Please stop using SuperSonics' history like it belongs to the Thunder

USA Today

29-05-2025

Please stop using SuperSonics' history like it belongs to the Thunder
Excuse me, while I step on my soapbox about one of my least favorite technicalities in sports.
(Ahem) Nothing about new reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's Oklahoma City Thunder is even tangentially connected to the former Seattle SuperSonics. Not a single damn thing other than the fact that the Thunder used to reside in the Pacific Northwest hub before a hasty move to the Sooner State spurred by owner Clay Bennett's boundless greed for a shiny, new publicly-funded stadium. Not one thing.
Note: To be clear, this is not a sanctimonious rant about Seattle losing its NBA team. That's a separate discussion altogether.
So, as we get ready for these precocious Thunder to host the 2025 NBA Finals, here's my plea to any would-be sportswriters, sports announcers, social media editors, what have you. If the Thunder do wind up winning the title, and it sure looks like they probably will, please, PLEASE refer to this as the first championship in Thunder franchise history.
In a just world, it should not be labelled as their "first title since 1979," which you may have heard a lot in recent weeks during the Thunder's playoff run. You know, 1979, a.k.a. when they were referred to as the SuperSonics ... in Seattle.
Lenny Wilkens' and Dennis Johnson's champion 1979 SuperSonics are Seattle's history. Their lore belongs to the memories of Seattle fans, past, present, and future (maybe?). That should stay with them while these Thunder, who have now qualified for their second Finals appearance since moving to Oklahoma City in 2008, are allowed to write their own story with their passionate local fans charting all of their accomplishments to remember for years to come.
Along those lines, it is frankly gross and disrespectful to the memory of the SuperSonics, all of their fans, and the Thunder, who, at this point, couldn't be any more distanced from their old city and supporters.
I know this problem is born from a loose technicality where sports leagues like the NBA transfer over team history to franchises that skip town. It happened in the NFL with the Baltimore Colts when they became the Indianapolis Colts, and later when the Cleveland Browns became the Baltimore Ravens (before the Browns returned). It happened in MLB when the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals. It'll also likely happen with the Athletics, assuming they ever actually do make a clean break from Oakland.
Maybe it's an issue of deciding where to keep a franchise's extensive database when it moves cities. This feels solvable by no longer archiving that history for the new city or by suspending operations outright rather than continuing a charade. But I digress.
Pretending a sports team's history stays with an organization when it uproots itself from a community doesn't sit right with me. Because that's not what this whole sports obsession thing is all about.
No reasonable person from Oklahoma City watching Gilgeous-Alexander and Co. ruthlessly dismantle their competition even associates the Thunder with Seattle anymore. They are too far gone and have experienced too much success in a short time in their no-longer-new digs. The Thunder have their own moments of brilliance, heartbreak, and joy that exclusively belong to the people in Oklahoma now. And no reasonable person who reveled in the 1979 Sonics and the later glory days of Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton in the 1990s can make a connection to the unrecognizable Oklahoma City version.
It's not their jerseys, their arena, their players, or their team. It's not a pillar of their community. It just isn't.
The Thunder and the SuperSonics, as we knew them, are two entirely separate entities with two entirely separate histories only merged together by one of the more painful happenings Seattle sports fans have ever experienced. That's it.
Please, for my sanity and both of these fanbases' sakes, let's stop pretending any sort of connection remains.