The 20 strangest SuperSonics items shipped to Oklahoma City

In June, the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers in seven games to clinch the 2025 NBA championship. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and friends became the first Thunder players to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy, but it was actually the second golden orb in franchise history. 

How? Well, the Thunder were only spawned in 2008, when the 1979 NBA champion Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City, and the league insists on an awkward ‘shared history’ between the two entities, encompassing that bygone title. (1)

Such clunky transitional terms were outlined in a formal settlement agreement signed seventeen years ago this week. Concluding myriad legal battles, the pact outlined which SuperSonics assets remained in Seattle, and which were shipped to Oklahoma City as grist for the upstart Thunder. (1) 

The ‘79 O’Brien Trophy remained in the Pacific Northwest, stashed by the Museum of History and Industry, along with assorted banners, memorabilia and sentimental curios amid a 5,000-item cache. (2) But many innocuous SuperSonics items were packed and driven 2,000 miles to Oklahoma City, and though trivial or superfluous to most, those banal physical assets have long captivated me as portals through which to humanise the bitter loss of a beloved team. 

The Thunder’s recent ascent inspired me to hunt down the Sonics’ lost detritus, and an esoteric project unfurled throughout the summer. The settlement agreement listed many discreet items that were shipped from Seattle to Oklahoma City, but I soon learned of other physical assets from the divorce exchanged outside those strictures. In fact, around 60 trucks transported 10,000 pounds worth of goods from Seattle’s Key Arena to a 25,000 square foot office leased by the nomadic NBA franchise in Leadership Square, Oklahoma. (3)

Determined to learn the contents of those 60 trucks, I reached out to the moving companies who executed the move – North American Van Lines, SIRVA, A-1 Freeman Moving Group, and Lile International – but they refused to provide any information. (4)

Unperturbed, I continued to dig, and became the first person ever to watch a grainy YouTube video from The Oklahoman showing 90 seconds of stock footage from the move. 

I also contacted photographers who were present and spoke to various team officials involved in the cross-country trek, including employees in merchandising, ticket operations, events and entertainment. (5)

The result? A longlist of SuperSonics assets shipped from Seattle to Oklahoma City. When my research hit a brick wall, and as sources began to question my sanity, I decided to arrange those items according to their strangeness – from the most mundane to the astoundingly absurd. Those rankings follow, if you will join me in search of SuperSonics skeletons.

20. One carefully curated basketball

The first thing to roll off the lead moving truck was a nondescript office chair with burgundy upholstery. Fairly unspectacular, I’m sure you will agree. Within its grasp, however, placed strategically on the seat cushion, was a basketball. Symbolic, sure. But also, more than a little cheesy. (3) 

19. 150 courtside AA-Clarin seats

These were just foldable chairs, essentially, taken from the Key Arena courtside. Apparently, the Clarin brand is favoured by many NBA teams, though a steel chair is a steel chair to me. “We combine the style and comfort your most valued customers deserve,” boasts the Clarin website, “with the durability that can withstand years of use from large crowds.” Nationwide, too, evidently. (6)

18. 24 office chairs from the Clarin PS100 Platinum Series

Again, pretty standard fare for a hasty office renovation. Judging by this niche seating industry website, however, these chairs have a fair amount of padding. They are still foldable, though, and do not have the most ergonomically efficient design from which to gawp at a computer screen.

17. 14 flat screen, 14-inch monitors

The settlement agreement offered no further detail on these monitors, so use your imagination.

16. One replay monitor and communication box

Again, no further insight was provided on this lot, although the separation of this monitor from the others, and the addition of a mysterious ‘communication box’ helps it rank higher on my admittedly pathetic big board. 

15. Four sets of headphones from the scorers’ table

This is a little more interesting, but couldn’t the NBA stretch its budget for some new headsets in Oklahoma City? I guess not.

14. Six radios from the media room

I could not determine whether these were two-way communication radios or, well, actual radios. You know, the kind that used to broadcast the news every hour? Let’s go with the latter. A relic of the times. 

13. Six team shop kiosks

The SuperSonics reduced all items in their team store by 90% when the move to Oklahoma City was sanctioned. Whatever was left – presumably including the hangers, rails, shelves and cash registers – made the mammoth journey south. Oh, did I mention the cash registers? Yeah, don’t forget those. (7)

12. One flat screen TV from the coaches’ locker room

Head coach P.J. Carlesimo also followed the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City, but I’m more interested by the flat screen TV from his Seattle locker room. Carlesimo was fired 13 games into his Thunder tenure, for what it is worth. Maybe he took the TV with him.

11. Two 32-inch LCD, HD Vizio TVs

These screens were presumably larger and more defined than the nondescript flat screen from Carlesimo’s locker room. They also offered cutting edge USB functionality and were thus deemed indispensable.

10. Eleven Motorola Radius CP200 radios with changers

These two-way walkie-talkie radios offered 1.5 miles of range and 14 hours of battery life. Just enough for Clay Bennett to hear Seattle fans chanting ‘save our Sonics’ from his hotel room. If he cared. (8)

9. “Computers”

I found mention of generic ‘computers’ being transported from Seattle to Oklahoma City but didn’t manage to narrow this down any further. Therefore, I may invoke creative license to imagine some form of high-level digital espionage pertaining to basketball operations. There’s a novel in there somewhere. (3)

8. Logger recording equipment

These small, portable devices are used to record and store – hence ‘log’ – data over time. According to ChatGPT, the most appropriate use of logger recording equipment by an NBA team would be in the ‘security, operations and compliance space,’ perhaps pertaining to CCTV feeds, public address announcements, crowd noise tracking or verifying in-game clocks. If you ask me, that is worthy of further explanation in the public interest, but no such insight has ever been provided. (9)

7. Kevin Durant

A former MVP and future Hall of Famer with two NBA titles, four Olympic gold medals and 15 All-Star game selections, Durant is one of the greatest players of his generation. It is easy to forget, though, that the prodigious scorer was drafted by the SuperSonics in 2007. Indeed, Durant won Rookie of the Year honours as a teenager in Seattle, only to be shipped with the franchise to Oklahoma City, en route to riches with the Golden State Warriors. He has also become an advocate for bringing the SuperSonics back to Seattle, and he may even join future attempts to do so. But for now, his green and gold tale is filed under ‘what might have been.’ And that sucks. (10)

6. One 360° sound effects machine 

Dee-fence! Dee-fence! Dee-fence!

5. A stapler 

Prior to the move, the SuperSonics made an inventory of team belongings, according to Pete Winemiller, then their vice president for guest relations, who helped oversee the move. “Everything down to the last stapler,” Winemiller told reporters outside Leadership Square. The settlement agreement was 19 pages long, after all. Gotta keep that paperwork in order somehow. (3) 

4. Russell Westbrook

Another former MVP, Olympic gold medallist and potential Hall of Famer, Westbrook has been a superlative player for several teams during a fascinating career. Like Durant, Westbrook was drafted by the SuperSonics. Unlike Durant, however, Westbrook never played a single game for Seattle. Russ donned the green and gold on draft night, but the team was subsequently moved to Oklahoma City before he could even attend a SuperSonics practice. In fact, just six days passed between Westbrook’s drafting and the initial agreement (later contested through the courts) to relocate. Hardly enough time to source, stock and discount any merch. Oh, the pain. (11)

3. 200 CDs

Intriguingly, the settlement agreement references ‘200 compact discs’ going from Seattle to Oklahoma City in the move. This, naturally, piqued my curiosity, and I was determined to unearth as much information as possible about this horde.

In that endeavour, I spoke to Patrick Lagreid, the Sonics’ gameday music operator from 2004 to 2008. “I wasn’t involved with the relocation process, so I can’t tell you what those CDs might have been,” he said. “When I was there, we almost exclusively used computer-based audio playback systems rather than CDs. We’d only use CDs for one-off things like pregame or half-time performances, or to bring in music to be moved over to the computers. If they were used elsewhere in the arena, I can’t say I know where that might have been.” (12)

Building on that insight, I found a LinkedIn profile for Marc Odo, the Sonics’ self-professed ‘music guy’ between 1996 and 2002 – ostensibly, an era more attuned to CDs. “Played AC/DC, Coolio, and The Who over the PA system to fire up the crowd during pivotal fourth quarter situations,” reads Odo’s bio, leading me to envisage a CD of Gangsta’s Paradise as a redline in Clay Bennett’s negotiations to move an iconic NBA franchise out of state. (13)

Still unsatisfied, I watched the last SuperSonics game in Seattle and the first Thunder game in Oklahoma City, trying to identify common musical interludes. (14) (15) I failed in that quest, but noted the following songs in Seattle:

• Rock and Roll by Gary Glitter
• What I Like About You by The Romantics
• Celebrate Good Times by Kool & The Gang

And the following in Oklahoma City:

• Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation
• Cha-Cha Slide by DJ Casper
• Eye of the Tiger by Survivor

Irony knows no bounds.

2. Nine Precision brand whistles 

Every basketball team needs whistles, right? How else can a coach keep order during practice? Well, after buying the Seattle SuperSonics for $350 million, Clay Bennett had nine whistles sent with the team to Oklahoma City. The cost of those whistles? £2.95 each, per the manufacturer. Bennett’s net worth? $400 million. (16) (17)

1.    A basketball inflator 

This, to me, is undoubtedly the strangest – and most petty – item shipped from Seattle to Oklahoma City with the SuperSonics. A basketball inflator. A literal pump to put air in basketballs. The settlement agreement actually calls it a ‘blower,’ which is kinda fitting. It may still be in use today. 

***

Ultimately, I do not want to get bogged down in the political and financial machinations of the Seattle SuperSonics’ demise. There was plenty of blame to go around, and parsing responsibility is another exercise entirely. Likewise, I hold no ill will towards the people of Oklahoma City, who received an NBA franchise one day and decided to support it.

My only intention with this fun piece is to contextualise the monumental move by focusing on its seemingly mundane moraine. I’m sympathetic to those loyal Seattle basketball fans who saw their team uprooted and were powerless to stop it. And if this piece can provide them some light relief – as well as some quirky nostalgia – I’m glad to be of service.

Oh, and bring back the SuperSonics already.

An expansion team is long overdue.

Sources

1. The Professional Basketball Club, LLC, and City of Seattle Settlement Agreement. [Online] August 18, 2008. https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CityAttorney/Reports/2008SonicsSettlementAgreement.pdf.

2. Schiffer, Alex. Front Office Sports. [Online] May 15, 2025. https://frontofficesports.com/okc-thunder-history-hidden-seattle/.

3. Sports Illustrated. [Online] August 29, 2008. https://www.si.com/nba/2008/08/29/sonics-oklahomacity.

4. RIS Media. [Online] September 11, 2008. https://www.rismedia.com/2008/09/11/sirvas-north-american-van-lines-selected-to-move-nbas-oklahoma-city-basketball-team/.

5. Oklahoman, The. YouTube. [Online] August 29, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL2949HKI0U.

6. Clarin. [Online] https://www.clarinseating.com/.

7. Gilmore, Susan. The Seattle Times. [Online] September 17, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080919231725/http:/seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2008184380_sonics17m.html.

8. Magnanimous Rentals. [Online] https://magnanimousrentals.com/rental/motorola-radius-cp200-walkie/561.

9. ChatGPT. [Online] chatgpt.com.

10. Boardroom. [Online] February 23, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hGLeO8zhuw.

11. ESPN. [Online] July 2, 2008. https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3471503.

12. Lagreid, Patrick. July 31, 2025.

13. LinkedIn. [Online] https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-odo-65a4231/.

14. YouTube. [Online] April 14, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp4lAafmZFA.

15. YouTube. [Online] September 14, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3DgQT-htaU.

16. Precision Training. [Online] https://precisiontraining.online/collections/whistles.

17. Marca. [Online] June 22, 2025. https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/celebrity-net-worth/2025/06/23/6854bf9522601d20488b45d5.html.