Clay Bennett and his cronies officially confirmed the league's worst kept secret today by announcing that his franchise has been dubbed the Oklahoma City Thunder. So does this mean after stealing basketball from Seattle he now has his sights on Golden State's mascot?
After all, Thunder, seen above destroying Harry the Hawk in a dance competition during the 2007 All-Star Weekend, has been the Warriors' mascot for over a decade. From Matt Steinmetz of the Examiner (via GSoM):
It will be interesting to see how the NBA handles this little issue ... if at all. Can it really have a team in one city with the nickname of "Thunder," and an official NBA mascot for another team named "Thunder?"That just can't be, right? It'd be like the Knicks having a little Irish guy named "the Celtic" perform at halftime. The NBA is usually so savvy when it comes to branding and marketing, but everything else about this whole OKC debacle has been backwards and hamfisted, so I guess this shouldn't be any different.
My guess is that 11 years of tradition will be flushed down the drain and a name change will be forced, although it would be kind of cool (in a trainwreck/professional-wrestling-type of way) to simply let Bennett embrace his role as the league villain and actually kidnap Thunder from Oakland.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
first they steal our logo, now our mascot? why did they move to OKC anyway? seattle is a WAY bigger city and has a WAY bigger market hillbillies will watch this tea,- a disgrace
Creative those Okkies are! They name themselves after our mascot and then use team colors blue, yellew, and orange. Hmmm;;;hey those are our colors too. WTF!!!!!