AC/DC & Garth Brooks are waiting for their royalties

Our no longer in the northwest, Northwest Division foe formerly known as the SuuuuuperSonics (may they rest in peace), has shown they have  the worst kept secret in the league.  It's a foregone conclusion that their name will be the Thunder.

And for another bit of proof, check out their webpage on NBA.com.  But it's just a blank page you say.  True.  But then you visit a page such as http://nba.com/backstabbers and you get a nifty 404 page.  And of course, if you visit a real page such as http://nba.com/jazz, you're forwarded to the official team site.  So it's a placeholder for something.  And the other rumored names such as the Barons, Bison, Energy, Marshals, and Wind (no Earth or Fire?) all point to 404 pages as well.  And the Thunder web page, while blank, has the following modify time, Wednesday, August 06, 2008 11:30:03 PM (which is about the time that the story broke).

And Utah is no longer #1 on the free agent hell list.  Heck, we may even be able to move up a few slots with Deron giving us a little street cred.

And who's going to be their rival?  The only state that really cares about OK is Texas.  The triumvirate of San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston aren't going to allow them into their clique.  Their old rivalry with Seattle will fade.  Is there anyone even around them?  Here's the map of the Northwest Division ( I had to scroll in three times to see OKC.  Shouldn't a pre-requisite for having an NBA team be that you can see the city on Google Maps at the default setting?).  And by the way, is the NWD the largest in the NBA now?

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So the Thunder are (is?) coming.  We just won't have the opportunity too see the lightning so that we can count to 5-Mississippi to calculate how long we have until they get here.