Oklahoma City’s new NBA franchise has no identity. No nickname. No nothing.

SCOTT JACOBS

It reads like a mad lib when you consider how strange a city without a nickname sounds.

The Oklahoma City ______s lost today___ - ___ to the ____________ in a _______ game. _________ scored _____ points as the __________ improved to ______.

Okay, seriously. Enough is enough.

Pick a name. Pick some colors. Unveil the logo, bring out the uniforms, let’s get this thing moving already. It’s been 12 days since the Sonics (i mean the Seattle Basketball Club, I mean the uh, oh nevermind…) dropped the Emerald City into a black haze, and still the new NBA OKC team has no identity.

In fact, they don’t really have much of anything.

Rumors are running rampant all over the internet on what they may become, but for now, they’re just the team wearing generic black jerseys with a hint of white reading “Oklahoma City.”

For all we know they may be on the verge of the big announcement. But finding a press release that gives away anything more then “Oklahoma City” is harder then watching tv late at night and not seeing an advertisement for ExtenZe.

I’m trying to recall the last time anything like this occurred.

Yeah, I got nothing.

The longer this thing takes, the better chance we have of, gasp, seeing a Tennessee Oilers repeat. Remember, Tennessee played as the Oilers from 1997-1998, before unveiling a new logo, and a new name, Titans, for the next season. Are we heading down that road? Is there a chance the Oklahoma City Whatevers become the Oklahoma Sonics?

I know damn well that Seattle fans won’t like that.

But as someone mentioned on a message board, there could be some logic. The Sonic Drive-In headquarters are located in OKC.

Okay, realistically speaking, it’s bizarre.

ESPN doesn’t have a name for the team. It can’t. It only has yellow as their team page colors, with all logos removed. Their main website, nba.com/oklahomacity, quickly displays Seattle Supersonics, before switching over to Oklahoma City.

Considering that Clay Bennett had been planning this move ever since buying the team, it seems sort of odd that he hasn’t brought out the shiny new nickname, for which his team will be thoroughly despised in Seattle. Like Nike says, Just Do It!

So what are the names gaining steam supposedly? Barons, Outlaws, Thunder, Drillers, and a few others have been thrown around, but no one really seems to have any idea. I’d be nice to see something original. Maybe something that relates to the city.

Did you hear that Memphis?

Anyhow, it’s like that giant new mega-plex that opens in town, but it doesn’t have a name, or colors, and you just want to know what it is. Just tell us already.

This is an NBA franchise, not the ABA!

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