2008–09 Oklahoma City Thunder season
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "2008–09_Oklahoma_City_Thunder_season".

The Oklahoma City Thunder played its inaugural season in the 2008-09 NBA season. It will be the team's first season in Oklahoma City since the Seattle SuperSonics relocation was approved by league owners prior to settling a lawsuit. The team will play at the Ford Center.

Oklahoma City hosted the New Orleans Hornets for two seasons, due to Hurricane Katrina's devastaion along the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

Key dates

• June 26: The 2008 NBA Draft took place in New York City, New York.
• July 1: The free agency period started.
• July 2: The Seattle SuperSonics announced their immediate relocation to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• September 3 The team announced its name and colors
• October 8 The Oklahoma City Thunder took the court for the first time in an 88-82¹ preseason loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Billings, Montana.
• October 29 The Oklahoma City Thunder played their first regular season game ever, hosting the Milwaukee Bucks
• November 2 The Oklahoma City Thunder get their first win as an NBA franchise.

Offseason

• Oklahoma City rookies and other young professionals played in the first game of the Orlando summer league. Oklahoma City lost its summer league opener to the Indiana Pacers rookies by a score of 95-78. Earl Calloway scored 16 points and Andre Emmett had 15 for the Pacers, who scored the game's first eight points and never trailed.² Jeff Green took the first shot in Oklahoma City's history and it bounced off the rim 43 seconds after tipoff. The first basket came 2:15 into the first quarter by D.J. White, who was drafted by Detroit, traded to Seattle and will play in Oklahoma City.²
• The Oklahoma City franchise released its season-ticket prices on Thursday, August 14. The franchise announced that there will be 3,400 seats available at $10 per game.³
  • On average, ticket prices will be about 36 per cent higher than they were for the 2007-08 Seattle SuperSonics season. The announcement also stated that the average ticket price would be US$47.51 while Seattle's average ticket price last season was $35.⁴ While last year's NBA average ticket price at $48.83, Oklahoma City's rates below the league average.
  • Season tickets went on sale on Monday, September 8. Chairman Clay Bennett announced that the last of the 13,000 season tickets available were sold on Friday, September 12, and the team started a waiting list for season tickets.⁵

Pre-season

• The Oklahoma City Thunder made their debut in an 88-82 preseason loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 8, 2008.

First pre-season game

• Kevin Durant took and made the first shot in Oklahoma City history.
• The Thunder will have their home debut on October 14, 2008 against the Los Angeles Clippers. ^{6dated info}

Draft picks

Main article: 2008 NBA Draft

Roster

Oklahoma City Thunder roster v • d • e
Players	Coaches
Pos. # Nat. Name Ht. Wt. From 4.5 F/C 4 USA Collison, Nick 82 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) 255 lb (116 kg) Kansas 2.5 G/F 35 USA Durant, Kevin 81 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) 215 lb (98 kg) Texas 3.5 F 22 USA Green, Jeff 81 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) 235 lb (107 kg) Georgetown 5.0 C 51 USA Hill, Steven 84 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) 245 lb (111 kg) Arkansas 3.0 SF 34 USA Mason, Desmond 78 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) 222 lb (101 kg) Oklahoma State 5.0 C 27 FRA Petro, Johan 84 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) 247 lb (112 kg) France 5.0 C 18 SEN Sene, Mouhamed 83 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) 230 lb (104 kg) Senegal 4.0 PF 7 USA Smith, Joe 82 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) 225 lb (102 kg) Maryland 5.0 C 31 USA Swift, Robert 85 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) 245 lb (111 kg) Bakersfield HS (CA)* 1.0 PG 25 USA Watson, Earl 73 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) 185 lb (84 kg) UCLA 1.5 G 5 USA Weaver, Kyle 77 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) 201 lb (91 kg) Washington State 1.5 G 0 USA Westbrook, Russell 76 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) 192 lb (87 kg) UCLA 3.5 F 3 USA White, D. J. 81 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) 251 lb (114 kg) Indiana 4.5 F/C 54 USA Wilcox, Chris 82 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) 235 lb (107 kg) Maryland 2.5 G/F 21 USA Wilkins, Damien 78 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) 225 lb (102 kg) Georgia	Head coach P. J. Carlesimo (Fordham) Assistant coach(es) Scott Brooks (UC Irvine) Mark Bryant (Seton Hall) Brian Keefe (Nevada-Las Vegas) Ralph Lewis (La Salle) Walt Rock (Southwestern*) Paul Westhead (Saint Joseph's) Legend (C) Team captain (DP) Unsigned draft pick (FA) Free agent Injured Roster • Transactions Last transaction: 2008-11-04

Depth chart

Pos.	Starter	Bench	Reserve	Inactive
C	Johan Petro	Nick Collison	Mouhamed Sene	Robert Swift Steven Hill
PF	Chris Wilcox	Joe Smith		D. J. White
SF	Jeff Green	Desmond Mason
SG	Kevin Durant	Damien Wilkins	Kyle Weaver
PG	Earl Watson	Russell Westbrook

Regular season

The Ford Center, which seats 19,599 for basketball, was built in 2002 and has received public funding for renovation.⁷

Season standings

Game log

Playoffs

Player statistics

Legend

Season

Playoffs

Awards and records

Awards

Records

Transactions

Trades

Free Agents

References

See also

• Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City
• 2008–09 NBA season