“The thunder of guns, yeah
Tore me apart” – AC/DC

Yesterday (Sunday morning) just before church service began, our pastor’s wife came up to me and said something along the lines of it’s an important night tonight. For a moment I was caught off guard and a little confused. After a moment, I realized what she was saying and so I simply asked her to pray for thunder, pray specifically for THE Thunder right around 7 pm CST Sunday night.

Well, prayers or no prayers (don’t think God is particularly interested in who wins a NBA title), at approximately 9:49 CST, the Oklahoma City crowd erupted and the Oklahoma City Thunder won their first NBA title as an Oklahoma City franchise.

Thunder sensation Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (only 26 years old) became just the fourth player in NBA history (and first in the last 25 years) to win the NBA scoring title, the NBA regular season MVP, and the NBA Finals MVP award joining these three other decent players – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal.

It was July of 2019, when the Thunder acquired Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and started stockpiling draft picks that led to the drafting in 2022 of Chet Holmgren (#2 out of Gonzaga) and Jalen Williams “Jay-Dub” (#12 out of Santa Clara). And just like that, a new, very formidable “big three” was born. With subtle and smart picks and acquisitions over the following years (trading Josh Giddey to the Bulls for Alex Caruso, acquiring Isaiah Hartenstein from the Knicks, etc.), the Thunder slowly built themselves into a contender and ultimately into a NBA championship team.

This photo below is from Christmas 2015 give or take a year.

I know it was Christmas because I bought all three of those Oklahoma City Thunder hats as Christmas gifts to myself, my brother-in-law Nick (center), and my dad. Living in Norman for many years after retirement, my mom and dad became big Thunder fans upon the arrival of the Thunder (thank you Seattle) in 2008. Success was almost instantaneous as the Thunder made their way to the NBA finals in 2012 behind their original “big three” of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden. They lost in five games that season to a better big three in Miami – LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. The Thunder traded Harden before the start of the following season, Durant left via free agency in 2016, and Westbrook was the last to go – traded in July of 2020 officially ending that initial era of success.

My dad and I always had Thunder basketball to talk about through the years. How they needed to get Kevin Durant more shots and Russell Westbrook needed to turn the ball over less. How Serge Ibaka couuld be the X-factor. How fun Steven Adams was to watch and was for a soundbite, and how Kendrick Perkins was making way too much money for the Thunder. He would see many of the Thunder players in the Poker Room at the local casino he frequented and report back to me – “Durant was playing the big stakes tables today… Perk was there with his bodyguard so no one would bother him I guess… stood next to Russell Westbrook getting poker chips. He’s not very tall…”

I once typed out a full-page letter and mailed it to my dad which laid out how much money Perkins was making per point and per rebound, compared him to some of the other “true stiffs” around the league, and called my dad “a crazy old fool who just didn’t understand basketball,” and then I signed it “Big Perk.” My dad, the lifelong basketball coach, got a kick out of it, and I think it only fueled his passion for Perk-bashing. We went to a Thunder game one time with my best friend from high school, Barry. The three of us sitting there watching the Thunder that night and Barry (also by then fully aware of my dad’s disdain for Kendrick Perkins), would jump out of his seat and give a standing ovation every time Kendrick Perkins made a shot or did something really well. Granted, it only happened a couple of times the whole game, but it made my dad laugh each time. And to my dad’s defense, Perk finished with somewhere around 4 points and 2 rebounds that game, which just further solidified his whole point of him being grossly overpaid.

The irony of it all is that Kendrick Perkins was on hand last night in Oklahoma City as part of the ESPN crew broadcasting the game. At halftime, Perk let some of his former OKC Thunder allegiance step in when he said “Chet Holmgren and J-Dub, ya’ll gotta step the hell up.“

Better “step the hell up” they did in the second half, and this Thunder team became an instant legend. There’s only one first in the history books and this group of guys will always be “the first” OKC NBA champion team.

This August will mark four years since my dad passed, and I miss him and I miss our conversations about the Thunder. He would love this Thunder team right along with the hundreds of thousands of fans that do at this very moment. So last night as the post-game coverage wrapped up, Big Perk said his final words and I turned off the television, I rubbed the same OKC Thunder ballcap that I had on my head that I’m wearing in the photo above, and with eyes slightly welling up I looked and pointed upwards and simply said…

“Dad, we’ve been Thunderstruck.”

Several hours later, the song still lingers in my head. Released in 1990, it became a top five U.S. Rock Tracks song for AC/DC off of their “Razor’s Edge” album. One of their most famous and beloved songs, “Thunderstruck” became the official song of the OKC Thunder in 2017 edging out “The Thunder Rolls” by Oklahoman Garth Brooks. I love Garth, but the fans made the right decision on this one as the 2024-25 Oklahoma City Thunder etched or shall I say thundered their their way into the history books.

Thanks for reading and ThunderUp!

sincerely,

the80s