It’s become one of Kevin Durant and company’s favorite new things to call his team. Last year it was The Broingtons. This year it’s “Thunder U.” (If you’re dense, that means it’s like a college.)
The players are college age, the chemistry is college like and there city and fanbase, provides a college atmosphere. I’m sure marketing loves it when the players come up with a new theme all on their own. And how about this – “Thunder U(p)”? Pretty good right? Right?
Anyway, Darnell Mayberry relays this pretty cool story from inside the halls of Thunder U:
With the Thunder playing Charlotte in Fayetteville, N.C., some 20 miles from Eric Maynor’s hometown of Raeford, N.C., Maynor’s mother, Barbara, whipped up a team dinner for all 19 players and the coaching staff.
The team spent the eve of the exhibition opener with each other, inside a lounge on the fourth floor of the team hotel. They ate. They laughed. They played video games. They had a good time. Asked what was on his mother’s menu, Maynor rattled off a drool-worthy list of delicacies.
“Lasagna. Chicken. Macaroni and cheese. Pasta Salad. Cabbage,” Maynor said. “Very good home-cooked meal. Ain’t nothing like it.”
And Durant was just one of many Thunder players to validate Babara’s cooking.
“Yeah, she can throw down,” Durant said with a smile.
But Durant then noted how this wasn’t the first time the team has had Maynor’s mom’s cooking. She’s in Oklahoma City often, Durant said, and players have grown accustomed to receiving down-home hospitality from each player’s families.
“It’s kind of like we expect that now, from everybody, no matter where we’re at,” Durant said. “If we’re in D.C., my family’s going to do that for the team. If we’re in Minnesota,. Cole’s family’s going to do that for us. If we’re in L.A., Russell and James family is going to do that for us. So it’s kind of like normal now. We’re never on our own.”
Thunder U?
College teams don’t even have that much camaraderie. A team this close-knit sounds more like a high school football team, excitedly piling into the starting center’s house for homemade spaghetti before hitting the field on Friday night.
Other
Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com says the Thunder was his favorite team last year: “It began in the prairie and ended in the clouds, started in training-camp potential and finished in earned playoff credibility. It opened in local pride and closed in national respect. What a ride. What a historical, hysterical ride. The team in the place that never should have had the NBA, with the general manager who never should have been hired — with a coach who never should have been hired — became the group that changed a region and went to work altering an entire league.”
