The Ringer NBA Show - Blood and Thunder

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

The Oklahoma City Thunder dominated the regular season and now enter the playoffs as one of the favorites to win the West thanks to MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. For nearly two decades, the Thunder have been one of the unlikeliest success stories in NBA history. In the win-now-at-all-costs superteam era, the Thunder have prioritized building for the future. In the era of superstars dictating their own moves to major media markets, the Thunder have thrived in one of the smallest markets in pro sports.  In Blood and Thunder, a special feature from the Ringer Podcast Network, Brian Phillips is joined by his fellow Oklahoma native Tyler Parker to talk about where the Thunder have been and where they’re going, why this year’s team is so fun to watch, and what the franchise means to Oklahoma. We’re also joined by Jordan Ritter Conn, the host of the podcast Sonic Boom: How Seattle Lost Its Team, to talk about the legacy of the team’s move from Seattle and whether a new Sonics franchise could help put the ghosts of the past to rest. Host: Brian Phillips Guests: Tyler Parker and Jordan Ritter Conn Producers: Mike Wargon, Isaac Levy-Rubinett and Vikram Patel The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to The Ringer NBA show presented by Fandul. America's number one sportsbook is the best place to bet on the NBA. Because not only does Fandall have all your favorite player props, but now you can even check out stats and recent performance trends right in the app before you make your picks. Just download the Fandall Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Helphelp.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available

and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Seattle got hosed. Look, I am an Oklahoma City Thunder fan. I am here to try to persuade you to like the fact that the Thunder are in Oklahoma City, maybe even love the fact that the Thunder are in Oklahoma City, City. I am not here to deny the obvious and irrefutable truth that in an ideal world,

in a world of perfect justice, the thunder would never have gone to Oklahoma City in the first place. 17 years ago, the new Oklahoma-based owners of the Seattle Supersonics acted in bad faith when they promised to try to keep the team in Seattle. They never meant to keep the team in Seattle. We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle. One member of the ownership group confessed to a reporter in 2007. They lied. They manipulated the NBA. They duped the Sonics' dizzyingly incompetent former owner, Howard Schultz, who was the CEO of Starbucks and who apparently took him. his gullability in a venty-to-go cup with oat milk. That all happened.

I'm not going to rehash the whole story. You know it already. It's been reported everywhere under the sun. But yeah, Seattle voters passed an initiative saying public money wouldn't be used to build sports arenas. The new owners of the Sonics said, oh, well, if you won't use tax money to buy us a new stadium, we have no choice but to relocate the team to the town where we all happen to live,

l'l, L'I.O, twirls evil mustache, and swirls dark cape menacingly. If you want to get deeper into all this, you should listen to Sonic Boom, a podcast by my multi-talented pal and ringer colleague, Jordan Ritter Khan. You know Jordan from his writing, from his podcasting,

from the fact that he's always filing copy from like Madagascar. We're going to talk to Jordan in a bit, but the whole dirty saga is explained in Sonic Boom. And in a world of perfect justice, none of it would have gone down the way it did. Now, we don't live in a world of perfect justice,

but it sucks what the owners of the team did to Sonic's fans. I know it. Most of my fellow Thunder fans know it too. I would be furious. I would wake up every day. and check to see if the thunder lost, I would be a forever hater. I would be 80 in cheering against the thunder. And to the people of Seattle that are doing that, much respect.

Much respect. Keep doing what you're doing. I approve. I would be doing the same thing. That's my buddy Tyler, Tyler Parker, the brilliant novelist and writer here at the Ringer. I called Tyler up because the playoffs are here, and the Thunder are. are really, really good. Maybe the favorites to win the Western Conference.

My producers all say I have to change that maybe to probably or easily the favorites to win the West. No, I'm not going to do it. As a Thunder fan, I am not going to invite a jinx onto a team whose average age is about 14 and a half. But the Thunder are pretty good. They've got the best defense in the league, They've got the league's top scorer, Shea Gilgis Alexander, a leading MVP candidate.

They've got a supporting cast so deep and aggressive going up against them must feel like battling a hydra. You cut off one head, two new heads come swarming in to stuff you in the paint. They've got an even rarer and more mythical creature than a hydra. A dude named Chet who can ball. I wanted to get Tyler's take on the current team. But I also wanted to talk to him about our 17 years as Thunder fans and about the legacy of the teams move from Seattle and the lingering animosity it still provokes.

It's like a righteous singer, right? Like they are right about how it all went down. Like me, Tyler grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. Like me, Tyler's a massive Thunder fan. And like me, Tyler is fully aware of the profound shittiness that the owners of the team visited upon Seattle back in the first decade of the 2000s. If that happened to me as like a Thunder fan in the way that I care about the Thunder now, if that left, like I say, like it would be no questions asked,

just pure hatred for me all the time. I would acquire no perspective whatsoever. I would run from perspective. I would live in that hurt every time it got brought up. And I would be like, fuck off, you guys. Oh, you're having some success? Great. Fuck off.

From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, this is Blood and Thunder, a look at the state of the thunder and what they mean to Oklahoma on the eve of the 2025 NBA playoffs. I'm your host, Brian Phillips. 17 years. That is how long it's been since Clay Bennett, the owner of the Sonics, announced he was moving the team. team to Oklahoma. In November of 2007, when that announcement was made,

George W. Bush was president. The iPhone was less than six months old. The App Store didn't exist yet. The Android operating system didn't exist yet. The Marvel Cinematic Universe did not exist yet. People say 17 seconds is an eternity in basketball. What do you say about 17? years. It's been so long that it can be hard to remember just how shocking it felt to learn that

Seattle was losing an NBA team and Oklahoma City was gaining one. And a lot of that had to do with the difference between Seattle and Oklahoma City. There was like a cultural cachet that the Sonics had that was very much like associated with the city of Seattle. I think that Seattle represents present something to people from other parts of the country, especially at that time. It is just, again, like kind of this epitome of cool. That's Jordan, the host of the podcast I told you about a minute ago, Sonic Boom. There was just something about this city that had this countercultural scene. The Sonics had been kind of this like cultural phenomenon in the 90s.

And there's this entire generation of NBA fans for whom like Michael Jordan and the Bulls were the dominant team. but the Sonics were like the cool team. When I was growing up in Oklahoma, Seattle was the coolest city in America. And it wasn't close. Seattle was the home of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Seattle was where Cameron Crow set singles.

Seattle was the home of Starbucks, which was, believe it or not, at one time, one of the coolest brands in America. I went to college in Tennessee. I remember my wife and her friends driving an hour from the town where we lived to Knoxville because there was a Starbucks that had just opened there. Oklahoma City wasn't just smaller than Seattle. Seattle had the Seahawks and the Mariners as well as the Sonics. Oklahoma City had never had its own big league sports team. But more than anything, Oklahoma City just wasn't cool. I do think that there is something about it that's like,

how on earth could Oklahoma City take this team from Seattle? Seattle was computers. Oklahoma City was fossil fuels. Seattle was Kurt Cobain. Oklahoma City was Garth Brooks. And when Oklahoma City tried to be cool, it was Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines. Look that one up.

You could call it, people rolling their eyes, it flyover country or whatever. But like Oklahoma City is a relatively small market to have a major professional team. There was definitely a shock factor in the fact that this like growing, booming West Coast City, gateway to Asia, epicenter of cool and in all sorts of ways could lose its iconic franchise to a place that's very few people from other parts of the country had much familiarity with or had ever been or really thought about in any meaningful capacity at all. Okay. Wow. That one stings. But Jordan is right that people lost their minds over the Thunder in those early years.

When I first started writing about the team, I'd get death threats. I'd get people telling me to do, frankly disturbing things to myself. They weren't even all from Seattle. One nationally prominent sports writer refused even to write the name of the Thunder, called them the Zombie Sonic. instead. Whatever happened to that guy? Obviously, over the years, people have gotten more used to the Thunder existing. These days, you're more likely to hear Vitriol directed at the Thunder on the grounds that Shea shoots too many free throws than that Oklahoma stole Seattle's team. Honestly, though, as we head into the playoffs, I still feel like people are ready to jump out of the Woodwork and retell the Thunder's dastardly origin story every time I say anything nice

about the team. And I think the reason why, a big part of the reason, is that Seattle is a culturally prestigious city and Oklahoma City is not. And for the people who drive opinion on this stuff, it's hard to accept that one of America's coastal jewels could get its pocket-picked by a little also-ran cow town in a backwater state. If you think about it, sports teams in America move all the time. They move all the time because that is the system we've built around sports in this country. You don't have to like it. I don't like it. But we've built a system in which communities have obligations to teams,

and those teams have almost no obligations in return. When I say teams, I really mean owners because that's who we're talking about. And when I say communities, I mean you and me. They make money off our loyalty to the teams they own, and then they turn around and expect us to pay for their stadiums with our tax dollars so they can make even more money by selling us luxury sweets and $23 burritos. And if we say, no, thanks, we're good without the $23 burrito kitchen, we'll keep our taxes for roads and schools.

they shrug their shoulders and move the team someplace with more compliant and or hungry voters. It doesn't have to be like this, and it's not like this everywhere. European soccer teams almost never move because even though they're big businesses with rich owners, they are built as clubs, not franchises. They're understood to belong fundamentally to their communities. But in America, our teams are understood to be outlets in a nationwide chain of Burger Kings where the Whopper is a put-back dunk. So teams move all the time because sports owners, almost without exception, are greedy bastards.

And when you build a system that gives the greedy bastards all the power, they are going to break your heart. Howard Schultz has always felt like he deserves so much of the blame. because he knew exactly what was going to happen when he sold to a bunch of Oklahoma City people. And so on one hand, like, I don't like liars, and I don't like that the Thunder ownership was like, no, we're not going to move the team. No, we're just, yeah, this is a story franchise. You're kidding me?

We're not moving the team. And then they're like, okay, so unless, you know, I don't like that. I think that sucks. I also think that Schultz had to have known what was going to happen the moment that he said yes to the offer. You know what I mean? Schultz was not the most, maybe the most, like, evil owner in American sports history, but he was so incompetent and clueless about the way he handled the whole thing that he almost comes off a little evil. A thousand percent.

I was reading a little about Howard Schultz the other day, and I came across this amazing, sentence on his Wikipedia page. The section is all about how he rose to power at Starbucks. And it says, quote, Schultz was exposed to coffee in Italy on a buying trip to Milan in 1983.

End quote. I love this because it makes coffee sound like some kind of sinister cosmic ray. He was exposed to Italian coffee. Like this is a super villain origin story. He was bitten by

radioactive Machiato. Sports owners, for the most part, are not great people. I'm assuming you know this and don't need me to belabor the point. Think about Daniel Snyder. Think about Marge Schott, if you go back that far. Think about the sons under Robert Sarver. Think about Jerry Jones. Think about James Dolan.

These are people who do what benefits them, and they don't particularly care. who gets hurt. So teams move in American sports because they can. And in most cases, after a while, we kind of get over it. It happens a lot in the NBA. The Lakers played in Detroit and Minneapolis before L.A. Nobody cares. The Utah Jazz started in New Orleans. Nobody cares. The New Orleans, Pelicans, started in Charlotte. Nobody cares. It's not just a basketball thing. Robert Ursay moved the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis, literally in the middle of the night in 1984. Eleven years later, Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns, a historic franchise that had won four NFL championships to fill the vacancy in Baltimore.

How many people were still dwelling on those moves, which were seen as deeply underhanded at the time, 17 years later? Of course, a big difference here is that Baltimore and Cleveland have NFL teams again, and Seattle, incredibly, does not have an NBA team. We're going to talk about that in a few minutes. Most of us understand most of the time that we can't base our ability to enjoy sports on the morality of sports owners, because if we did, how would we ever enjoy sports at all? And this is why I think that in my world, part, the reason people felt so upset about the Sonics leaving is that Seattle is what it is,

and OKC is what it is. I think a lot about that period from 2005 to 2007 when the New Orleans Hornets played in Oklahoma for two seasons after Hurricane Katrina. I don't know if you remember this. The Hornets needed a temporary place to play, and Oklahoma City welcomed them in and supported them, packed out the arena even though it wasn't really OKC's team, made the players feel at home. And at the time, the feeling around the league was that Oklahoma City had kind of proved itself,

had done something really good, had shown up as a basketball town. The fan base wanted to really show out and embrace the Hornets and was very strong out. sort of roundly praised for it. We were the good guys in Oklahoma before we were the bad guys. Everybody was like, this is awesome how they rallied around this team. Like, you got to go see a game there. It's so much, you know what I mean? Like, I remember hearing people say stuff like that.

And so that aspect of it, that makes you feel good. And then the move happened. And half those same people were suddenly like, no, it's too small. No history, no basketball culture. The basketball culture in Oklahoma City was the same in 2008 as it had been in 2005. The owners were just more obviously assholes. But Jordan says the fans and the players weren't to blame for that. You were the good guys before you were the bad guys and the way that you were both was by doing the exact same thing,

which is just showing up and cheering your asses off for their basketball team. Like that's it. Like in terms of like the actual like fans in Oklahoma City, All they did was when there is a team there called The Hornets, they showed up every single night, they packed out the arena, they took that team on as if it was their own and showed them incredible support. And then when the Sonics moved there and became the Thunder,

they did the exact same thing. But then because of the decisions of the powerful people who made the choices that led to the team getting there, Oklahoma City fans were recast as villains. But I think that the thing about the Hornets was most Oklahoma City fans were really, really supporting this team, and the players were blown away by it. The players seemed to mostly really, really enjoy that time they spent in Oklahoma City.

Pretty quickly it became, oh, we can do this. Like, we should have a team here. There's this weird double identity that goes with being a Thunder fan. Your formative experience with professional basketball brought you praise for doing the right thing. Then you blinked your eyes and suddenly it felt like everyone resented you, not so much because you'd done the wrong thing, but because an owner had. And in between those two phases, your behavior as a fan didn't really change at all. I just think that it is hard to paint the fans of Oklahoma City as villains

when they're just doing the thing that we want everyone to do in every market that has a professional sports franchise, which is show up, spend money, create an atmosphere that gives you chills if you're sitting in the arena and gets you excited if you're at home watching on TV and make the players feel like they're a part of the community. And that's what they did. It is a great place to watch basketball. I was surprised by how great it is. You know, growing up in Oklahoma, I talked about this with Tyler. Neither one of us ever even dreamed of having an NBA team. in our home state. It was just never on the list of things

that could possibly happen. Tyler was 19 when the Thunder arrived. When they first got there, I didn't care at all how bad they were. It was so far down my list of worries, I did not give a shit. When the Thunder got there, it was like, wait, so this is like regular,

and certainly my parents were never paying for league pass, And so now all of a sudden I have an opportunity to watch all of these games on like local TV for free. I get to watch NBA. This is crazy. You know what I mean? I couldn't believe it. We should talk about this because when you grow up in Oklahoma, as we both did, you're from Fort Gibson. I'm from Ponca City.

I don't even know if you consider Ponca City the real America because it's so urban. No, I can assure you we think that you're part of America. Panka City has about 24,000 people. Fort Gibson has fewer than 4,000. My running joke with Tyler is that I come from an urban metropolis because my town had three sonics. I mean, the drive-in burger place, not the Seattle basketball team. We didn't have any of those yet.

So we grew up, you know, we grew up in like pretty small towns in Oklahoma. You're a town a little smaller than mine. I didn't think that there would be a pro sports team in Oklahoma in my lifetime. The most big time thing that existed sport-wise in the state was college football. That's absolutely true. And it's probably still true even with an NBA team in the state. It's like, this is what we can do. We can win football games.

And so, yeah, to have some team that was just going to be, A, that there were already like a couple of players on the team to be excited about. but be that, oh my God, Tim Duncan's going to be here. And they start, like, it's just all the little stupid things that you think about as a fan, right? Like, I wonder where they're going to stay. Yeah, where are they going to eat? Yeah, what are they going to go do after the game? I know teams like to go eat after the game.

It's going to be late. It's not a lot of places that are open late. I hope that they can get so. You start doing all the, you know, so you start to like, I'm worried about if the nets are going to be able to get a bite after the game. You're like swadley's closes at 10. What are you to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't thinking about it in terms of like, I'm a part of Oklahoma City.

Like, I was not an, I did not live there. To me, I was always a little bit like, they should have named them the Oklahoma Thunder. But they're lucky that just the state has embraced them and has no choice. But you know what I mean? Like, there's not like there's another team in the state that people can grab a hold of. It's going to be a while before Tulsa gets an NBA team. team, Bartlesville. Yeah, maybe Lawton.

Lotton would turn out, man. Hey, they play some good basketball down there in Lotton. Where Tyler and I grew up, it could sometimes feel like you were disconnected from the rest of the world. I don't know. These days, I have a lot of friends from New York or L.A. or cities like that. And it's hard to get across to them what it's like to live in a place

that you don't really see on TV. TV defines so much of our sense of reality in America. And I don't know where you're from or where you live, but there are a lot of places in this country that are just left out of that reality. Or we consume that reality, we take it in because we watch TV, but we don't participate in it because TV doesn't include us. There's a world you see on television and you know it really well.

It's familiar. It's a powerful force in your life. But it's not much like the world you live in. They just don't connect. And when the thunder came to Oklahoma City, one of the stupidly amazing things about it was encountering the actual physical reality of something we were used to watching

on flickering squares in our living rooms. We could still see. see it on TV, but it was happening in a place we knew, a place we'd been to, and a place we could go to again. I remember the first time I went to New York City. And everywhere I was, you know, looked, I was like, I saw that on TV. I've seen that on TV. That's that building on TV. Right. The fact that it really existed kind of blew my mind. And now it's like, you know, NBA players in $2,000 sunglasses and feather boas are going to be like doing like a fashion walk through a parking lot down the street from my parents.

Like, what is that? It's such a trip. That's a real thing that's physically going to happen right there. I remember in 2004, the McDonald's All-American game came to Oklahoma City. They played at what was then the Ford Center. And that was like the Dwight Howard, Sebastian Tailfare, J.R. Smith kind of class. and I remember for some reason Carmelo Anthony was in the audience. He was there watching and he would have been, I guess, a rookie with the nuggets at that point.

But I just remember him sitting on the baseline and me and two of my friends and my dad were sitting there. And I was just, I stopped watching the game for a little bit. once I realized Carmelo was there because I was just like, oh my God, that's like a, he's like a real person. He's around other people. He sits down. Look at him. He even sits down. One of my theories about professional sports is that they're like the primary node that connects TV reality and lived reality. How many things do you watch on television and in person? Not that many. Sports are the magical dimension where you learn that Carmelo Anthony sits down. It was one of those, this is a really famous person, and it doesn't register with me that one of those would exist in Oklahoma unless they were a country music star.

Right, right. You could have Trisha Yearwood. You could have that sort of fame. You don't know. I mean, and like sort of I could. comprehend it. Seeing anyone who I know strictly from the glowing box in my house, then like at that point it's just all bets are off, especially if they're in Oklahoma. Because there's also that thing in the back of your head where you're like, oh, I hope they have a good time while they're here. Oh, I hope they like it. Because I feel like we have a really contradictory attitude about where we fit into American culture in general, right? Like there's definitely like a part of Oklahoma where we're like, we're our own thing.

We don't need the mainstream media. Like, we're not interested in the East Coast. Like, we're, you know, we got our own thing going on. But then maybe underneath that, we get excited when people notice us. Absolutely. And I think even when you're the former and you're kind of like, we don't need you to pay attention to us, y'all can all go to hell. Even those people, if they heard that someone complimenting Oklahoma. and how nice people were, how beautiful or what, or whatever,

they would immediately be like, see, some people get it. You know what I mean? They would immediately love it. They would love that person forever. For ever. Harrison Ford said a nice thing about Oklahoma. I always thought he was the best America. He's the best.

Dude, a famous person says something nice about a town in Oklahoma. There's like a 75% of chance that that goes up on a sign leading into that town. It goes on the water tower. Absolutely. Absolutely. And they were so fun. Oh, man, those early Thunder teams were just so fun. I have never had the easiest relationship with my home state.

I love it, and it drives me nuts. I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel that way about home. But those first years with the Thunder, the first time I saw them play was at the Garden in Boston, where my wife and I were living. I don't remember who won the game, but I remember I smiled so much, my face started to get sore. Oklahoma City still wasn't cool, it wasn't Seattle, but the team was cool. And for me, it was as if the thunder became this prism that took all my complicated, contradictory feelings about the place where I grew up

and refracted them into a rainbow beam of pure happiness. It's brought me so much joy. I have so much fun watching the Thunder, for the most part. And sometimes, you know, it makes you want to jump into a bath full of broken shards of glass. But for the most part, it's a pretty good time. Remember in 2010, they make the playoffs for the first time, and then they play Kobe and the Lakers in that first round series. They go down 2-0, and then they come back to Oklahoma City, and they win game 3 and 4, and they win them going away.

There were times in those crazy runs in games 3 and 4, like when they were getting out in transition all the time. There were a few moments there where I remember thinking like, this is not the most fun I've had, but this is some of the most fun that I've ever. You know what I mean? I don't know, actually, because for me, that was the most fun I'd had. You're just in the flow of the game. Like, I can't believe we're doing this well. Like, I just remember thinking the Lakers were supposed to come in here and sweep. And not only are we putting up a fight, like the series is tied going back to L.A.

And now everybody on television who, up to that point, if you're watching any NBA coverage whatsoever, once the Thunder got even remotely good, you would be like, I wonder if they'll talk about Durant. Or maybe they'll talk about, there was always that like, you know, or maybe they'll talk about some up-and-coming teams and we'll get to hear Zach Lowe talk about the Thunder or whatever. The next season, they're in the Western Commerce Finals and T&T's in Oklahoma City for the entire Western Commerce Finals.

And you're like... This is the pivot where we go from like, everybody knows Kevin Durant, but nobody knows anything else about the Thunder to like Russell Westbrook is a legitimate star. Yes. James Hardin is still coming off the bench, but everybody knows.

knows that beard, and every time he comes off the bench, he's amazing. So much of their stuff, especially when they were really cooking, it's just in the open floor, and it's just these, like, just feel like they were just bombing down the court against some of these teams, and Ibacca's flying down a wing, and Durant is, too, and Hardin's there, and you've got whoever trailing Adams after a while there. Like, it just, it, it, um, they were just so fun to watch, too. especially early on.

Some of that then turned into like, some of the fun would be taken away once they were contenders and all the like, you know, spotlight gets brought on to the Westbrook Durant pairing and can this coexist, can this not? And so the games become way more stressful. But in that, because there's so much outside noise

about how it can't work, it can't work, the sicko and me and the way that my like, fanhood brain operates is like, actually, I'm more certain than ever it will work, and all of you are stupid, and just get the hell out of my face. On that note, I'm excited to announce the launch of my new podcast. All of you are stupid and just get the hell out of my face, launching exclusively on the ringer network this fall. And so it makes the bond tighter between the fan base of the team, I think, whenever the

team comes under scrutiny. from the outside. Two things can be true. It can be true that Seattle fans got cheated when Clay Bennett moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City. It can also be true that pro basketball means something good in Oklahoma City. I think the Thunder are a team

for anyone who's ever lived in a place that's overlooked, a place that isn't normally part of the national conversation. If you think sports should be a little, about New York and Boston and L.A. If the super predictable, top-line, mainstream, easily marketable, basic-ass narratives about sports are the ones you get excited about, then maybe the thunder won't be for you.

And congratulations, the Yankees have beards now. But if you live in a town with a high school mascot painted on a water tower, if you drive past at least one grain silo, and at least one Walmart on the way to work. If you live in a city where you never have to worry about parking, except at high school football games, if the world you see when you look out the window

doesn't look that much like the world you see when you turn on your TV, then I bet you can see yourself in the Oklahoma City Thunder, regardless of their origin story. And this year's team, they are so fun to watch. Forget narratives completely. If you like the game of basketball, this team is just a joy, especially when it comes to Shea. He's clearly just a guy who loves it and can't not do it.

And he has the kind of mindset, the combination of, I had to be a grinder to get here, so I'm going to stay that way. but also like, I think I am the shit. You know what I mean? It's like that right balance that these superstars have to have. Like there has to be so much healthy arrogance, but it doesn't teeter into like, yeah, fuck it, I don't got to go to the gym today.

Because Westbrook and Durant were like rabid at working at the stuff. You wish Westbrook would have worked a little bit more on some of the skill aspects of the game. but like he was like an intense worker on the stuff that he worked on. Yes, right. And so it's just said it wasn't always clear what that was or how, like it made sense to him. With him it was at a certain point. I was like, Russ, you don't have to dribble basketball for six months.

Just shoot it over and over and over. Just practice shooting it. And there's like a, you know, Shea and Harden, I think there are some similarities there with the like kind of like slitheriness, especially early on. The difference with Shea is like he's okay like getting off the ball and setting screens and, you know, coming off picks and things like that. Like he's not, he doesn't have to be touching it the whole time, which is obviously different from how Westbrook and Hardin operated.

And even Durant at certain times, especially late in games, where like prime Grant's going to catch the ball, he's going to jab a couple times. He's in rhythm. He's going to do. There's not going to be a ton of like, you know, let's bop the ball around and find the best shot. Let's pull it out and try this again. Yeah, there's none of that. Yeah.

And I think Shea is more willing to do that sort of stuff and is also he kind of puts his money where his mouth is on the defensive end. Now, I'm sure that in saying this, Tyler doesn't mean to imply that other. Thunder Greats didn't prioritize defense. For instance, if their names rhymed with Flames, pardon. It's like, you know, yeah, he's not as good as Lou Dort or Jalen Williams or Chet or Caruso or something. It's just sort of like, okay, but like hardly anybody else is. No, it's a thing that happens sometimes to people where if you're like a D or a C-minus at

an aspect of the game, people just write it off, right? It's like, it's like, it doesn't even have to be, like, factored into your game. But if you're a B, people are going to blame you for being a B because why aren't you in A minds? You know, like, if you're okay at something, enough that, like, you can be relied on for it a little bit, then it almost becomes a problem in some people's minds. You're right. You're right. I remember when I first started watching soccer, the highlight reels would blow my mind. because they'd show endless clips of moves that didn't end in goals. You'd see a great cross or an incredible pass or a nutmeg or whatever.

And then the highlight would end with the ball getting stolen or going harmlessly out of bounds. And I'm coming at soccer from basketball and football, and I'm like, how is that a highlight? No one's scored. But over time, I learned to appreciate that, no, that discrete move, that one action, that one action separated from the rest of the game, that was astonishing in itself. And of all the players in the NBA right now, Shea is easily the one who gives me that feeling the most. The wild stuff isn't just happening on the finishes, like him going from first to third and

stutter stepping, hesitations, behind the back, between the legs, into a spin, all these different yo-yo's and just kirkin and jerkin and keeping himself at a rhythm that a defender is not used to. When he's really cooking, it's the same kind of stuff as when like a really great shooter. They have the ball and like you're in your house and you're fake contesting a shot because you think it's going to go up. And it's because of those qualities that Tyler and I, as completely impartial observers, reject the idea that Shay's just a free throw merchant, Lake Hardin, who, it's important to note, only became a free throw merchant after he left Oklahoma City. Some people would say that they share a ton of similarities because some people think that Shea's a grifter.

I don't really see Shea as a grifter any more than any of the other top scores in the league. Like, there's a lot of flailing going around. And so I also think that generally he's gaining his advantages because he's just more skilled. And so where the foul would have been on the floor, it's just on the shot instead. Trey Young at his peak is doing way more nonsense than that. Chris Paul at his peak is doing a lot more nonsense than that. But I'm also a homer and can't be trusted.

100%. But it feels different because it just feels like Shea is so good at getting people's bodies just a little bit out of position, a little bit off balance. Yeah. Like he just has this kind of telekinetic. control over his opponent's positioning. I think it's like the difference with Shea is like he's okay, like getting off the ball and setting screens and, you know, coming off picks and things like that.

I just think there's an artistry to what he does that is it makes it really fun to watch him because once a game, he like kind of does some dribble combo that I haven't really seen before or that I'm kind of like, oh, I didn't think there was any space for him to get through there. That combined with how automatic he's got on like the mid-range pull-ups and these fadeaways, there are very few things in the league right now that are as just purely to the eye beautiful as Shea hitting the brakes and shooting a fade away, especially if it's like a turnaround where he's got to involve all of his momentum, you know what I mean? Yes.

And you get like a real. it's the time to me when he looks most like Jordan or like Kobe or like these great wings that can somehow like sit in recliners in the air and shoot these shots. She has got to that level for me. And again, I don't want to jinx a team with an average age so low. I worry they're going to run a foul of child labor laws if we still have those in America. But the youth of this team is part of the identity, not just of the squad, but of the franchise,

because Oklahoma City isn't a big media market and isn't the most desirable landing spot for superstar players. But in the same way that Thunder fans create an incredible atmosphere in their home arena, even though their fan base is a fraction of the size of Los Angeles, Sam Presti, the team's general manager, has done an astonishingly good job building a title contender in an underdog city. They've built for the future. In the era of superstar trades and mega-free agent signings,

OKC is an advertisement for the draft, for doing it the old-fashioned way. And in a way, that's a metaphor for the whole culture of Thunder Basketball. I'll tell you a quick story about the first time I ever went to a Thunder game as a media member, as press. I wasn't even writing about the team. I was just visiting my parents, and I called up the thunder and said, hey, I'm in town. Can you get me a press pass? And they were like, sure.

So I went, and I'm sitting. They'd put me in a sort of overflow press seating zone away from the normal media area, which was fine. So I'm enjoying the game, and I think it was a little before halftime. This guy in a suit comes up and shakes my hand. And it's Sam Presti. It's the general manager and architect of the day. the team, a guy I have never met in my life, and he knows who I am, who I work for, stuff I've

written. Now, I would love to sit here and tell you that he knows all this because I'm so famous. I have aunts and uncles who've never heard of me. Sam Presti wasn't there because of me. Sam Presti was there because this is an organization that's on top of the details. This is a team that understands that it has to dot the tiniest eyes and cross the tiniest tease to compete with the big franchises. And they're going to do it, even down to the GM personally checking in with a random media guy whose mom and dad happened to live near the stadium. What it comes down to is this.

Sports exist to make you happy. That's the only thing they're really good for. Unfortunately, we have set up pro sports in America in such a way that a rogue's gallery of useless billionaires thinks it's entitled to profit off your desire for that happiness. They get to charge you rent on joy. And that means a lot of us are going to get hurt. And the more we care about this thing, the worse the hurt is going to be. To me, that's a reason to take the joy that's offered to you. when and where you find it, and hang on to it as long as you can.

Maybe that means loving the off-kilter grace of a Kevin Durant jumper. Maybe it means finding a new way to love the place where you grew up or the place where you live. That's not a perfect answer. We live in a deeply imperfect system, but it's the best one I have. In the end, the real elephant in the room, as far as OKC and Seattle are concerned, concerned. Maybe something we haven't talked much about yet. It's that Seattle still doesn't have a team. This is where the NBA has just utterly dropped the ball because Sonics fans had their team taken away from them. And for 17 years, again, a very long time, they haven't gotten anything to replace it.

If a new Sonic's team had set up in Seattle in like 2011 and hung Sean Kenney, and Gary Payton's jerseys from the rafters, and packed Climate Pledge Arena every night, and sold fans $23 burritos, I'm guessing The Thunder's origin story would have faded into the background even more than it already has. And it seems like every year,

Adam Silver hints that expansion in Seattle is coming. And every year, there are really good reasons not to do it until next year. Although this year, I do feel like we're as close to Sonics 2.0 as we've ever bet. Jordan agrees. I do feel like it's coming. People there very much feel like it's coming. Talking about this right now is tough because it feels like we're really in a moment where any day,

Adam Silver could give a press conference and announce like it's time to explore expansion. When I was in Seattle in January, what I kept hearing was the last dominoe that needed to fall was the sale of the Celtics to kind of set the price for an expansion fee? I heard the same thing. That just happened. In fact, after I talked to Jordan, Adam Silver addressed the issue of the NBA's future return to Seattle at a press conference. You'll never believe what he said.

He said, we're still working on it. But he emphasized the league's commitment to Seattle in a way that, well, if we were about one micron away from expansion before his remarks, it now feels like we're one micron of a micron closer. In Seattle, their approach at this point has been to be like when the NBA says go, we show that we are so much more prepared than any other market that you can't possibly pick anyone besides us. They have the arena. It's great.

They have an ownership group essentially in place. They have a lot of commitments from local businesses. already in place. They feel like as soon as the NBA says we're doing this, they will make it so that no other market can possibly out-compete them. Certainly, Vegas is very much a possibility, but most likely the NBA would expand by two teams. Vegas, Mexico City, occasionally you'll hear Kansas City, Louisville, Nashville. But I think Seattle's sense is that none of those markets will be able to compete with us because of what we already have in place and because of this long history and the fact that we have this passionate fan base.

They're, I'm into a sports apparel shop there where the people told me that Sonic stuff is still what they sell the most of. Wow. This was in a particularly kind of like hip part of the city that is where like that nostalgia is likely to sell. But like there are people who consider themselves Sonics fans who were barely old enough to remember watching the Sonics play. But it is still part of the city that they grew up in

and they feel really connected to it. So I do think it's going to happen. Jordan also thinks the return of the Sonics will help some people get over whatever hostility they still feel toward the thunder. I would imagine a lot of this animosity will melt away. Certainly the first time that those two teams play each other, I think will be a cathartic moment for many, many fans,

and that catharsis will come out in the form of booze and expletives. and horrible insults. But I'd like to think that after that, like you said, there can be a time of peace. But when it happens, yeah, it'll be,

I mean, it will almost certainly be a national TV game. Oh, they'll put it on Christmas, Jordan. They'll, yeah, they probably will.

Yeah. Like, it'll be a massive event in the city of Seattle is just the chance to welcome in these 12, uh,

poor, unsuspecting, young men who happened to wear Oklahoma City across their chest on their jerseys and just boo the ever-living shit out of them because of something that happened when they were in preschool that has, you know, lingered to this day in the psyche of this city. It will be relentless. But hopefully after that, everyone can move on. Honestly, that's all I want. I want to love my team, which I've been cheering for for almost two decades now, and I want people in Seattle to have a team they love too.

And maybe, maybe I'll be at that first game, wearing a thunder shirt, and maybe a fan from Seattle will come up to me with a wild look in their eyes and say, go fuck yourself, you hayseed, you absolute rube. And I'll smile, because sure, I had it coming. And a few seconds later, they'll smile too,

because after selling our kidneys to pay for these tickets, we won't have the strength left to fight. And then we'll hug, and then we'll go to the concession stand, and agree to split a burrito, because they've raised the price to $29.50, and will be brought together by the emotion that unites all sports fans. Fury at being expected to shell out $59 for two burritos that don't even come with guacamole and love.

unless you accept this $6 upcharge. And afterward, we'll go down to the garage where we've collectively spent $137 to park our cars, and we'll nod to one another and drive our separate ways into the night. And peace will prevail, at least until the next billionaire has the next terrible idea. This audio feature was written and reported by me, Brian Phillips. The executive producers of this episode are, Juliet Litman and Sean Fennessey. Story editing by Isaac Levy Rubinette.

This episode was produced by Mike Wargon and Vikram Patel. Sound design by Vikram Patel and Scott Somerville. Scott also mixed and mastered this episode. Fact-checking by Colby Payne. Copy editing by Anna Done. Special thanks to Matt Dollinger and Connor Nevins. I also want to thank Jordan and Tyler for coming on to talk to me, If you want to check out more of their stuff, which you absolutely should,

then look for Jordan's Sonic Boom podcast, which was just re-released in a newly expanded version, in time for the playoffs. And you can find Jordan's most recent book, The Road from Rocka, a story of brotherhood, borders, and belonging, wherever you find your books. Do yourself a favor and check out Tyler's debut novel, A Little Blood and Dancing, which is all about Oklahoma and includes quite a bit about basketball, basketball. It's terrific. Thanks to both those guys. And thanks to you for listening. Let's go Thunder. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus

in present in DC. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG dash help.com. Call 1-888-88-8-8-8-8-8-9-7-77 or visit CCP.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. visit Gambling Helpline, MA.org, or 800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 18778 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York.