The Oklahoma City Thunder are having a big-time future in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey, and Chet Holmgren — together with their massive draft chest. With this, the city’s local government chief would want them to enjoy a much more spacious presentation in preparation for bright events to come.
With Thunder’s lease at Paycom Center set to expire at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 season also, Mayor David Holt echoed his desire to build a new one for the franchise which is only a must given their current arena’s size, capacity, and age.
“We have a team that wants to be here for the long haul and our city just has to do what great cities do,” Holt said in his recent State of the City address, per Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman. “We have to invest in ourselves.”
The formulation of the foundation of the new arena to serve as the newest house of OKC is being eyed at the end of this year’s summer.
Paycom Center, the current home of the Thunder, has been standing since 2002 — six years before the club changed its branding from the Seattle SuperSonics.
It also has the smallest NBA Arena in terms of square footage at 586,000 feet and can hold over 18,000 spectators.
Per Holt, no tax increase would be handed to the locals in order to build the new arena as Thunder ownership chairman Clay Bennett will shoulder financial contributions in terms of public funding.
“We have a team that wants to be here for the long haul and our city just has to do what great cities do,” Holt said. “We have to invest in ourselves.”
With how top executive Sam Presti is currently orchestrating one of the unique team-building moves in today’s NBA, Holt believes that the creation of a new arena for Thunder is just necessary.
From this, he can only make a joke about how the city would warmly welcome its future basketball prospects and upcoming superstars through the use of the arena that they are plotting to develop.
For context, after another fruitful offseason of reaping this 2023, OKC now has 35 draft picks – 15 for first-round – in the next seven years to come.
“We will secure this team for such a span of time that I can tell you today that a superstar who will play for our city in this new arena, in the next lease term, isn’t even born yet,” he said. “And yet, Sam Presti is probably already holding the draft pick to get him.”
