Welcome to the NBA

Great great night for Oklahoma and Oklahoma City. Everything was over the top and beyond the loftiest of expectations. I snapped some photos and recorded the player introductions and will post those shortly.

There has been all this negative talk (I would link but it would probably crash the Internet) about how this city and market can't or won't support a team three years from now or how losing will dull the enjoyment and, hence, undercut fan support. One of the things that struck me last night was that this is really our 3rd season. We aren't NBA rookies. When the Hornets came to town we were awestruck by the effort that goes into the fan experience. This time around we expect it.

Not only were the fans not let down but I think it surpassed in some ways. I love the addition of a live band for instance. Or having a group of drummers (although it'd be cool if they replaced the piped in "defense" drum). The Thunder Girls are hotter and better than the Honeybees. My wife couldn't even make fun of them and that's one of the joys of going to the games for her. The lighting seems to be darker during the action, more like the Lakers at Staples. I personally like that. The intro was awesome and vastly exceeded anything the Hornets did.

There are some differences to be sure though and they are striking and have more to do with the basketball.

It is now obvious to even the most casual of OKC Hornets fans that Chris Paul is something special. He is going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. When the Hornets were relocated and Paul was a rookie you could sense that he was special. He has court vision that absolutely flabbergasted me at the time. I would be sitting in the club level and he would see things at court level that weren't even there until his passes created it. I once saw him make a bounce pass from the left elbow of the 3-point line diagonally to the right elbow of the 3 point line at the opposite end of the court, through a defender and hit his target (can't remember who it was- probably Mason) in stride for a dunk. That's probably not in his career top 10 highlights. We got spoiled rotten without realizing it.

The Thunder will be lucky to ever have a point guard half as talented as CP3. That's no disrespect to Russell Westbrook who is easily one of the best players on the team today. But he's not really a point guard. Not in the CP3 sense. And this team will struggle for it. This team has no one who can create shots for other people. Kevin Durant would go lights out if somebody set him to abuse his man. You can just tell. Honestly, Westbrook could do the same thing. But I digress.

The other notable difference is the personalities of the two teams. CP3 not only is one of the top players in the game but his personality lights up the whole arena. You just want to like him, you can't help it. Those Hornets had PJ Brown also who is one of the most likable people in the NBA. In their second year they got Marc Jackson who owns horses and dreamt of being a cowboy.

The Thunder players and the OKC fans haven't quite connected on a personal level yet. The players, to their credit, are saying all the right things and they are getting active in the community. They do seem accessible and they all come across as really good guys. They are just soft spoken and it takes time.

The good news is we have the time now. They are here for good no matter what anyone says and this team is not on loan the way the Hornets were.