T a b l e o f Co n t e n t s LOOKING FOR A LEADER 8 SONIC REIGN 16 A RUN AT THE BULLS 24 ON TO OKLAHOMA 30 THE THUNDER RUMBLES 38 INDEX 48 CO U R T S I D E S TO R I E S HAYWOOD’S HARDSHIP 11 SLICK’S STYLE 18 THAT 70S RERUN 22 FOSTER CITY 29 CALLING DOWN THUNDER 32 A GOLDEN TRIO 46 INTRODUCING LENNY WILKENS 13 FRED BROWN 15 NATE McMILLAN 21 GARY PAYTON 27 KEVIN DURANT 35 RUSSELL WESTBROOK 43 Table of Contents COURTSIDE STORIES INTRODUCING
LOOKING FOR A LEADER OKLAHOMA CITY IS HOME TO CORPORATIONS COLLEGES PARKS AND PRO SPORTS TEAMS 8 LOOKING FOR A LEADER
LENNY WILKENS The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was one of the strangest chapters of pioneering in United States history On the 22nd of April under pristine blue skies boomers and prospectors lined up if they hadn’t already been hiding out and making their claim unscrupulously at high noon and raced by horse and foot to claim some 2 million acres of land in an all-out burst for settlement The rush into the Unassigned Lands meant that many cities in what would someday become the state of Oklahoma were literally built in a day Included in this list were the towns of Stillwater Norman Guthrie and Oklahoma City Guthrie and Oklahoma City gained populations of some 10,000 pioneering folk in a single day most of whom camped out temporarily in tent cities While Guthrie was the front-runner to become Oklahoma’s 9
