General Manager Sam Presti’s July 2019 op-ed in The Oklahoman about the future of the team when he chose to take a new path toward winning.
“The next great Thunder team is out there somewhere, but it will take time to seize and discipline to ultimately sustain. … To build true excellence in any industry, and then sustain it, requires trading on time and playing the empirical odds. This will require strategic discipline and thoughtful patience, but these are values our organization has always held high. That’s how longevity is earned. Things will inevitably get harder from here. At some point during this transition, we may not have the kind of team you’ve been used to.”
Presti wrote this following a season where the Thunder went 49-33.
49-33!
Presti — and ownership — had courage to change something that was only partially broken in service to building something excellent.
There are parallels to our city here. In 1965, city leaders adopted the I.M Pei plan, which by 1967 tore down 500 (some historic and awesome) buildings in our urban core. Downtown wasn’t broken; city leaders just had a vision for something better. And boy did they get it wrong. Former Mayor Ron Norick lamented later that “downtown is dead and we killed it.” It occurs to me that Presti was doing the same thing in 2019. It was a huge gamble. The type of gamble Oklahoma City has always been willing to take.
The courage to change something only partially broken is hard because you look like an idiot if you fail. You usually wait until something is fully broken before you take action. Recently, I spoke to a client and friend who said something interesting about restructuring an underperforming team.
“The weight was so heavy. I made one move and all of the sudden it was lighter. My work doubled, but now it flows and I’m having fun again.” It makes me wonder if Presti felt like this in 2019.
All of this made me think back to 2007-08 during which time Clay Bennett, his friend Aubrey McClendon and others bought the Seattle SuperSonics. They made a good faith effort to convince the residents of Seattle to build a much needed new arena — not dissimilar to the process OKC went through — only to face public rejection and eventually derision. When it became apparent that a partnership between the Sonics and Seattle wasn’t possible, Bennett had the courage to move the team to a smaller, unproven market while maintaining his vision that we’d be world-class. It was a miserable time for Bennett and his family. He did it anyway.
It is hard to get what you want.
A few brief thoughts on losers, haters, critics
Critics play a very important role in the forming of champions. They provide pointed feedback on how your journey is going. The best critics point out your holes and weak spots. The worst are haters and losers who cackle at those who have the courage to try. Both motivate and are highly effective in your pursuit of goals. I’m so grateful for the critics in my life, not that we are hanging out on weekends.
Champions are built by obsessing over improvement and learning new lessons that can only be accomplished through failure. Sometimes we need help seeing our own shortcomings. The greatest champions listen to the noise but have no time for losers.
They know it is hard to get what they want.
It is almost impossible to be a champion if you are constantly answering critics or make it a habit of being one.
Kevin Durant was traded to the Houston Rockets on the same day his former team played in Game 7. It was the third time he’s been traded since he left OKC. Durant spends a lot of time answering his critics. Durant is the ultimate lone wolf. So good. So strong. An individual who is so unique and so special — yet hopelessly and perpetually malnourished in everything that matters. He seems untethered and separated from the pack. Searching for something. Never finding it.
Sam Anderson is the critic and sometimes celebrated author of “Boom Town, The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding … Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis.”
For starters, the title is too long for a good book. Anderson has a long history of writing about OKC, usually in passive aggressive tones. An effusive compliment is accompanied with a — can you believe this? — judgment. He tells a perverted story of OKC with envious disdain and incredulousness that must resonate with his coastal followers. His most recent high-five, eye roll came on June 5 where this “tiny market in the middle of nowhere” somehow could produce an NBA champion. I wrote an (aging well) review of “Boom Town” here in 2018. I guess that makes me a critic — hopefully it is constructive feedback for Anderson on the real Oklahoma City! Anderson’s misguided and incomplete view of OKC motivates me, too. I cannot decide if he is just a critic or a hater/loser.
The Secret Sauce: Character
Not enough has been written about the character of this year’s Thunder team, which is reflective of the character of this community. ESPN said in a recent post, this time Presti cast for humility instead of swagger. The great teams I’ve been a part of have talent. It is non-negotiable. The greatest have character that exceeds their talent. This nuance has not been fully explored by fans and critics alike but is the differentiator to this year’s team. In the words of head coach Mark Daigneault, it is uncommon. We have a high character community. The Big Friendly is a place where talented people can thrive, both on and off the court.
Talent = potential greatness.
Talent + character = eventual greatness.
Where to from here?
I’ve now lived in Oklahoma City for about 30 years. Winning an NBA championship is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life — perhaps yours, as well. It is a true validation of our city’s ascension and the contributions of many. Like this year’s team, we are not perfect. Lots of room for improvement. If Oklahoma City were a stock, its value would never be more affordable than it is right now.
I took my friend Joe to Game 7. As we were leaving the arena, there were multiple hugs with friends of all kinds. In the excitement, words were not exchanged besides a primal “we did it.” Most of these interactions lasted a few seconds. Joy abounded.
Joe said, “Rarely in life do you not need words. What happened now just is.”
You already know this, but champions are different — uncommon. A few closing thoughts for fellow citizens. It doesn’t matter how many people came to the parade. It doesn’t matter how big the market is. It doesn’t matter how old the players are. These are not measurements of our success.
As Queen’s “We are the Champions” played in the Paycom, I listened to the lyrics. One line stood out. No time for losers, cause we are the champions of the world.
This is a before and after moment for our city. No different than the land run in 1889, Penn Square in 1982, the bombing in 1995 and Katrina in 2005. Our future has always been defined by these tragedies and how we responded. No more. It is hard to get what you want.
What we wanted, we got. Don’t stop us now.
C. Renzi Stone is an Oklahoma City entrepreneur. He writes a weekly Substack called “Never Too Late.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to fix a date.