2015-16 OKC Thunder

[Bellaboo]

Ready for some of this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6rRHHrmQds

[Throckmorton]

Staying: Josh Huestis

Thunder sign Josh Huestis

Good luck to you, Josh Huestis.

Going: Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman

Nancy Lieberman expected to become Kings assistant coach | The Sacramento Bee

And good luck to you, Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman.

[Laramie]

Are you ready for some vintage Kevin Durant?

[Bellaboo]

NBA 2015-16 schedule out tonight at 5:00 CST.

[Anonymous.]

The video clips of KD moving around recently gives me goosebumps. League better be put on watch. OKC got that injury revenge mode this season.

[Laramie]

Oklahoma City Thunder 2015-16 schedule released:

October: 2 GP: 1 home/1 away

November: 16 GP: 10 home/6 away
December: 15 GP: 9 home/6 away

January: 16 GP: 7 home/9 away
February: 11 GP: 6 Home/5 away

March: 16 GP: 7 home/9 away
April: 6 GP: 1 home/5 away

April: First 4 of 6 games on the road (Houston, Denver, Portland & Sacramento); then home against Los Angeles, close out the season @San Antonio.

Nationally televised: ESPN: 10 - NBA TV (blacked out): 9 - TNT: 9 - ABC - 5 (24 nationally televised games).
Turner Media NBA version: http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.ele...ked-201516.pdf
ESPN version: http://espn.go.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/okc

[HOT ROD]

5 abc games again, woohoo. Awesome to be considered a Top Marquee team! and 3 of those are in OKC, great to show off the city to a expanded nationwide audience.

anybody know how many games OKC ended up having nationally televised last year? IIRC, it was a record amount.

[Laramie]

.
'Nobody is going to beat this juggernaut as you call them; because I think they have arrived...'--Skip Bayless.

Get ready, have the pieces arrived--Donovan, Williams, Cheeks... ...Durant, Collison, Westbrook, Ibaka, Adams, McGary, Roberson, Morrow, Waiters, Kanter, Augustin, Singler, Novak, Huestis & Payne.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Thunder.

[Laramie]

NBA: Five Players Poised To Make The Jump Into Stardom This Season

1. Jimmy Butler, Chicago Bulls
2. Jonas Valanciunas, Toronto Raptors
3. Otto Porter, Washington Wizards
4. Enes Kanter, Oklahoma City Thunder
5. Danilo Gallinari, Denver Nuggets

[Bellaboo]

If Enes can really improve his defense, he'll be a beast down low.

[dankrutka]

If Enes can really improve his defense, he'll be a beast down low.

It's not just defense. He needs to improve in a lot of areas. Here's a good breakdown:
Exploring the Stats World of Enes Kanter ? Vantage Sports

I'm a Kanter skeptic. He might have been the worst defender in the NBA last season. Most players don't show improvement all of a sudden after four years of being bad at something. His offense will be less valuable if everyone is healthy. I suspect all his offensive stats will go down this season. We'll see... Prove me wrong, big man.

[MitchellCole]

It's not just defense. He needs to improve in a lot of areas. Here's a good breakdown:
Exploring the Stats World of Enes Kanter ? Vantage Sports

I'm a Kanter skeptic. He might have been the worst defender in the NBA last season. Most players don't show improvement all of a sudden after four years of being bad at something. His offense will be less valuable if everyone is healthy. I suspect all his offensive stats will go down this season. We'll see... Prove me wrong, big man.

He takes pressure off of KD. Teams have double and triple teamed KD in the playoffs, because they never respected Perkins (and Sefalosha). This is partly why we see so many 1-10 from 3 games from Russ. Kanter helps this.

[Bellaboo]

I think we'll see improvement in Kanter and McGary this year on defense, especially with Kanter going through training camp. McGary getting hurt last year set him back, but one of these 2 could very well pick it up.

[okatty]

I was looking at the schedule for some highlight games and one which normally would not have been so great, but might be really interesting is the Pisons (and Reggie) on Fri. Nov. 27th (night after Thanksgiving). I think it will be REALLY fun to watch Westbrook go at Reggie. Should be fun.

[Laramie]

Oklahoma City Thunder-Seattle Supersonics' shared history.

Seattle was granted an NBA expansion franchise in 1967; its glory lasted 41 years with the conclusion of the Sonics' era in 2008. Oklahoma City was approved for relocation (2008-09 season) as the NBA welcomed the Sooner State market as the Thunder ignited a new era.

As part of the settlement of a lawsuit between the Bennett ownership group and the city of Seattle, the colors, logo and SuperSonics nickname would remain in Seattle. The franchise history moved with the club to its new home on the Great Plains.

Thorough analysis and observation of the 25 best players for the Supersonics-Thunder teams.

Who knew the origin of a franchise could be controversial?

But when one looks at the lineage of the Oklahoma City Thunder, there will inevitably be squawks. Leave out the history of the Seattle SuperSonics and there will be complaints. Include the history of the Seattle SuperSonics and, well, there will be complaints.

Oklahoma City Thunder: 25 Best To Play For The Thunder

Hope you will appreciate the history of our team from its original home in Seattle to its present day in Oklahoma City.

[Throckmorton]

It's 2015. Why is there Seattle Supersonics stuff in the yearly Thunder thread?

Because Laramie.

I was looking at the schedule for some highlight games and one which normally would not have been so great, but might be really interesting is the Pisons (and Reggie) on Fri. Nov. 27th (night after Thanksgiving). I think it will be REALLY fun to watch Westbrook go at Reggie. Should be fun.

I've got Sunday, December 6th marked in red on my calendar, for that is the day Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman returns to Oklahoma City. Not as a television analyst, but as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings.

[nighttrain12]

I'm glad this poll gave the only two logical answers. HELL YES!

[dankrutka]

I've said this before, but I'm not surprised others see it too... The Thunder organization is really terrible when it comes logos/uniforms/etc. I actually think the Thunder have the worst logo, worst uniforms, worst color scheme, worst alternate uniforms, and worst D-League logo. Anyway, Grantland ranked the Thunder logo as the worst: The Definitive NBA Logo Rankings «

Like, what is this? Thunder higher-ups hoped fans would think of two things when they heard the name — storms and rampaging bison — but they didn’t want to commit visually in either direction. A stormy logo might marginalize the bison, a key symbol for local Native Americans, and the staid Thunder thought it would be silly to have mature adults wear jerseys with animals on them. “We didn’t feel like having professional players represented by [an] animal was where we wanted to be,” says Brian Byrnes, the team’s senior vice-president for sales and marketing. Besides, Byrnes says, “the bull was already taken.”

Straddling the fence resulted in this vanilla mishmash. “It might be the best D-League logo ever made,” says Tom O’Grady, who served as the NBA’s first creative director before leaving to found Gameplan Creative, a Chicago-based branding consultancy. Team officials say the shield hints at a leader charging into battle, and that the upward rising “bolts,” which don’t look like bolts at all, symbolize a young franchise growing up.

No team has worse art, top to bottom, and Nike will push for an overhaul once it replaces Adidas as the league’s apparel partner in 2017. Nike and the Thunder are already talking, and the Thunder “haven’t ruled out” a more explicit weather-related secondary mark, Byrnes says.

Bad news: Oklahoma City seems locked into the shield motif and likely won’t replace it with a bison — or anything else. “To some extent, we are committed to the idea we have,” Byrnes says. “But we would not dismiss good feedback, particularly from Nike. We’re open to modernizing the logo, but we don’t have an appetite to overhaul it.”

They already have plenty of nice bison illustrations, courtesy of Dick Sakahara, a California designer who consulted with the Thunder during the team’s creation.

“I have a lot of bison that never got to be,” Sakahara says.

The Thunder do a lot of things really well as an organization and, like everyone else, I've long grown used to the logo and home/away uniforms, but I just think the organization needs to realize that they're failing in this respect and up their game.

[Laramie]

Thunder Media Day is Monday.

Training camp begins next Tuesday. The NBA season is right around the corner.


101 N Main St, Newcastle, OK Population 9,155 (from I-44, 90 US 62 south of Oklahoma City)

That means OKC's annual preseason scrimmage is coming to a local high school. On Tuesday morning, the team announced this year's version of the Blue and White game would be played at Newcastle, set for Sunday, Oct. 4, at 3 p.m.

“The Newcastle community has shown its loyal support for our team and its excitement to host this event at every stage of this process,” senior vice president Brian Byrnes said. “The annual Blue and White Scrimmage gives us an outstanding opportunity to connect with communities across the state and recognize Thunder fans in their hometowns.”

Past events have been staged in Choctaw, Bixby, Bethany, Yukon, Midwest City and Moore.

The Newcastle administration is distributing tickets to its community.

Source: Oklahoman Sports - September 23, 2015

[Laramie]

Kevin Durant 2015-2016 HYPE "The Return" HD

[ljbab728]

Thunder Sunset Uniforms | Oklahoma City Thunder

[FighttheGoodFight]

I think they look awful. I like the OKC but the "sunset" color is awful.

[Throckmorton]

From the news release

The full schedule for when the team plans to wear the sunset alternate is as follows (home games in bold):

Sunday, Nov. 1, vs. Denver Nuggets
Sunday, Nov. 8, vs. Phoenix Suns
Sunday, Nov. 15, vs. Boston Celtics
Sunday, Nov. 22, vs. Dallas Mavericks
Sunday, Dec. 6, vs. Sacramento Kings
Sunday, Dec. 13, vs. Utah Jazz
Sunday, Dec. 27, vs. Denver Nuggets
Wednesday, Jan. 6, vs. Memphis Grizzlies
Sunday, Jan. 10, at Portland Trail Blazers
Sunday, Jan. 17, vs. Miami Heat
Sunday, Jan. 24, at Brooklyn Nets
Saturday, Feb. 6, at Golden State Warriors
Sunday, Feb. 21, vs. Cleveland Cavaliers
Sunday, March 6, at Milwaukee Bucks
Wednesday, March 16, at Boston Celtics
Monday, March 28, at Toronto Raptors
Sunday, April 3, at Houston Rockets
Saturday, April 9, at Sacramento Kings

[dankrutka]

I think they look awful. I like the OKC but the "sunset" color is awful.

I like these fine on their own, but they just had to ridiculousness that is the Thunder's all-colors scheme. There's just no continuity among these alternatives and the standards. Everythink is a new color with a new design. Anyway, I'm really excited for the season.

[Pete]

Love the huge "OKC!

Been lobbying for that for a long time.