The Oklahoma City Thunder has announced that Rumble the Bison will be the new mascot for the Oklahoma basketball team. With the new OKC Thunder mascot sporting a white Thunder uniform and his name on the back Rumble missed his first dunk off of a pass from a member of the dunk team. Quite the introduction for the new Thunder Mascot.

Brian Byrnes, the Thunder’s senior VP of ticket sales said that the mascot’s name was choen based on the sound of thunder and the sound of bison, which is Oklahoma’s state animal for those of you not in the know.

Byrnes went on to say that “The bison is apowerful, surprisingly fast, close-nkit and travels as a herd, and represents the Thunder in an appropriate way.”

I think Rumble the bison works as the new Oklahoma City Thunder mascot, I have received some emails for people that would have liked to see Thor as the mascot but I’m sure that idea was passed on early on.

What does everyone else think about the Thunder mascot?

We may not be beating everyone but we are definitely developing a world class team in Oklahoma City. It isn’t going to happen over night, or even the first season. But we are pulling it together to compete with the best the NBA has to offer. We pulled a 107-99 win against the New York Knicks last night after having a 23 point lead throughout a full quarter and still clung on to win the basketball game.

With a full crowd, nearly 19,000 people in attendance we showed the NBA that we may have a rough start but we are in it to win it. Jeff Green was quoted as saying “We can’t let off the pedal, We’ve got to focus in a little bit more. But we handled it well.”

Kevin Durant pulled off 27 points during the game and Russel Westbrook was a close second with 22 points and 9 assists.

We will be playing the Houston Rockets on January 9th at 7PM, lets hope we can pull off a winning streak of some kind. I think we can show our neighbor to the south that we have the passion to win.

With all of the news and hype surrounding our first opening game of the 2008-2009 NBA season there is a lot of information to take in. For starters, some great news I have heard is that the Bricktown Parking Garage and BPI Parking lot will have free parking during the Oklahoma City Thunder game tomorrow, Oct. 29. Awesome of them to do that for OKC Thunder fans. The reason they mentioned they were doing it is that they want to make sure fans are aware that in the future their parking will never be more than $5.

As of 5:00PM today there were still 200 tickets available to be purchased by Oklahoma City Thunder Fans. Tickets start at just $10 for the upper levels. People have spent the past few months making videos, music and writing about their favorite OKC Thunder basketball player whether it be Kevin Durrant, Jeff Green or Joe Smith. People are excited about Oklahoma City being a big league team and can’t wait for the tip off tomorrow.

The big talk is Thunder Alley and the near block party atmosphere that will be happening tomorrow. Downtown Oklahoma City in around the Ford Center and throughout Bricktown will be one giant party for Oklahoma City Thunder fans with everyone celebrating this historic event for the OKC Thunder Basketball team.

The Oklahoma City Thunder may have had a rough preseason with a 1-6 preseason score. However, there is still a lot of enthusiasm for OKC to do well in the coming NBA season. Since we took veterans Desmond Mason and Joe Smith in August there is a lot of excitement that we will have some much needed toughness, defense , skill and leadership to the team. Something that the Seattle Sonics didn’t have much of last year. With the new veteran leadership I belive we can have an excellent first season.

The Ford Center will hold an open (see: free) practice for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Giving an opportunity to Oklahoma Thunder Fans to come and check out the team. This great opportunity will start at 5:30PM. The event will even have the Oklahoma City Thunder Dance team out doing activities.

It sounds like the OKC Thunder Dance team will be greeting everyone as they shuffle in to the Ford Center. Be sure to bring your camera and submit any photos you take of the practice to this site and I will post them in the gallery (with credit). I may just pull a Flickr feed in the future…

Tickets are free and simply general admission. Check original press release here.

The La Ball Talk’s Laker blog is doing a contest for best team blog amongst NBA teams and this blog was nominated. There are several other Oklahoma City Thunder Blogs that are in the running. The LA Ball Talk website should have the polls open sometime this week and give everyone an opportunity to vote.

I’ll post a link to the poll page as soon as voting is opened, so keep an eye out for that sometime this week and definitely help me out by voting for this blog.

Checkout the LA Ball Talk website.

We played our first home game in the preseason on the 14th. We nearly took down the clippers coming out with a 90-88 loss. We aren’t doing too bad and I think we have a change this season, our first, to show that we mean business and gain some respect in the NBA community.

As long as we all show our support for the Oklahoma City Thunder we can prove to everyone that Oklahoma City is a big league team and we mean business.

With our upcoming first season game against the Milwaulkee Bucks coming up you can feel the excitement rising in Oklahoma City. You see people wearing Oklahoma City Thunder apparrel and it for sale everywhere.

I think we are going to have a great basketball season this year in Oklahoma City. I’ll keep everyone posted on the games. If anyone is interested in me live blogging the games let me know and I will set something up.

After a brief intermission from this site I was able to get back to finishing the design and writing content about the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not too late, either, as our first game is coming up on October 29th against the Milkaukee Bucks. It will be at the Ford Center at 7pm and I hear that tickets are still available.

Single tickets will actually go on sale Tuesday, October 7th at 10:00AM CDT. They will be available by phone or on the official Thunder website. I believe all the tickets alloted for the season ticket bracket are sold out but there are still packages available if you only want to see certain games. For instance, there is an Allstar package that will give you Miami Heat, Lakers and several other popular teams. Call 405-208-4800 if you are interested in getting in on the packages before they sell out.

Now that the name is official and I have the logo and team colors I have been working diligently to get a new design together rather than this slightly altered free basketball theme. I should have the new design up by the end of the week with all of the content that is required for a proper blog.

I appreciate all of the support I have received from the basketball community and Oklahomans across the state. Keep a look out here for everything Oklahoma City Thunder related.

Reports come from the forums that the image to the right here is the new Oklahoma City Thunder Logo. The logo that you see on the Basketball looks a little retro, I really hope that it turns out to be a fake. If this logo is the real deal though it looks like the Oklahoma City Thunder colors are blue, yellow and orange. Which aren’t bad colors to use but definitely a surprise.

Supposedly the story goes that someone working in a distribution center took a picture with their cell phone of this basketball and sent it anonymously to several people.

We’ll all find out on Wednesday what the real logo and colors are going to be. If anyone has any more information about this being real or fake please leave a comment so we can get to the bottom of this!

Let me know your thoughts on the logo that has been leaked. Love it? Hate it?

3:45PM Update: As you will see in the comments in looks like the NBA has further leaked the Thunder logo you see above, as well as the Oklahoma City Thunder name in their apparel store. Only an hour to go for the official announcement.

5:13 Update: Oklahoma City NBA site has a OKC Thunder shop available where you can purchase some gear.

The Oklahoma City’s NBA team is expected to officially announce the new OKC Basketball team name on Wednesday, September 3rd at 5PM CDT. Not only are they going to be announcing the name but they are also going to be unveiling the new logo and team colors for the Oklahoma City Thunder. I’m working closely with some of the people involved with the Oklahoma City Thunder to get the logo early so that I can redesign this blog to be more appropriately fashioned after the logo and colors of the Oklahoma City Thunder Basketball team.

At the 5PM unveiling of the new Thunder logo and colors there will be an exclusive sale of OKC Thunder apparel in downtown Oklahoma City at Leadership Square. The press conference should be exciting, and I’m sure everyone is just as anxious to find out the colors for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Some have speculated that the Thunder isn’t in relation to Thunder/Lightning but in relation to the Thundering bison. That isn’t the case, otherwise our team name would be the Oklahoma City Bison. As soon as I can get a copy of the new Oklahoma City Thunder Logo and Oklahoma City Thunder colors I will provide them on the site. I expect I will be at the unveiling and purchase some of the new apparel.