New draft pick Russell Westbrook and his Oklahoma City teammates are getting used to being called the Oklahoma City somethings. The team nickname hasn’t been chosen yet. Here’s a story from the Associated Press.

By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Sports Writer
ORLANDO, Fla. — The uniforms arrived in time, black mesh
with white stripes along the sides, the words
“Oklahoma City” across the front of the jersey and atop a simple NBA
logo.
Around the bench, there was barely any SuperSonics green or gold in
sight.
And with that, Oklahoma City’s latest NBA storyline got off to a
simple start.
A week ago, these players would have been called the Seattle
SuperSonics. Now, they’re from Oklahoma City, nickname
to be announced. And on Monday, in the first game of the Orlando
summer league, the former Sonics franchise took its
first steps along the road of relocation, in a glorified scrimmage
for rookies and other young pros.
“It’s all happened so fast,” Oklahoma City rookie point guard Russell
Westbrook said. “It’s something you have to
live with. It happened so fast. I’m very excited to be in the
position I am now.”
Oklahoma City lost its summer league opener to the Indiana Pacers
95-78. Earl Calloway scored 16 points and Andre
Emmett had 15 for the Pacers, who scored the game’s first eight
points and never trailed.
But that’s not why this game might be remembered.
Other than green trim on the sneakers of Westbrook and Ronald Dupree,
and one person on the Oklahoma City bench
wearing a pair of Seattle game trunks, the team bore no resemblance
to the one that would have been here representing
Seattle. Kevin Durant was there to cheer his quasi-teammates on,
wearing a simple white T-shirt and the black shorts,
not the Seattle gear that thousands of fans in the Pacific northwest
bought over the past 12 months.
“Personally, I didn’t think we would move this soon,” Durant said. “I
settled in Seattle, bought a house with my mom,
we moved out there with my family. That was my home. But it’s a part
of the business. We’ve got to get up and move.
I’m looking forward to playing in a new city with new fans and we’ll
see what happens.”
Jeff Green took the first shot in Oklahoma City’s history — OK, so it
won’t really be memorialized as the milestone
moment for the franchise, but it still counts for something — and
clanged it off the rim 43 seconds after tipoff.
Maybe it was fitting that he took the first shot, since he took 749
for the SuperSonics last season and the other
four starters with him Monday have exactly 29 shots in their NBA
careers, all by Justin Williams, none of them for
Seattle.
The first basket came 2:15 into the first quarter by D.J. White,
who’s probably looked at a fair bit of real estate
around the country the last two weeks, considering he was drafted by
Detroit, traded to Seattle and will play in
Oklahoma City.
“Wherever we play,” White said, “I think this is a great
opportunity.”
That sort of attitude makes sense.
Still, it’s not like he, Westbrook or anyone else has much choice in
the matter.
“I’m very excited to be a Sonic,” Westbrook said on draft night.
And now?
Well, Westbrook is still excited to be, um, something.
“I don’t know what,” he said.
He was drafted No. 4 overall by Seattle in the June 26 draft, with
NBA commissioner David Stern calling his name an
hour or so after the trial that was to decide if the SuperSonics
needed to honor the final two years of their lease
at KeyArena ended in a federal courtroom in Seattle. The judge in
that case was to rule last Wednesday; shortly
before her decision was to be posted, Sonics owner Clay Bennett
agreed to pay the city as much as $75 million to
break the lease.
Oklahoma City is Bennett’s hometown.
Soon, it’ll be Westbrook’s adopted one.
“I just feel for the fans,” Durant said. “But I’m still excited to
play for Oklahoma City and I can’t wait to get
there.”
For a few days, being a Sonic seemed like the ideal scenario for
Westbrook. The 19-year-old native of
Hawthorne spoke
of how much he’d enjoy staying on the West coast
and being able to have his family still come to games.
But the move shouldn’t be such a big deal for Westbrook, at least
geographically. No, it’s not the Pacific time zone
anymore, but Oklahoma City and Seattle are essentially about the same
distance from Westbrook’s home; Seattle is
roughly 1,200 miles north, Oklahoma City roughly 1,300 miles east.
“It’s a lot cheaper than L.A.,” Westbrook said when asked what he
knows about Oklahoma City. “I know that much.
That’s about it.”