Thunder's shared Sonics history still strikes a nerve in Seattle, where fans will 'hate watch' 2025 NBA Finals
OKC, technically playing for the second title in franchise history, still has Seattle's history after a 2008 relocation
By
Brad Botkin
•
10 min read
With the Oklahoma City Thunder set to square off with the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Finals, a question to which the answer is equal parts obvious and complicated has arisen: If the Thunder are able to defeat Indiana, will it actually be the first championship in franchise history?
"No, not technically," says Spencer Hawes, who played in the NBA for 10 years and is Seattle born and bred. "And it pisses me off."
Hawes is right. Technically, the Thunder have already won a championship. It happened in 1979. Nearly 30 years before the Thunder even existed. This is where it gets complicated.
You see, when the Professional Basketball Club, LLC, headed by chairman Clay Bennett, purchased the Seattle SuperSonics in the summer of 2006, they didn't just assume ownership of the team; they became the owners of all SuperSonics history, too.
Emotionally, this could never be true. The Sonics and all their history belong to Seattle, where time has done little, if anything, to heal the collective pain and anger that fans and the community at large felt when they lost their team in 2008. But technically, that 1979 championship trophy belongs to Oklahoma City, even if the Thunder are never going to display it as their own.
"Having been to games in Oklahoma City and having interacted with people from the Thunder organization, they view [the two franchise histories] as effectively detached, too," says Brett Goldberg, who works alongside former SuperSonics coach George Karl and legendary point guard Gary Payton at Truth+Media, a digital media platform that "creates and shares real, engaging and meaningful stories on sports, leadership and humanity."
Here's where a weird story gets even weirder. One of the things that Truth + Media does is create a wealth of old Sonics content under their brand Iconic Sonics, but if you go to the Twitter page and click on IconicSonics.com, you will be taken to ... the Oklahoma City Thunder's official NBA page.
So here everyone is trying to paint this picture of two franchises with no real link to each other, and yet they are, quite literally, linked. The more you dig, the more you realize that even when you think you're going down a path of Sonics history, you end up in Oklahoma City. Except all the Sonics stuff Oklahoma City owns is still in Seattle!
Indeed, everything from the SuperSonics' 1996 Western Conference championship banner to the retired jerseys of Lenny Wilkens, Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Nate McMillan, Downtown Freddie Brown and Spencer Haywood currently reside inside Seattle's Museum of History and Industry, which houses thousands of pieces of Sonics memorabilia.
"Wait, you mean to tell me the Thunder own my jersey?" an incredulous Haywood said as he learned for the first time the whereabouts of his famed uniform. "I had no idea. I been sitting here wondering where that shit went."
Let's be clear, as this story is largely about technicalities that feel all-too real: We are not talking about actual jerseys here. Haywood has that in a glass case at home, and there's one in the Naismith Hall of Fame. We are talking about the table-cloth sized replica jerseys, posters essentially, that hang in NBA arenas.
Haywood remembers the night his No. 24, also worn by late Sonics great Dennis Johnson, went into the Key Arena rafters. It was Feb. 26, 2007. Kevin Durant was four months from being drafted by Seattle on the night Ray Allen was traded to the Celtics in a blockbuster that brought back Jeff Green.
The following summer, six days before the move to Oklahoma City was announced, Russell Westbrook would be drafted by and introduced in Seattle wearing a Sonics uniform. The future had arrived. And nobody, least of all Haywood as he watched his jersey go up that night, had any clue that it was all about to disappear.
"That was serious pain for me [when the team was moved to Oklahoma City]," Haywood says. "Because part of the fun of [having your jersey retired] is getting to go back to games, you know, and have the broadcasters say, 'Look, there's Spencer Haywood in the stands. His jersey is retired up there.' Lenny Wilkens and some of those guys got those moments. But I didn't."
Haywood may still get his moment. But first, Seattle has to get the Sonics back. The deal is, when and if Seattle is awarded another NBA franchise, which is looking increasingly likely once commissioner Adam Silver officially green-lights expansion, everything from the memorabilia to the trophy and jerseys to the actual name and logo of the team will turn back over to the Sonics. At which point, one can only assume all the retired jerseys will go back up in the new arena with legends like Payton and Shawn Kemp, who never got to see their jerseys retired, joining them.
But until then, it all sort of feels like history without a home. Most of it isn't even on display at the city's museum. It's on shelves in the back room of an effective mini storage. A lot like the Sonics themselves: Not entirely gone, at least not in memory and in the hope that a resurrection is possible, but at the moment, not exactly alive, either.
"It's like we've been in this 17-year coma," Hawes, who speaks for so many still-heartbroken Sonics fans, told CBS Sports. "All this tethering of the history (between the Sonics and Thunder) ... just allow the death to happen so we can hopefully have this rebirth [of NBA basketball coming back to Seattle].
"There's all these graphics that link the two franchises, like saying this is the [Thunder's] third Finals since '96, or any of these stats, most triple doubles in franchise history, all this stuff combining the two histories or whatever ... every time I see one of those graphics it gets me fired up. Someone just have the stones to do the guillotine and separate the franchise histories."
"The Thunder have [the] 2012 [Finals]. That '96 [Sonics] team was ours. I always associate a franchise with the city. Where was your fanbase when you won? Can your grandpa tell you where he was or how he remembers like it was yesterday when [the Sonics] won that title in '79, or when GP [Gary Payton] and [Shawn] Kemp were doing their thing in '96? I guarantee you nobody gives a shit about that stuff in Oklahoma City."
If you can't tell, this is still a raw subject for Hawes. He doesn't look at this as a former NBA player. It's personal to him. It's family. He grew up down the street from Key Arena. His uncle, Steve Hawes, played for the Sonics. He was right there with everyone else when the "Save our Sonics" rallies were echoing through the city. His father used to tell him stories of Haywood coming down to the park to play pick-up ball.
"There was no distinction between the street, the fans, the players ... in those days, we were all a part of that city and the community," Haywood said. "There were no other professional teams [in Seattle in the early-and-mid '70s]. Seattle was the Sonics. And the Sonics were Seattle. So the city has really been hurting for 17 years now. It's not really anything against the Thunder, I don't think. I like how those guys play. They are serious and they play strong defense. It's nothing against them. I just think this is going to be a painful series to watch for a lot of people [who loved the Sonics]."
No doubt this is true. Hawes, who says he will never forgive some of the city officials and politicians that he and so many Seattleites believe, for all intents and purposes, let their team slip away in something of a middle-of-the-night move, has no qualms about telling you he will be "hate-watching" these NBA Finals.
"I went with my buddies to watch Game 4 [of the Western Conference finals between OKC and Minnesota] right across from the old Key Arena, and it was relatively packed, and the entire bar was actively rooting against the Thunder," Hawes said.
"I've never been a Pacers fan, but now my Twitter avatar is a Pacers logo. [The Pacers] have a new fan for at least another few weeks. We're going to hate watch these Finals, and however steep the road may be [to getting a team back in Seattle], until it gets settled, there's a huge contingent here [in Seattle] that's going to be rooting for whoever the Thunder are playing."
Haywood can only laugh when he hears about Hawes' hate-watch agenda.
"Im telling you, man, Spencer Hawes is a typical Seattle Sonic and a typical Seattle person," Haywood said. "There are a lot of people who feel just like him."
But not everyone. Take the aforementioned George Karl, for instance. Karl led that '96 Sonics team to the Finals as its head coach and is forever tied to the city, but for him, time has done quite a bit of healing.
"I think in general there was a lot of animosity toward Oklahoma City for the first 10 years or so," Karl told CBS Sports. "I think when Gary [Payton] and Shawn [Kemp] and Detlef [Schrempf] and Nate [McMillan] get together, I think we were a little angry for a while, and we probably said some smart ass things about, you know, we don't want anything to do with OKC.
"But I'll be honest with you," Karl continued, "[the Thunder] are a classy organization. I've gone to a couple of games down there, and I have a lot of respect for them. They've done so many things the right way, and you can't help by be impressed by the team they've built. I think they're the classiest organization in the NBA right now. Does that mean I don't love Seattle anymore? No. Not at all."
Indeed, there are two sides to every story. The Thunder declined to be interviewed for their side of this one, but at any rate, this look back is only meant to examine the toll being paid in Seattle and the extra emotional tax the city is being hit with as this Thunder-Pacers Finals takes center stage.
OKC doesn't have any of these wounds. The city got the team it wanted and, importantly, proved its worth as an NBA city when Oklahoma City served as a foster home for the Pelicans when they were displaced from New Orleans for two years following Hurricane Katrina.
Thunder vs. Sonics history
| Thunder | Sonics | |
|---|---|---|
| Years active | 2008-present | 1967-2008 |
| NBA championships | 0 | 1 (1979) |
| NBA Finals appearances | 2 (2012, 2025) | 3 (1978, 1979, 1996) |
| Top player (by win shares) | Kevin Durant | Gary Payton |
| MVPs | 3 (Durant, Westbrook, Gilgeous-Alexander) | 0 |
Business is often brutal, and the Sonics certainly aren't the first NBA team to be relocated. The Lakers started out in Minneapolis. The Jazz went from New Orleans to Salt Lake City. The Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis. The Warriors from Philadelphia to Oakland, and then to San Francisco. The Nets from New Jersey to Brooklyn.
The difference in all those examples is that the team name never changed. Different city, yes. But same team. Perhaps this is a technicality, too, in a story full of them, but it is nonetheless a distinction that does make the Thunder, with their total name-and-color rebrand, feel more like a brand-new expansion team than a technical extension of the Sonics.
"I don't associate the Oklahoma City Thunder with any of the Seattle SuperSonics history," says longtime NBA player and coach Avery Johnson, who spent the first two years of his career playing with the Sonics. "When I look at the Oklahoma City Thunder, I look at this as a new franchise that's trying for its first championship."
This is the obvious part. Everyone sees it this way. The Sonics belong to Seattle, and the Thunder belong to Oklahoma City. Only the legalities say something different, and to that, you can bet Seattle folks are counting every day down to the one where their Sonics hopefully return home and the Thunder show up on their schedule.
That, Goldberg says, "is going to be a blood rivalry."
