It’s been a few years of drama, but now the OKC Thunder can finally get back to what they do best: shocking the world.
Close your eyes for me, and picture – no wait, open your eyes and keep reading. I didn’t think that through. But do picture. Picture in your mind not your perception of Oklahoma, with the bigger-than-they-think cities and the even-nicer-than-they-think people.
Don’t picture your favorite restaurants, or your favorite bars, or the spots you know in your heart are better than whatever those “big cities” have to offer. Don’t picture your neighbors and friends and family, the ones who really make Oklahoma what it is.
Picture, instead, how Oklahoma is seen nationally. What do you see? I live in Seattle, and I can tell you, I don’t see the drive down 51 with all its old oaks and young hills. No, through the nation’s eyes I see the drive from Tulsa to Oklahoma City on the Turnpike. Flat land. Straight roads. The occasional McDonald’s. I see fields of corn for some reason, and I see cattle. But mostly I just see boredom.
We know better, you and I. We’ve been to the lake, and we’ve floated the river. Keep your beaches. You and I, we’ve long ago accepted that view of Oklahoma as a cliché, and it bounces off our backs now. Or maybe I’ve just grown a thick skin in Seattle. The fact is, though, that’s how the nation, writ large, perceives the land where the waving wheat sure smells sweet, and the wind goes sweeping down the plains.
Before you get angry, though, before you become indignant and righteous and correct, consider this: We have the Thunder.
That OKC charm
From the beginning, there was always something about this team. Something quaint and charming, yet, at the same time loud, riveting, raucous. The OKC Thunder came to this (if not maligned, disregarded) state in 2008, and immediately granted it a national identity.
From the beginning, the nature of the OKC Thunder matched their city. They were children, not worthy of respect until they forced it. They were Thunder U, and ahead of their time, and they were this:
Consider that they were the media darlings with no drama or dysfunction or flaws. They were good people, quiet people, hard workers. They even set the third highest mark ever for free throw percentage – how unassailably precocious!
And that was the way it was for a while. No, sorry, for a WHILE, in NBA terms. Do you remember when The Daily Oklahoman ran that unfortunate headline, “Mr. Unreliable,” and then redacted it because of the backlash? How dare you insult something so pure, so right?
For approximately forever, the only thing that mattered in Oklahoma City was the basketball. Practice in a converted skating rink that smelled like dog food? Whatever, we’re winning games. Traded James Harden? One-seed, historically great +9.2 point differential. Russell Westbrook injured his knee? We’ll get ’em next year.
And that’s how it was for a while, until contracts began wasting away like candles burning too brightly, and Kevin Durant refused to give any of the truth that Russell Westbrook has become famous for. From 2015, when the season of KD’s pending free-agency began, until 2018, the summer of Paul George‘s commitment, and for all of Russell Westbrook’s potential free agencies and re-ups in between, this franchise has had not a moment of peace.
More importantly, the OKC Thunder have not had a chance to return to their roots.