That Thunder team<\/a>, 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\u2019ve fit right in during a magical season that has the Thunder, after dominating the NBA\u2019s regular season with a 68-14 record, back in the NBA Finals, against the Pacers.<\/p>\n Thunder 2.0 has quickly become beloved here, with its rabid fans\u2019 non-stop, almost desperate chants of \u201cOKC\u2026OKC\u2026OKC\u201d 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, \u201cHorton Hears a Who\u201d: We are (still) here, we are (still) here, we are (still) here\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t take it for granted,\u201d Holmgren said Saturday. \u201cWe 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\u2019re 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\u2019t guarantee a win every night, but we know the city\u2019s heart is in it, so we kind of have to have our heart in it at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n If that sounds a little college, rah-rah \u2026well, this is kind of a college, rah-rah town. That\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d Williams said before Game 1. \u201cThat\u2019s how Oklahoma is. But it\u2019s (like) that with the whole state. Everywhere we go, I\u2019ve been met with love since I\u2019ve been out here. It\u2019s a really cool experience. Even the past two years, I\u2019m 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\u2019m happy that we get to bring that back here.\u201d<\/p>\n There are other pro sports teams here, like the Dodgers\u2019 Triple-A affiliate, the Oklahoma City Comets. But the Thunder remain the show.<\/p>\n \u201cAs superficial as it sounds, you are who your sports teams play,\u201d 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\u2019s redevelopment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were playing a Triple-A schedule for pro sports teams, those were our peer cities,\u201d Cornett said. \u201cIn 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\u2019ve never really looked back. And I think we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd all of the economic measurements, and all of the data about highly educated young people moving here, all that\u2019s great. But that\u2019s only hand-in-hand with being an NBA city. Because highly educated young people want to be in a city that\u2019s culturally relevant. And having an NBA team makes you culturally relevant to the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett smiles during an Oklahoma City council meeting in June 2024. (Sarah Phipps \/ The Oklahoman \/ USA Today Network)<\/p>\n The majority of people in and around town agree with this sentiment. Not all, though<\/a>.<\/p>\n Speed \u2014 impatience? \u2014 seems to always be part of this city, which might seem contradictory to those who don\u2019t live here. Few non-natives think of Oklahoma City as \u201cfast,\u201d in the traditional sense.<\/p>\n But the city was created, literally, in a day. Or, days.<\/p>\n Oklahoma City, as the author Sam Anderson wrote in his detailed history of the city, \u201cBoom Town,\u201d<\/a> 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 \u2014 approximately 2 million acres \u2014 were, literally, flung open to the world for anyone to claim as their own. Of course, the lands were anything but \u201cunassigned,\u201d<\/a> unless by that you mean \u201cunassigned to White people,\u201d which is surely what the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 meant.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was far too many people for the amount of good land available,\u201d Anderson wrote, \u201cbut from the very start, Oklahoma was an idea that far exceeded its reality.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/USATSI_23572638-scaled.jpg\")
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