第三棒～ 看大意请跳至最後一页哈哈～ *** Oklahoma sits right in the middle of the country: it’s not the cultured East or the wild West or the frigid North or the humid South but exactly where all those things meet. The mountains touch the prairies, which touch the plains. This has created, over the millenniums, crazy animals and crazy weather and crazy 25-car pileups of culture. In 1889, the almost unbelievable land run sent tens of thousands of ragtag settlers from all over the country literally racing to claim tracts of practically uninhabitable land. Oklahoma, in other words, is the Hadron supercollider of states: it slams disparate things together, over and over, producing endless crises of cohesion. Even tornadoes, the region’s defining devil winds, are a result of a meteorological collision: a convergence of three different weather systems that happens with freakish regularity in Oklahoma and its immediate environs. Meteorologists in Oklahoma are basically rock stars. 奥克拉荷马坐落在美国中部，不是富有文化气息的东部，也非粗犷蛮荒的西部，不是天寒 地冻的北部，更非潮湿闷热的南部──但是，上述所有特质你都可以在这里找到。从高山 到草原到平原，千百年来，这里的环境造就了疯狂的野生动物、疯狂的气候以及疯狂的二 十五辆汽车连环追撞的自然与人文景观。1889年，那场令人几乎无法置信的土地哄抢热让 数万来自美国各地的中下阶层人民涌入这块土地，争先恐後地索取实质无主地的土地所有 权。[1]也因此，奥克拉荷马州成为了美利坚合众国的「大型强子对撞机」，各种不同的 人、事、物在这块土地上一遍又一遍地冲撞，使得团结一致成了一种遥遥无期的奢望。就 连龙卷风──这个地区最着名的魔鬼之风──都是一种气象学上的冲撞：这是一种由三种 不同的气候系统汇聚而成、频繁在奥克拉荷马及其近郊出现的天气现象──以至於在奥克 拉荷马，气象学家基本上就都跟摇滚明星一样红啦。 [译注1]：也因为奥克拉荷马市是通过这种方式建立起来的，我们可以想像，当时除了合 法的开拓者之外，还有很多非法的移民藏身其中，这些人往往被称为「捷足者」（the sooners），以至於奥克拉荷马州有「捷足者州」（the Sooner State）之别名。关於奥 克拉荷马市的历史，可以参考美国国务院的关於「1889年奥克拉荷马的土地哄抢热」条目 ，网址为： http://ppt.cc/aWaR 。 Professional athletes, on the other hand, have rarely had much of a presence here. That began to change in 2006, when a consortium of wealthy Oklahomans, led by the financier Clay Bennett, bought the Seattle SuperSonics — a once-proud franchise that had been stuck for years in the drain-swirl of mediocrity. Most people assumed, cynically, that Bennett was buying the team in order to move it, as quickly as possible, to Oklahoma City, his hometown. He had pledged to make a good-faith effort to keep the team in Seattle — an effort that came into suspicion shortly after the sale, when the new owner demanded that Seattle come up with nearly $300 million to build a new arena. Seattle refused, at which point the ownership group announced, regretfully, that it was going to have to move the Sonics to a city with a suitable arena — a city that also happened to be Oklahoma City. The fallout was intense: lawsuits, protests, scandal. Even Oklahomans who love the team admit that they were uncomfortable with the way it was acquired. The sportswriter Bill Simmons, in solidarity with the people of Seattle, referred to the Thunder exclusively in his columns as the Zombie Sonics. 然而，职业运动员却鲜少会出现在这里。直到2006年，当一个由金融家Clay Bennett所领 导的来自奥克拉荷马的财团买下了西雅图超音速队──这支曾经风光，如今却身陷低谷的 球队──之後，一切开始有了转变。大多数的人揣测，Bennett会愿意买下西雅图超音速 队，正在於他希望能尽快把这支球队搬到他的家乡奥克拉荷马市。面对这些谣言，Bennett 信誓旦旦地保证他会尽可能地让这支球队留在西雅图──然而，Bennett的承诺却在球队 售出後不久，当他要求西雅图必须支付约三亿美元以兴建新的体育馆之後，变得摇摇欲坠 。西雅图当局遗憾地选择拒绝这样的要求，而这便促成了超音速队必须离开西雅图，另觅 一个拥有合适场馆的落脚处的事实。这座城市，正是奥克拉荷马市。此事件激起了巨大的 余波：诉讼、抗议、丑闻。甚至於许多由衷爱护这支球队的奥克拉荷马人也得承认，他们 对於自己的城市获得这样一支球队的方式并不感到自在。运动专栏作家Bill Simmons── 他与西雅图市民团结一致──在自己的专栏中甚至用「殭屍超音速队」（the Zombie Sonics）来称呼雷霆队。[2] [译注2]：个人觉得「zombie」的意象有点难翻，Bill用这个字应该是想要表达超音速的灵 魂已死，但这个身体却仍然在奥克拉荷马被使用着的那种感觉。 One of the miracles of the modern Thunder — and there are several — is how quickly they’ve made people forget the stain of their origin. The re-branding of the franchise has been quick and efficient: the team is now widely perceived as principled, well run and — above all — thoroughly Oklahoman. ESPN recently named it the No. 1 sports franchise in America. This fall, it seemed like a step toward closure when the Seattle City Council approved a plan to build a new basketball arena there. Simmons announced, just a few weeks ago, that he was officially retiring the phrase Zombie Sonics. In almost no time at all, the Oklahoma City Thunder had achieved escape velocity. 不过，现在的雷霆队所缔造的诸多奇蹟中的一个，正是他们是如此迅速地使人忘却其诞生 过程中所具有的这个污点。这支球队快速且有效地重新获致令名，以至於如今已被广泛地 认为是职业球队经营的典范，以及──最重要的是──这是一支彻彻底底的奥克拉荷马的 球队。ESPN最近更将这支球队列为全美No. 1的职业运动队。今年秋天，随着西雅图市议 会同意在西雅图市规划一座新的场馆，一切的纷纷扰扰似有告一段落之势。而Simmons也 在几周之前宣布，他将不再使用「殭屍超音速」这样的名字来称呼雷霆队。几乎没有花费 多少时间，奥克拉荷马市雷霆就已经成功迅速脱离这一切麻烦。 Much of the credit for this turnaround goes to Sam Presti, the Thunder’s general manager. Presti took over the team the year before they left Seattle. He was 29, the youngest G.M. in league history. His first move was to draft Kevin Durant, which anyone would have done. His second, less obvious decision was to strip the roster of all the veterans and big contracts that would have prevented him from rebuilding from scratch. When the team moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City, Presti found himself in charge of not only the worst team in the league but also one of the worst in the history of professional basketball. The Oklahoma City Thunder won 3 games out of their first 32. This record, 3-29, is now a kind of touchstone in the organization — almost everyone I talked to invoked it at some point, and many of them even exaggerated it to 3-30. 而雷霆队能够成功地在人们心目中变身，最重要的功臣就是雷霆队的总管Sam Presti。 Presti在球队离开西雅图的前一年接手管理当时的超音速队。他当时只有29岁，是联盟历 史上最年轻的球队总管。他接手超音速队後，第一个动作便是做了一件当年谁都会做的事 ──在选秀中选了Kevin Durant。他的第二个动作──明显没有第一个动作那般为人所知 ──则是清理球队中不符合其重建规划的老将以及大约。当球队从西雅图迁移至奥克拉荷 马市的时候，Presti所管理的这支球队不只是联盟中的最烂，还是美国职业篮球史中最烂 的球队之一。在前32场比赛中，奥克拉荷马雷霆队仅仅赢得了3场胜利。这个纪录──3胜 29败──如今成为了队中某种奇怪的标准──几乎所有与我谈话的人都会在一些特定时候 提起这个纪录，许多人甚至还会不小心说成「3胜30败」。 Most G.M.’s would have panicked, but that isn’t Presti’s way: he moved patiently, methodically. He overhauled not only the roster of the team but also the culture of the organization. This involved rethinking everything, no matter how small, from meeting times to media policy to the decorations on the practice-facility walls. Everyone soon became familiar with the Presti buzzwords: process, system, patience, sustainability. He made a habit of promoting people within the organization so that, from top to bottom, the Thunder became very young and tightly knit. He stressed community outreach to an unusual degree. He devoted extra resources to the development of the young Thunder players and, on the marketing side, refused to call attention to any single player apart from his teammates, even Durant, who was quickly becoming an international superstar. Meanwhile, Presti used high draft picks to surround Durant with other promising young players — Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, James Harden — all of whom overachieved, relative to the rest of their draft classes, to an almost amazing degree. 面对这种困境，大部分的球队总管都会感到恐慌，然而这不是Presti的风格：Presti有耐 心地、有方法地一步一步前进。他不只把球队成员换了个遍，亦重新塑造了这支球队的队 内文化──这包括重新思考与球队相关的所有事情，不论事情有多繁琐，因此从球队的集 合时间到媒体采访相关事宜到练习场中墙壁的装饰该当如何，都成了Presti重新形塑球队 文化的过程中会顾虑到的环节。所以，很快地，所有人都对Presti的惯用语变得相当熟悉 了： process、system、patience、sustainability。他非常善於提拔人才，以至於雷霆 这支球队由上至下所有的人都非常年轻而团结一致。他强调社区关怀，甚至到了一种不寻 常的地步。他致力於提供额外的资源给年轻的雷霆球员们，而在行销方面，他拒绝那种强 调单一球员而非球队整体的行销方式，甚至是对KD这位迅速成为国际篮球巨星的球员也是 如此。同时，Presti用了几支高顺位选秀签，使KD周围环绕了其他同样具有巨大潜力与灿 烂未来的年轻球员──Russell Westbrook、Serge Ibaka、James Harden──相较於其他 同梯的球员，他们全都表现得比当初预期得要好得多，甚至只能用惊奇来形容了。 The Presti rebuild, a meticulously rational plan, now looks a lot like a fairy tale. The Thunder has improved, year by year, exactly on schedule: they made the playoffs in their second season, the Western Conference finals in their third and the Finals last year. If the Thunder doesn’t win the title this year, it will seem almost unfair — a violation of the basic laws of narrative. Among basketball fans, Presti has become a mythic braniac legend, the managerial equivalent of Kevin Durant: young, focused, dominant and improbably humble. Presti这种一丝不苟的、极为理性的重建计画，如今看起来就好像是一则童话故事一般。 雷霆依循着Presti的计划表，一年比一年进步：他们在第二季时拿到了季後赛入场券，在 第三季时进到了西区冠军赛，并且就在去年尽到了总冠军赛的殿堂。如果雷霆今年没有拿 下总冠军的话，那看起来就有违童话故事的常理了。在篮球迷心中，Presti早已变成了一 种神奇的、布莱尼亚克式的传奇人物[3]，是总管界的Kevin Durant：年轻、专注、具有 支配力、几乎不可能地谦逊。 [译注3]：Braniac是《超人》系列漫画中的一位反派角色。 *** 看到板上大家那麽热血，让我不小心奋不顾身地熬夜翻了一下...OTZ 这部分内容满中规中矩，大意就是： （一）从西雅图超音速到奥克拉荷马市雷霆 （二）让我们来崇拜sublime的总管大人Sam Presti，他是总管界的KD（啥 希望大家看得愉快～ 然後明天无法看球呜呜，希望顺利拿下，THUNDER UP!! --

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