"Before the opening quarter had grown eight minutes old, a female fan seated in Section 119 pulled out a stack of papers and a purple highlighter. While her boyfriend appeared focused on the action that actually brought the couple out, the woman deemed it a better use of her time to review a market report for her consulting company.

By the midway point of the third quarter, an adult male fan halfway down Section 102 was slumped in his seat…sleeping.

Throughout the remainder of the arena, rows and rows of empty seats represented the apathy that has set in for fans of the professional basketball team in our nation's capital.

This, much more than the league-worst Washington Wizards, was what the Thunder was up against on Wednesday night. It was the ultimate test of mental fortitude, an opponent headed nowhere fast, looking for a fleeting, feel-good win against basketball's best team, whose lone goal is centered on a championship and whose preseason objective on the journey there was to not get bored with blips like these on the NBA schedule."