Thousands of fans get together to greet Oklahoma City Thunder back home – NBA Update
Even after their team got blown out by Miami Heat in Game 5, Oklahoma City Thunders fans got together at the Will Rogers World Airport to welcome home their cities’ heroes after a hard fought NBA Finals.
"I don't think any other NBA team has the support that we have, and it means a lot to us," James Harden said. "I know my teammates are definitely appreciative of you guys. Again, thank you. Next year, we'll be back in that situation and we're going to bring a championship here."
Playing in their first ever NBA Finals in franchise history, OKC were able to get some kind of salvation from the series by winning Game 1 and even after not being able to bring the series back to the Chesapeake Energy Arena, for a possible game 6 or 7, the Thunder`s loyal fans couldn’t care otherwise.
Such was the climate around the terminal that a proper stage was set up and stars like Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were present to humbly accept the welcome from their fans. Every Thunder player who spoke to the media echoed the idea and they are going to do everything in their capabilities to bring back a championship.
"One thing I can tell you," Durant said, "is that we're going to come back to work for you guys every single day as hard as we can to try to get back and try to bring it to OKC."
Even though there wasn’t any official planned for the team, however an approximate crowd of over 4000 people got together in a field which would normally be empty to greet their stars and even getting to the finals was a big step forward for an organization which had been formed only four years ago.
In the past four years, these fans have seen their team grow together as a group. In their campaign after the move to Oklahoma City, Thunder only managed to win 23 games but came back strongly next season only to be eliminated in the first round by the eventual champions, Los Angeles Lakers.
But the spirits were not dampened and Oklahoma City came back with another strong campaign to make it to the Western Conference Finals last year. They bettered their performance this time around to make their first ever appearance in the NBA Finals.
Throughout these years, there haven’t been many changes made to the team which has allowed it to grow together in a very progressive manner and with the way they have continued to excel, Oklahoma City Thunder are going to be in contention for an NBA title in the next few years to come.
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