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New York Times
9 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Thunder, Oklahoma City have reinforced each other through shared rebuilds and flourished
OKLAHOMA CITY — It's quiet at KD's old place. Not empty, mind you. There are people enjoying the burgers and salads and well-made drinks in this restaurant, which is now known as Charleston's, in the Bricktown neighborhood that serves as downtown's major entertainment hub. But there used to be a buzz. A pulsating energy of sorts, every time you walked into this spot. A decade ago, it was called KD's — the vanity gastro project of Kevin Durant, the then-champion of this city. Durant was Oklahoma City's gleaming pride, his 2014 speech accepting the NBA's MVP award in which he was moved to tears discussing his mother, Wanda's, sacrifices, providing a civic iconography. KD = OKC. Advertisement But that seems so long ago. Longer than nine years, anyway. That Thunder team, built at warp speed around Durant and Russell Westbrook and James Harden after the franchise relocated from Seattle in 2008, has been replaced, almost as quickly, by a new, dominant one, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and featuring a defense that attacks opponent dribbles like a shoal of piranhas. This one has its own league MVP in SGA, along with a beguiling rotation of homegrown All-Stars (Jalen Williams), supremely gifted role players (Chet Holmgren, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace) and free agent/acquired imports (Alex Caruso, Isaiah Hartenstein) who've fit right in during a magical season that has the Thunder, after dominating the NBA's regular season with a 68-14 record, back in the NBA Finals, against the Pacers. Thunder 2.0 has quickly become beloved here, with its rabid fans' non-stop, almost desperate chants of 'OKC…OKC…OKC' at home games over 48 minutes surely meant, first, for the team. But, also, maybe, for themselves. To paraphrase the chants of the residents of Whoville in the Dr. Seuss Classic, 'Horton Hears a Who': We are (still) here, we are (still) here, we are (still) here… 'We don't take it for granted,' Holmgren said Saturday. 'We appreciate how loud it gets in here every game. It makes us want to go out there and kind of represent well. I feel like we're an extension of them, and they feel the same way. They kind of expect, they have a certain level of expectation for us, in terms of the way we carry ourselves, the way we kind of go out there and try to execute. Going out there and doing those things doesn't guarantee a win every night, but we know the city's heart is in it, so we kind of have to have our heart in it at the same time.' If that sounds a little college, rah-rah …well, this is kind of a college, rah-rah town. That's not said snidely or condescendingly. There is a symbiosis between this team and its fan base, the resurgence of one feeding the other, without much of the cynicism that permeates pro fan bases elsewhere, who chafe at the astronomical salaries of players and the equally high costs of the infrastructure needed to keep them around. Advertisement 'I always compare it to, like, a small local high school football team being really good, and the city around them kind of gathers around them,' Williams said before Game 1. 'That's how Oklahoma is. But it's (like) that with the whole state. Everywhere we go, I've been met with love since I've been out here. It's a really cool experience. Even the past two years, I'm really happy I get to be a part of two really good teams. I think it just brings the city more and more life. I'm happy that we get to bring that back here.' There are other pro sports teams here, like the Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate, the Oklahoma City Comets. But the Thunder remain the show. 'As superficial as it sounds, you are who your sports teams play,' said former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett, a driving force behind the efforts that persuaded local voters to come out of pocket, time after time, to finance the city's redevelopment. 'When we were playing a Triple-A schedule for pro sports teams, those were our peer cities,' Cornett said. 'In October of 2005, when the Hornets landed (in a temporary relocation after Hurricane Katrina forced them out of New Orleans), it all changed. Suddenly, we were playing Los Angeles and Chicago and Dallas. And we've never really looked back. And I think we've thought of ourselves differently. And then, the brand, today, is largely positive. That has to be because they now connect our city with the positive energy of a basketball team. 'And all of the economic measurements, and all of the data about highly educated young people moving here, all that's great. But that's only hand-in-hand with being an NBA city. Because highly educated young people want to be in a city that's culturally relevant. And having an NBA team makes you culturally relevant to the rest of the world.' The majority of people in and around town agree with this sentiment. Not all, though. Speed — impatience? — seems to always be part of this city, which might seem contradictory to those who don't live here. Few non-natives think of Oklahoma City as 'fast,' in the traditional sense. But the city was created, literally, in a day. Or, days. Advertisement Oklahoma City, as the author Sam Anderson wrote in his detailed history of the city, 'Boom Town,' has an actual birthday: April 22, 1889. That day became known as the Land Run, when what was then called the Unassigned Lands of the then-territory — approximately 2 million acres — were, literally, flung open to the world for anyone to claim as their own. Of course, the lands were anything but 'unassigned,' unless by that you mean 'unassigned to White people,' which is surely what the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 meant. On that day, settlers from around the world brought all they owned into the Unassigned Lands and staked their claims to it. Anarchy was disguised as progress. 'It was far too many people for the amount of good land available,' Anderson wrote, 'but from the very start, Oklahoma was an idea that far exceeded its reality.' After the territory was colonized, the city had periods of boom and bust, like most U.S. cities. The busts, though, were longer-lasting. Well into the 1990s, the city was desperate for new development. Yet few American cities have grown faster in the last quarter-century. OKC has risen to the 20th-largest U.S. city in the last decade-plus. Twenty-five years ago, there was one hotel in Bricktown. Now, according to Cornett, there are 29. 'Most people here, they wasn't really into basketball like that until we got a team. Now college football, they could talk about that all day,' says the rap artist Jabee, an Oklahoma City native. 'For us, it's bigger than basketball,' he said. 'Oklahoma City is such a unique city when you think about the history and stuff. We aren't looked at as, like, something to do, or a place to be, a place to go. But over time, we've seen it happen. I was in New York at a Disney Store, and this group of people was standing there. They were talking about the Thunder, and they had accents. And I was talking to them, and they were from, like, Switzerland or Sweden, something like that. And I told them I'm from Oklahoma. And they were like, 'We're going to try to make that our visit next year, when we come back.' And that's all from the excitement of seeing what the Thunder bring.' Not only has the city gotten behind the Thunder, but it's continued its longstanding relationship with softball. The Women's College World Series was here this past week, with Texas beating Texas Tech in three games to claim its first national championship in the sport. That tie will extend to 2028, when the city will provide competition venues for both softball and canoe slalom in the Summer Olympics — the bulk of which will be in the host city of Los Angeles, 1,329 miles to the west. Advertisement At the root of this fantastical expansion is a series of one-cent sales-tax packages, known locally as MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects), that have raised enough money to build the Thunder's current arena, Paycom Center, along with many of the other new buildings downtown, and to also, since 2001, refurbish many of the city's and surrounding counties' public schools. It only took Thunder president Sam Presti six years to rebuild a new juggernaut from the ashes of the old one — a completely new and different type of team than the one that depended almost entirely on Durant's brilliance in the half court and Westbrook's unlimited, fearless hurtling of his body toward the basket. This one certainly centers around Gilgeous-Alexander, but it's much more free-flowing and egalitarian — a lot like the San Antonio teams on which Presti cut his eyeteeth as a young, rising executive in the Spurs' organization. The modern iteration of the city, of course, is not just shaped by its urban renewal, but by the never-healing scar of being subject to the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history — the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, which killed 168 people. 'When I became mayor, we had a wounded brand,' Cornett said. 'I could see in people's faces, all they could see was the bombing. Outside capital wasn't going to invest in Oklahoma City. They felt sorry for us, but they weren't going to invest money in it.' So Oklahoma City's citizens had to start the ball rolling. Four times since 1993, voters have approved beginning or renewing another version of MAPS, and in 2023, they voted for yet another one-cent tax on top of that over a six-year period that will provide the bulk of the funding for a new, nearly $1 billion arena for the Thunder. That venue will be built across the street from the current arena, on the site of the city's old convention center. Presti would never — ever — discuss his individual role in remaking this team, twice, in less than two decades, into one of the league's best. He will, though, on occasion, discuss how the team fits into the city's firmament. Advertisement 'I think, as a community and as an organization, we've always drawn deeply from the community that we represent, and that supports us,' he told me a few years ago. 'That's very much steeped in, one, gratitude for what you do have, a day-by-day approach, putting one foot in front of the other. And then taking an optimistic approach about trying to influence what happens next. I think that's certainly in the roots of Oklahoma, and it's also very much a part of the organizational mentality we've tried to apply through the best of times and the most difficult of times. But I think when you subscribe yourself to that, in a lot of ways, it's empowering. We're still applying the same things that we did in 2008, and I think that's based on the fact that the city we represent has been the best model for that.' The Thunder had some very lean years after trading Paul George to the Clippers in 2019, the deal that brought SGA to town (and the draft pick that ultimately was used on Williams). Attendance at Paycom dropped, both as a function of a rebuilding team and because of COVID-19. But while it will be some time before the Thunder approach their consecutive sellout streak of 349 straight games, set between 2011 and 2020, new fans are in the building. 'There was a turnover in the fan base during the COVID/rebuild years,' Cornett said. 'We still sold out, but I'm there almost every game, and it's different people now. Maybe the first group were people that had money and were supportive of Oklahoma City and the Chamber of Commerce and all those things. This group seems more about basketball than the loyalty to the city. … this time around, they just captured the basketball fans, who have been created by the team and the franchise. You've now got a generation of young people who've grown up and thought we always had a team.' The roster has been completely turned over since the George trade, which also brought the first of what is now a rash of future first-round picks to town that could help sustain this run for a good long while. This group, while supported strongly (and loudly, of course), is still getting to know the community. 'Russ, KD, James Harden, they used to come out,' Jabee said. 'Russ had a comedy show every year, and he would book me to perform and host. All the players would come and support. When you would go to a party, you'd see a Thunder player.' But there is time, now, for this next generation of Thunder players to settle in even deeper, with its new fans, and see what is possible over the vast horizons. The Thunder are young and have a work ethic that plays especially well here. The future seems limitless, just like it did 15 years ago. Just like it did 136 years ago, when people from all over came to stake their claim in the topography in the middle of a state that was not yet a state, in a place that was inventing itself on the fly. And is still doing so. 'What a crazy way to start a city,' Cornett said. 'To a certain extent, that craziness, the ups and downs, those peaks and valleys, the best and worst of times, it's all a part of our DNA by now.'
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Great Gatsby: A New Musical review – what a swell party this ain't
There is a strong argument for turning F Scott Fitzgerald's jazz-age critique of the American Dream into a musical, from the sound of the lavish parties at Jay Gatsby's mansion to the natural lyricism in its prose. It does not transpose convincingly here, though not for the lack of size or volume. Under the direction of Marc Bruni, it starts big, in sound and look, as the world of spoiled old-money couple, Tom (Jon Robyns) and Daisy Buchanan (Frances Mayli McCann), collides with that of the self-made Jay Gatsby (Jamie Muscato). But it has nowhere to go from there: with every ostrich-filled scene and iceberg-sized setting, designed by Paul Tate DePoo III, it appears more like a Las Vegas casino with bursts of lurid light and ever more showboating sets. The music by Jason Howland, and lyrics by Nathan Tysen, comprise cruise-liner material too, by turns trite, tinkly and bombastic, from the opening number, Roaring On, onwards. It is unfortunate, given the strong vocal capabilities of the cast. The unfettered parties at Gatsby's swanky mansion are antiseptic despite the eye-catching array of costumes designed by Linda Cho (a dazzle of beaded frocks, flapper headdresses and glittery Mary Janes). Dominque Kelley's choreography gives period moves (Charlestons galore) Beyoncé-style inflections but it looks sterile for the lack of emotional drama around it, while the book, by Kait Kerrigan, merely tells you what is going on, and who is who. Fitzgerald's central couple fizz with charisma on the page, lighting up every room with their smiles, but here they are smoothed to two dimensions, as slick and empty-eyed as those of Doctor TJ Eckleberg's in the advert that looms behind them. They all seem breezy and rather amicable, including the supercilious Tom, while Gatsby is something of a cypher. That is no fault of the cast – the mood is simply too perky, the pace brisk and breezy, the story's heart subsumed by the mission to put on a high-octane musical. There is no depth of emotion to the love story between Jay and Daisy, no sultriness to Tom's affair with the wife of petrol pump attendant, Myrtle (Rachel Tucker), and no icy heat to the romance between Jordan (Amber Davies) and Nick Carraway (Corbin Bleu). Here, she excitedly asks for his hand in marriage – but why? Gatsby's dodgy business is flat-footedly conveyed in the song, Shady, while his associate, Meyer Wolfsheim (John Owen-Jones) is about as sinister as a Bugsy Malone extra. Then there is the problem of Nick. The show's narrator is far removed from the voice of Fitzgerald's lone observer. He resembles a relatable, hapless type from a modern relationship TV drama – quite literally the guy next door. He squirms when things turn bad and talks of journalling about his post-traumatic stress disorder from the Great War. The babbling tone of his narration turns Fitzgerald's prose – full of poetic restraint – into rambles. And despite the glut of vocal and visual crescendos, the peaks of the story flatline, from the violence by Tom that breaks Myrtle's nose to the shooting at the ending. Fresh from Broadway, this production encapsulates the worst of peacockingly splashy entertainment – the kind whose soul has been suctioned out in the making. At the Coliseum, London, until 7 September
