The team was originally established as the Seattle SuperSonics, an expansion team that joined the NBA for the 1967-68 season. While located in Seattle, the team qualified for the NBA playoffs 22 times, won their division six times, advanced to three NBA Finals, and won the 1979 NBA Championship.
In 2017, the year he won the league MVP award, Russell Westbrook became one of two players in NBA history to average a triple-double for a season, along with Oscar Robertson in 1962. He set a record for the most triple-doubles in a season, with 42. He went on to average a triple-double the following two seasons as well, and become the first player to lead the league in points and assists in multiple seasons.
In 2007, the Seattle Supersonics hired P. J. Carlesimo as head coach. When the team moved to Oklahoma City the following year, he became the first coach in Thunder history, but his tenure didn't last long. Carlesimo was fired on November 22, 2008 after a 1-12 start.
Serge Ibaka twice led the league in blocks, including 2012-13 when he earned NBA All-Defensive First Team honors and set a Thunder record with 242 blocks.
In 2009-10, with a scoring average of 30.1 points per game, 21-year-old Kevin Durant became the youngest NBA scoring champion and was selected to his first All-NBA team.
Ironically, 5-foot-9-inch point guard Nate Robinson, who spent one season with the Thunder, is the only three-time winner of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
Lenny Wilkens has been inducted three times into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame--first in 1989 as a player, as a coach in 1998, and in 2010 as part of the 1992 United States Olympic "Dream Team", for which he was an assistant coach.
On February 1, 2019, Paul George scored 43 points and had a career-high 10 3-pointers in a 118-102 win over the Miami Heat.
Donald Earl "Slick" Watts picked up the nickname "Slick" because he was one of the first NBA players to shave his head. In 1975-76, he led the NBA in total assists, assists per game, total steals, steals per game, and made NBA All-Defense First-Team.
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