OKC Thunder won't celebrate Seattle Sonics NBA championship

A few days ago news leaked stating that NBA teams who have won a championship during their existence will be ‘honored’ by wearing a gold patch on the neckline of their jersey.

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Placed on the back of the uniform, the patch will indicate how many championships the franchise has won (the Los Angeles Lakers for example will have ’16’ on their patch) while teams that have yet to win a ring will not wear the gold patch.

Seems straight forward enough, right? But what about teams who have relocated since their last championship? Say for example, the Sacramento Kings who won a championship when the team was located in Rochester? Well, considering it’s part of their franchise history they’ll still wear a patch commemorating the win.

Things got a little more interesting though in regards to the Oklahoma City Thunder who have the right to incorporate the gold patch to honor the 1979 NBA Championship won by the defunct Seattle SuperSonics. Thankfully, the Thunder decided to go against such a plan and will be without a gold patch, leaving the Seattle championship memories where they belong.

“As of right now, they are not wearing it,” NBA director of out-fitting Christopher Arena said. “They actually would have had to have told us that some time ago, and that was their choice. We have several teams who have a lineage that exists prior to the city that they’re in …Some teams embrace that past, some teams don’t. Whether it’s because of ownership changes or perhaps the lineage is too great of a distance or the team nickname changed or whatever it may be, that’s their decision.”

There’s already enough understandable bad blood between the two fan bases – such a move would have only increased the resentment.

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OKC Thunder won’t celebrate Seattle Sonics NBA championship

By Bryan Rose | Jul 21, 2014