The History of the OKC Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team founded in 2008, They play as a part of the NBA. The team is owned by the Professional Basketball Club, LLC.
The Thunder has quite a long history. The team was originally known as the Seattle Supersonics, an expansion team that joined the NBA in 1967. The Supersonics won their division 6 times, advanced to 3 NBA finals, and won the 1979 NBA Championship. The team also won 3 Western Conference titles, 1978, 1979, and 1996. The Supersonics were relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma City after an arrangement between the ownership group and lawmakers in Seattle. The owners agreed to leave the Supersonics name, colors and logo, to a potential future NBA team. The Supersonics played their last game on April 13, 2008. They’re now known as “Oklahoma City Thunders”, and made their first appearance on October 8, 2008.
The Thunder’s logo represents a basketball in a shield, with blue and orange stripes going through it. The wordmark, “THUNDER” goes above the logo. During the Thunder’s first game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, they lost 88-82. Three nights later, the OKC Thunder won against the Minnesota Timberwolves and improved their record to 1-3. The team went on a 10 streak loss after that. As the season continued, they played more competitively and started to improve slightly. The Thunder finished the regular season with a 20-30 record.
Then things began to change as they continued winning. The team won their first division title as the Thunder in the 2010–2011 season and their first Western Conference championship as the Thunder in the 2011–2012 season.
Currently, the Oklahoma City Thunder has a 22-50 record with 10 games scheduled in October 2021. The team has yet to win a championship since moving to Oklahoma City, so Let’s Thunder Up OKC!
Article by Zhong Wu (7th grade)