There are lots of important conversations to have about looming NBA expansion. Conference realignment, schedule changes, the literal billions of dollars each team will bring in from their sale — you know, grown up stuff. But no one is talking about the most important part of all of this; a custody battle that spans all NBA history: who gets the 1979 NBA Championship?
It has been widely reported that the NBA has zeroed in on Seattle and Las Vegas as the two destinations for its expansion teams, both large media markets and the former of which a legacy basketball town that really-super hasn’t gotten over the theft of their team, the Seattle SuperSonics, to Oklahoma City in 2008. To bring a team back to Seattle and not use the name “SuperSonics” would be a crime so horrific they’d have to add an eighth deadly sin — thankfully, we’re all in agreement that the Seattle SuperSonics would return; name, colors and all. But it does beg a pretty interesting question: who are the true SuperSonics, the Oklahoma City Thunder or … you know, the SuperSonics? The NewperSonics, if you will.
The boring answer is that there is no problem. Sources told ESPN in 2024 that the Thunder would likely cede all SuperSonics history to the new team, given that the Thunder don’t celebrate Seattle history with banners or some sort of ring of honor or anything. Given that the Thunder just won their own championship, there is no question that the 1979 Championship would revert back to its rightful owners: the city of Seattle.
The Thunder giving Seattle it’s history back won’t be so simple
However, this lame formulation doesn’t capture all the intrigue associated with this history-custody situation. Because the NewperSonics (yes we’re going to make that a thing) are literally not the same franchise as the old SuperSonics, which were legally purchased and transferred to Oklahoma City, though there was a strange resolution in the lawsuit between the city of Seattle and Thunder that allowed the SuperSonics to use their old digs if a team ever came back. History was officially merged and shared, though it seems the Thunder intend to be benevolent.
(Side note: can you imagine if the Thunder decided to make this a big deal and said “no, that 1979 championship is ours, so are Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp and Ray Allen. Deal with it.” That would make the Thunder the most reviled franchise in sports basically overnight. But more on this later [foreshadowing])
Despite what the reports might say, I’m confident the transfer of history won’t be some hunky-dory happiness parade where Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hands a lifesize portrait of Jack Sikma to Macklemore and then everyone throws fish to each other and watches the sun set over Puget sound. We are going to have problems, and if nobody has problems, I will create problems.
Three statistical and historical problems caused by the SuperSonics return
Question 1: Who drafted Kevin Durant? Short answer: the SuperSonics, where he played the first year of his career. However, on Thunder all-time scoring lists, Durant now loses the first year of his career and the 1624 points he scored that season. That keeps him at third place on their all-time list behind Russell Westbrook and Gary Payton, but actually he will be moved up to second because Gary Payton is now first in SuperSonics scoring history. Durant’s Rookie of the Year now goes to the Sonics, and Durant is now not the first homegrown Thunder star; Durant was not stolen from the Thunder by the Warriors, he was stolen by the Thunder from the Sonics. We cool with that, Thunder fans?
Question 2: How did Durant and the rest of the 2006 team officially get from the Sonics to the Thunder? Durant has officially played for five teams — Thunder, Warriors, Nets, Suns and Rockets — but now he will have played for six. Did he and the rest of the team just get “traded” to the Thunder? Are we going to have to add a line in his Wikipedia page that says Durant was “relocated” to Oklahoma City?
Question 3: Should Russell Westbrook’s legacy receive this much of a boost? On the official NBA record books, the SuperSonics and Thunder have shared player records, split relatively evenly between Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Should the Sonics history migrate back to Seattle, here is a list of statistical categories Westbrook will suddenly be the Thunder’s franchise leader in: Points, assists, defensive rebounds, total rebounds, steals, minutes played, field goals made, field goals attempted, free throws made, free throws attempted. Games played, obviously, now belongs to Nick Collison.
Durant retains the three-pointers made records, but Westbrook steals (pun intended) many of the rest from Payton, who, conversely, becomes the hegemon for SuperSonics history. The most hilarious one: since Durant’s 2006 season now belongs to Seattle, Westbrook passes Durant for first on the Thunder all-time 3-pointers attempted list.
Should the Thunder give up the SuperSonics’ history?
You may believe that NBA history is one simple, continuous straight line of championships, records, statistics, rule changes and great players to form the Pan-NBAmerican Highway through the past and ever onward into the future. But like the real Pan-American Highway, we have a politically and socially problematic gap that hasn’t been adequately bridged: the Charlotte-New Orleans Hornets-Bobcats. You know, that classic team.
In 2002, the Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans. Then, in 2004, Charlotte got a team back as the Charlotte Bobcats. Then, in 2013, the Hornets became the Pelicans and the Bobcats subsequently became the Hornets. Importantly for our purposes, the Bobcats had not laid claim to the 1988-2002 Charlotte Hornets history until they became the Charlotte Hornets again in 2014, when they took their records and history back retroactively.
So, apparently, location is not important; names are important, and if the Seattle team was called … like, the HyperSonics or something, then the records would stay with the Thunder. This all seems a bit rhetorically flimsy, and if I’m being honest, it informs the great hot take of this article that I buried a full 1100 words in to avoid backlash:
I think the Thunder should retain the SuperSonics history.
I understand there is legitimate beef between the city of Seattle and the Thunder, and so suggesting that Oklahoma City get to keep the Sonics’ legacy seems absurd. But it’s simply too stupid a precedent to say that just because a team is called the same thing as a former team that they are somehow the same team.
If we’re just … calling this even, the Sonics would retroactively claim lots of negative NBA records: they would blow the longest playoff drought record out of the water, having not achieved anything since 2005. All of their team records suddenly become impossibly anachronistic, and the Oklahoma City Thunder lose most of their historical dimension; Westbrook is now the founding father of the franchise, which completely invalidates entire structures of how the team developed. The only reason they even had Kevin Durant was because the Sonics drafted him. You cannot understand the modern Oklahoma City Thunder without using Durant as the starting point. I just don’t like it.
That said, I’m happy for Seattle getting their team back and am willing to deal with this for the good of humanity. If the Boston Celtics had been purchased last year by some tech mogul and moved to St. Louis to become the St. Louis Arches, I would literally never get over it. I would fight tooth and nail for my team back and if the St. Louis Arches tried to claim my 18 banners I’d raise an army and invade the state of Missouri. Logically, the Thunder should keep the history. But emotionally, come on now.