Oklahoma City Thunder?

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Apparently, the NBA franchise formerly known as the Sonics will be the Oklahoma City Thunder, in a report from KOCO. 'The Thunder' won an online, fan voting contest conducted by The Oklahoman. If this is indeed going to be the new name of OUR basketball team in this great state, it's going to have to grow on me, and fast.

I don't so much like it, for a few reasons...

1) I don't like team names that don't end in 's.' Only six other professional teams (in the big 4 sports) do it. But the Jazz, the Lightning, the Heat, the Magic, the Wild, and the Avalanche to me are all pretty cheesy, with the possible exception of the Colorado Avalanche. Only two baseball teams fall in this category, sort of (both of the 'Sox' but at least their name sounds plural).

Shoot, of the 119 Div 1 college football teams (and I only count 1-A as 'Division 1'), only 12 have names that don't end in S, and some of them at least use a plural form of the name (Navy Midshipmen, Illinois Fighting Illini, Notre Dame Fighting Irish) a couple use a simple color as their name (Syracuse Orange, Stanford Cardinal), and a few use the collective name for a group of animals (NC State/Nevada Wolfpack, Marshall Thundering Herd). The ones that inexplicably use a non-S name are Alabama (Crimson Tide), Tulsa (Golden Hurricane), Tulane (Green Wave), and North Texas (Mean Green, which is a tribute to legendary alum 'Mean' Joe Green. They used to be called the Eagles.)

2) While 'the Thunder' is neat in that it depicts our well known stormy weather, I'd rather have had a name that some how relates to the heritage and history of Oklahoma, ala the 'Sooners.' The most obvious choice would be something relating to our Native American heritage, but that's apparently not kosher in this overly polically correct society of ours, especially considering that a state school just had to change its name from the classy and harmless 'Redmen' to the lame 'River Hawks.' Even though there isn't really even just one tribe that directly relates to Oklahoma (like Illinois Illini), the name of the state literally means Red People! Plus, there are still a handful of pro teams using Indian-related names (Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins), and just because a team uses an Indian name doesn't mean that particular group of people have to be portrayed as savages. Even using a non-S name like 'The Tribe' would've been cool.

Or they could've picked something that more accurately represents the culture and history of Oklahoma, like the Buffalo, which just so happens to be the state mammal (ok, so it's actually the 'American Bison,' but who's really keeping track anyway). I'd have even settled for the Sandbass or Bullfrogs (the state fish and amphibian, respectively). Or why not the Gamblers? I'm just saying...

That's partially why I wanted the Thunderbirds, because that was a great Native American symbol, and plus we could've have numerous "Grease" T-Bird comparisons.