Oklahoma City Thunder

History

1967–2008: Seattle SuperSonics

The Thunder's previous incarnation, the Seattle SuperSonics, were formed in 1967. In their 41 seasons in Seattle, the SuperSonics compiled a 1,745–1,585 (.524) win–loss record in the regular season and went 107–110 (.493) in the playoffs. The franchise's titles include three Western Conference championships (1978, 1979 and 1996) and one NBA title in 1979. In their last season, they drafted franchise player Kevin Durant, setting up the Thunder for success.

2008–2016: Durant and Westbrook era

In 2006, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold the SuperSonics and its Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) sister franchise, the Seattle Storm, for $350 million to the Professional Basketball Club LLC, a group of Oklahoma City investors led by Clay Bennett. The sale of the SuperSonics and Storm was approved by NBA owners the following October. In 2007, Bennett announced that the franchise would move to Oklahoma City as soon as the lease with KeyArena expired.

In June 2008, a lawsuit brought by the city of Seattle against Bennett due to his attempts to break the final two years of the Sonics' lease at KeyArena went to federal court. Nearly a month later, the two sides reached a settlement agreement. The terms awarded the city $45 million to get out of the remaining lease at KeyArena, and would have provided an additional $30 million payment to Seattle in 2013 if certain conditions had been met. The owners agreed to leave the SuperSonics name, logo, colors, banners, trophies, and records in Seattle for a possible future NBA franchise; however, the items would remain the property of the Oklahoma City team along with other "assets", including championship banners and trophies until a new Seattle team arrives. On September 3, 2008, the team name, logo and colors for the Oklahoma City franchise were revealed to the public. The name "Thunder" was chosen in reference to Oklahoma's location in Tornado Alley and Oklahoma City as the home of the U.S. Army's 45th Infantry Division, the Thunderbirds. The SuperSonics' final NBA draft was in 2008, and they used the fourth overall pick to select Russell Westbrook, a young point guard from UCLA, who would become the team's franchise player.

The Thunder participated in the Orlando Pro Summer League featuring their second-year players, potential free agents and rookies. The players wore generic black and white jerseys reading "OKC-NBA" against an outline of a basketball. The Thunder's temporary practice facility was the Sawyer Center at Southern Nazarene University, which had been used by the New Orleans Hornets when they moved to Oklahoma City after Hurricane Katrina.

The Thunder played several preseason games before the 2008–09 regular season, but only one of those games was in Oklahoma City. The Thunder made their first appearance in Billings, Montana on October 8, 2008, in an 88–82 preseason loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Thunder played their first Ford Center game on October 14 against the Los Angeles Clippers.

2016–2019: Russell Westbrook era

After much speculation on the future of free agent superstar Kevin Durant, he announced on July 4, 2016, that he was joining the Warriors. The move to join the 73-win team from last season was heavily criticized by the public and sports media, with many comparing the move to LeBron James' 2010 off-season departure from Cleveland to the Miami Heat. On July 7, Durant was officially introduced by the Warriors organization and signed a two-year, $54.3 million contract, with a player option after the first year.

On August 4, 2016, Westbrook agreed to a three-year extension to remain with the Thunder.

With an average of 31.6 points, 10.4 assists and 10.7 rebounds, Westbrook became the second player in NBA history, after Oscar Robertson, to average a triple-double for an entire NBA regular season. On April 2, 2017, Westbrook tied Oscar Robertson's record for most triple-doubles in an NBA season (41); he broke the record on April 9 against the Denver Nuggets, marking his 42nd triple-double of the season. Westbrook, in that game, also hit the game-winning buzzer beater from 36 feet, ending the Nuggets' playoffs hopes and securing the Thunder's third-seed matchup with the Houston Rockets in the NBA playoffs. Oklahoma City lost the playoff series in the first round to the Rockets 4–1. Despite the team's loss, Westbrook averaged a +14 while on the court and a triple-double during the series and was named league MVP after the season.

In the 2017 NBA draft, the Thunder selected guard Terrance Ferguson with the 21st pick, and signed him to a four-year rookie-scale contract.

To further bolster the roster and improve Westbrook's supporting cast, the Thunder's front office made a series of aggressive moves to reshape the team. On July 6, 2017, the Thunder acquired four-time All-Star forward Paul George in a trade with the Indiana Pacers in exchange for guard Victor Oladipo and forward Domantas Sabonis. The team then signed veteran point guard Raymond Felton and sharp-shooting power forward Patrick Patterson in free agency on July 10. Finally, on September 25, the Thunder acquired ten-time All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony from the New York Knicks in exchange for center Enes Kanter, forward Doug McDermott, and a 2018 second-round draft pick they had previously acquired from the Chicago Bulls in the Cameron Payne trade. On September 29, 2017, the Thunder signed its star point guard Russell Westbrook to a five-year extension. The Thunder finished the 2017–18 season with a 48–34 record and lost to the Utah Jazz 4–2 in the first round of the playoffs.

2019–present: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander era

General manager Sam Presti traded Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers on July 10, 2019. In return, they received Danilo Gallinari, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and a record collection of future first-round draft picks. It was reported after the trade was announced that George had privately requested the trade to the Clippers, whose superstar free agent Kawhi Leonard had asked him to team up. They also traded forward Jerami Grant to the Denver Nuggets for a 2020 protected first-round pick.

After the George trade, general manager Presti sensed that the team could not seriously contend with Westbrook as the lone star. On July 16, the Thunder traded Westbrook to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul, two future first-round draft picks, and the rights to two future pick swaps with the Rockets.

Paul made the 2020 NBA All-Star Game as a reserve, making it his 10th selection, and his first since 2015–16.

After the suspension of the 2019–20 NBA season, the Thunder were one of the 22 teams invited to the NBA Bubble to participate in the final eight games of the regular season. The Thunder were eliminated in 7 games vs Paul's former team, the Houston Rockets.

After the season, Billy Donovan's contract was not renewed, and both sides agreed to part ways. On November 11, 2020, Mark Daigneault was promoted from assistant coach to head coach.

Before the 2020–21 NBA season, Chris Paul was traded to the Phoenix Suns for Kelly Oubre Jr., Ricky Rubio, two additional players and a 2022 first-round draft pick. Oubre, Rubio and several Thunder veterans from the 2019–20 season, such as Steven Adams, Dennis Schröder and Danilo Gallinari, were traded away in the next several days as well, with the Thunder receiving draft picks as part of compensation in most of those transactions. Overall, the team executed 14 trades after the end of the 2019–20 season and before the 2021 trade deadline.

Five-time NBA All-Star Al Horford was one of the players acquired before the season. After one season, he was also traded for four-time All-Star Kemba Walker, with Thunder acquiring first-round draft picks as well in both transactions.

Rivalries

San Antonio Spurs

The Spurs-Thunder rivalry dates back to the 2010s era of basketball which included stars Tim Duncan, Kevin Durant, and Tony Parker. Both squads faced off three times in the playoffs, including two Western Conference Finals matchups with the Thunder holding the 2–1 advantage.

In the 2020s, the rivalry became prominent, driven by matchups between young players such as Victor Wembanyama and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Following the Spurs' early-season success against the defending champions Thunder, including wins in the NBA Cup, the teams developed a familiarity, with geographic proximity in Texas and Oklahoma adding to the tension.

Dallas Mavericks

The Mavericks-Thunder rivalry in the early 2010s was a premier Western Conference matchup defined by high-stakes playoff battles, most notably in 2011 and 2012. Dallas overcame OKC in the 2011 WCF en route to a title, while the Thunder swept the defending-champion Mavericks in the 2012 first round.

In the 2020s, The rivalry is emerged in the mid-2020s as one of the NBA's premier, heated matchups, characterized by intense playoff battles, stylistic differences, and geographic proximity. Fueled by the rise of superstars Luka Dončić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the rivalry is considered a "must-watch" feud for the rest of the decade.

Season-by-season record

List of the last five seasons completed by the Thunder. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Oklahoma City Thunder seasons.

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, W–L% = Winning percentage

Franchise accomplishments

Single game records

Points: 58 (2 times), by Fred Brown vs. Golden State Warriors, March 23, 1974, and Russell Westbrook vs. Portland Trail Blazers, March 8, 2017

Rebounds: 30, Jim Fox vs. Los Angeles Lakers, December 26, 1973

Assists: 25, by Nate McMillan vs. Los Angeles Clippers, February 23, 1987

Steals: 10 (2 times), by Gus Williams vs. New Jersey Nets, February 22, 1978, and Fred Brown vs. Philadelphia 76ers, December 3, 1976

Blocks: 11, by Serge Ibaka vs. Denver Nuggets, February 19, 2012

Home arenas

Note: All arenas used before 2008 were used by the defunct Seattle SuperSonics franchise.

Seattle arenas had hosted two NBA All-Star Games; the 1974 game in Seattle Center Coliseum and the 1987 game in the Kingdome, where SuperSonics forward Tom Chambers grabbed MVP honors.

Seattle Center Coliseum 1967–1978 (occasionally used during the Kingdome years when the latter was unavailable due to either Seattle Mariners or Seattle Seahawks games)

Kingdome 1978–1985

Seattle Center Coliseum 1985–1994

Tacoma Dome 1994–1995 (During Seattle Center Coliseum renovation)

KeyArena (the remodeled and renamed Seattle Center Coliseum now Climate Pledge arena) 1995–2008

Paycom Center (2008–present)

Opened on June 8, 2002, as the Ford Center, Paycom Center was built without luxury accommodations but designed to accommodate luxury "buildouts" should a professional sports franchise make the Paycom Center their home arena. It was finished at a cost of $89.2 million.

A plan for such build-out improvements began in 2007, after an Oklahoma City-based ownership group bought the Seattle SuperSonics. A city ballot initiative, approved by a 62 percent margin on March 4, 2008, extended a one-cent city sales tax for 15 months to fund $101 million in budgeted improvements to the arena and a separate $20 million practice facility for a franchise to be moved from some other city.

Renovation work on the arena was delayed by the 2008–10 economic crisis, which reduced the city's revenue from sales taxes. Revised plans limited the size of a new glass entryway and eliminated a practice court to accommodate the shortfall. Major construction work on the arena expansion was also delayed from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2011. Seating capacity of the stadium is 18,203 for professional NBA basketball games.

Similar revisions were made to the plans for the Thunder's separate practice facility, for a total savings of approximately $14 million. The Thunder's practice facility completion date was pushed back to about March 2011. Chesapeake Energy, which had naming rights after 2011 filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 28, 2020, with a debt of $9 billion, with the effect on the arena's naming rights not yet known at that time. However, on April 20, 2021, the company terminated the deal as part of its corporate restructuring. The arena retained its name during the Thunder's search for a new sponsor.

On July 27, 2021, it was announced that Paycom will acquire the naming rights for the arena for a 15-year period, renaming it Paycom Center.

Continental Coliseum (2028–future)

On September 12, 2023, Oklahoma City announced they were planning on building a new downtown arena for the Thunder at the cost of at least $900 million and with an estimated 2029 opening. The team's owner requested that Oklahoma City provide most of the funding for the stadium construction cost. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, an avid supporter of the stadium subsidy, stated that he was confident that the team would leave Oklahoma City unless the city paid for the new stadium. In a December 2023 referendum, Oklahoma City voters voted to pay for at least $850 million of the cost of the stadium while the team, valued at $3 billion, would pay $50 million. Economics professor J.C. Bradbury, who specializes in the study of stadium subsidies, wrote of the agreement, "It is by far the worst stadium deal I've ever seen negotiated from a public standpoint."

Mascots

Note: All mascots used before 2008 were used by the original Seattle SuperSonics franchise.

Wheedle, 1978–1985

Squatch, 1993–2008

Rumble the Bison

On February 17, 2009, Rumble the Bison was introduced as the Oklahoma City Thunder mascot during halftime of a game against the New Orleans Hornets. Rumble was the winner of the 2008–2009 NBA Mascot of the Year.

Fanbase

During the 2012 NBA Finals, sportswriter Bill Simmons published a piece on the team's fan base in his ESPN-sponsored Web outlet, Grantland.com, in which he noted the unusual enthusiasm of the city for its team:

With the possible exception of Portland, no NBA team means more to its city. This goes beyond having the loudest fans. There's genuine devotion here. These people arrived a good 45 minutes early for last night's Game 1—and by "these people" I mean "everyone with a ticket"—then clapped their way through pregame warm-ups with such infectious enthusiasm that I remember saying to a friend, "No way these yahoos keep this up for three hours, they're going to burn out." Wrong. You know what burned out? My eardrums. My head is still ringing.

Simmons speculated that the Oklahoma City bombing played a major part in the team's culture, noting that Thunder general manager Sam Presti has every new Thunder player visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and encourages players to look into the stands and consider that many of the team's fans were personally affected by the event. He also noted, however, that the fact that the Thunder is the only team from Oklahoma City (or indeed the state of Oklahoma) in one of the nation's four major leagues contributes mightily to the city's devotion.

Thunder fans are also reportedly much more likely to attend major home games than most other NBA fanbases. According to a source in the ticket industry, only five percent of tickets to the 2012 NBA conference finals listed for sale on secondary market sites such as StubHub were for Thunder home games, and for every ticket listed for a Thunder home game in the 2012 NBA Finals, 10 tickets for Heat home games were listed.

The team and its fanbase regularly use the slogan "Thunder Up!" which was prominently displayed on T-shirts during the 2012 playoffs.

In the 2023–24 season, the Thunder ranked 23rd out of 30 teams in per-game attendance while filling under 96% of their arena on average.

Personnel

Individual awards

For details on Seattle SuperSonics history, see Seattle SuperSonics records.

Retired numbers

Since moving from Seattle to Oklahoma City, the Thunder have officially retired one jersey number: 4, retired on March 20, 2019, to honor Nick Collison, who played for the team from 2003 to 2018.

The Seattle SuperSonics had retired six numbers and awarded an honorary microphone to longtime broadcaster Bob Blackburn, who had called most of the team's games from 1967 through 1992.

Notes:

1 Served as head coach (2000–2005).

2 Served as head coach (1969–1972; 1977–1985).

The NBA retired Bill Russell's No. 6 for all its member teams on August 11, 2022.

Staff

General managers

2008–present: Sam Presti

Logos and uniforms

The Oklahoma City Thunder unveiled their first logo on September 3, 2008. According to majority owner Clay Bennett, the team's logo takes several of its elements from other Oklahoma sports teams, such as the Oklahoma Sooners and Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls. The uniform design was unveiled on September 29, 2008.

An alternate uniform was unveiled on November 8, 2012, featuring navy blue and white. Unlike their regular uniforms, the wordmarks on the alternate are written vertically.

A second alternate uniform was unveiled on March 1, 2015. A white uniform with sleeves, it features the Thunder partial logo in the center of the chest, and the shorts have bolts in light blue and sunset colors.

A third alternate uniform was unveiled on September 25, 2015. A sunset-colored uniform, it features the Oklahoma City abbreviation "OKC" in navy block letters trimmed in white. On the back of the jersey, player names sit below the numbers. The shorts display a sunset base with navy panels down the side with the Thunder partial logo on each leg. The Thunder wore the sunset alternates for 18 games in the 2015–2016 season, including all 13 of its Sunday games.

Moving to Nike in 2017, the Thunder kept their existing white ("Association") and blue ("Icon") uniforms almost intact with the exception of the "OKC" abbreviation on the beltline and truncated shoulder stripes. The team also released a new alternate "Statement" uniform with italicized "OKC" lettering in sunset orange and a navy base with blue gradients intended to evoke the sound of cheering.

The Thunder also collaborated with Nike to produce annual "City" edition uniforms intended to pay tribute to local cultures or team traditions. The 2017–18 "City" uniform had a grey base with sunset orange and blue lines that were inspired by the Thunder's uptempo style. For 2018–19, the Thunder's "City" uniform had a turquoise base and bold white lettering with navy and sunset orange trim; the uniform was inspired by Oklahoma's Native American heritage.

Nike also released an "Earned" uniform starting with the 2018–19 season and were only given to the 16 teams who qualified in the 2018 NBA playoffs. The Thunder's "Earned" uniform was a basic palette swap of the team's "Statement" uniforms, featuring a sunset orange base and navy letters.

Television and radio

Radio

All Thunder games are broadcast on the Thunder Radio Network, fronted by flagship stations WWLS-FM (98.1) and KWPN (640 AM) in Oklahoma City. Matt Pinto is the radio voice of the Thunder.

Television

For their first two seasons, the Thunder's TV broadcasts were split between Fox Sports Oklahoma (a regional fork of Fox Sports Southwest), which broadcast most of the games, and independent station KSBI (channel 52), with around 65 Thunder games airing during the season and more than half of the games available in HD on Fox Sports Oklahoma, along with other team-related programming such as pre-game shows. Around 15 to 20 regular season games were broadcast over the air on KSBI, which had a network of re-broadcasters spanning the entire state. All televised games are called by Brian Davis on play-by-play and Michael Cage as color commentator. During the 2009–10 season, KSBI telecast all Thunder games it aired in high definition (KSBI had previously aired in HD the first regular season game played at the Ford Center—against the Milwaukee Bucks on October 29, 2008—while all other games during the 2008–09 season were telecast on KSBI in standard definition).

On August 3, 2010, the Thunder signed a new exclusive multi-year agreement with Fox Sports Oklahoma (since rebranded as Bally Sports Oklahoma as of 2021), beginning with the 2010–11 season, ending the team's broadcasts on KSBI. On October 22, 2012, the Thunder announced that Lesley McCaslin would be the new Thunder sideline reporter. On July 21, 2014, the Thunder announced that Long would not return to be its TV color commentator on Fox Sports Oklahoma. On September 17, 2014, the Oklahoma City Thunder announced that 15-year NBA veteran Michael Cage would be the new color analyst, joining Brian Davis on television and Matt Pinto on the radio when the game is exclusive to a national television broadcast. Davis was replaced as the television play-by-play announcer by Chris Fisher before the 2018–19 season.

As a result of the bankruptcy of Bally Sports parent company Diamond Sports Group, in January 2024, the Thunder reached an agreement with Griffin Media to air a package of eight Friday night games on local over-the-air stations within the team's territory during the remainder of the 2023–24 NBA season. Games aired on Griffin-owned KSBI/Oklahoma City and KOTV-DT3/Tulsa, and syndicated to stations owned by Gray Television (KSWO-DT3/Lawton and KSCW-DT/Wichita) and Morgan Murphy Media (KOAM-TV–KFJX–KFJX-DT3/Joplin–Pittsburg).

With the winddown of FanDuel Sports Network in 2026, the Thunder announced a deal with Griffin to take over distribution of the team's regional games in the 2026–27 NBA season via the "Thunder Gameday Network"; the games will primarily air on pay television-exclusive feeds of KSBI in Oklahoma City and KQCW in Tulsa distributed via participating television providers. Ten games will air on broadcast television, with six on KSBI/KQCW, and four on KWTV/KOTV. The team will also offer a "Thunder+" subscription service on the NBA app.