Oklahoma City NBA team to be known as the "Thunder"

When Oklahoma City finally succeeded in swiping Seattle’s NBA team earlier this year they made clear that they’d have no use for the team’s “Supersonics” moniker.  On Wednesday, team officials announced that the Oklahoma City NBA franchise would henceforth be known as the “Thunder”.  The name choice had leaked to the public several weeks ago, and was chosen from a list of finalists including “Wind” , “Marshalls”, “Barons”, “Energy” and “Bison”.  Many in the OKC area wanted some variation of a forceful tornado reference like “Cyclones” or “Twisters”, but team officials acquiesced to political correctness and didn’t want to be seen as “exploiting” the human tragedy caused by severe weather.

 

Instead, they chose a loud noise which one critic dismissed as “only being scary to small children, old people and dogs”.  The team also unveiled a rather generic looking logo that appeared to have been designed by an online logo design firm for $100, presumably without any thought given to the final choice of nickname.  Then again, visually depicting thunder isn’t a particularly easy task.  The team also eschewed the obvious route of storm clouds and lightning, perhaps not wanting to risk marketplace confusion with Tampa Bay’s hockey team or not wanting to offend local residents who have suffered through thunderstorms.

The team’s colors were also unveiled, again bearing scant relationship to the nickname.  The OKC Thunder will wear blue, orange and yellow—chosen apparently more in the interest of merchandise sales and marketing than aesthetics.

The team made the announcement accompanied by the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck” (which, incidentally, was used as entrance music by the now defunct Las Vegas Thunder minor league hockey team).  Team chairman Clay Bennett sounded as if he was grasping at straws trying to explain the significance of the nickname:

"There's just all kinds of good thunder images and thoughts, and the in-game experience of Thunder. Just here was a good sense of how that evokes emotion. It's very powerful."

He also added a couple of oblique references to the state’s “Indian heritage” and the hit song by Oklahoma native Garth Brooks “The Thunder Rolls” (which no doubt will be played to death during OKC home games) before dropping the subject.

Team GM Sam Presti sounded almost apologetic as he made this cryptic statement about the generic looking logo:

“It takes an immense amount of work, and it does take some time. Not that anyone was really paying attention to the amount of time it was taking"

Continuing the theme of political correctness, team officials offered this strange statement that sounded lifted from a corporate diversity training manual:

(We) hope to make the qualities of character, perseverance, selflessness, community and winning synonymous with Thunder.

How they get that from a loud noise that accompanies severe weather wasn’t explained.

Thunder forward Desmond Mason tried to put a positive spin on the name, but ended up sounding like a disappointed kid on Christmas morning after opening a package of underwear when expecting a Nintendo Wi:

"It's very unique. It's going to take some time getting used to, just like Utah Jazz or Orlando Magic, but I think it's a great thing for the state and a great thing for the city."

The “thunder will roll” for the first time as OKC travels to Minnesota on October 8th to start the NBA season against the much more fearfully monikered Timberwolves.