OKLAHOMA CITY — An NBA Game 7 in Paycom Center. A championship parade through downtown OKC. The NBA Draft. NBA free agency. Contract extensions for superstars.
Quite a 10-day period for pro basketball in Oklahoma. It’s quite all right if you feel overwhelmed by the NBA’s carousel of monumental events. Heck, maybe some of you have checked out, preferring to coast on the memories of that NBA Finals conquest of Indiana and your celebrating heroes walking the parade route like Centurions, not Caesars.
But don’t let the events of Tuesday slide past. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder have agreed on a four-year contract extension, to kick in starting summer 2027, that ties the NBA’s reigning Most Valuable Player to OKC through June 2031. SGA finishes off the final two seasons of his current contract, at $38.3 million and $40.8 million, then four seasons for a reported total of $285 million.
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NBA Finals Championship Parade (copy)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder agreed on a four-year contract extension Tuesday, to kick in starting summer 2027, that ties the NBA’s reigning Most Valuable Player to OKC through June 2031. BRYAN TERRY, THE OKLAHOMAN
Do the math, and I’m not talking salaries. If the Thunder keeps SGA through the duration of the contract — and why wouldn’t the Thunder keep SGA through the duration of the contract? — that would make Gilgeous-Alexander a 12-year Thunder.
The Wednesday ScissorTales check in on Brigham Young’s suddenly-precarious quarterback situation, how OU and OSU fared in the all-sports Director’s Cup and a reader’s suggestions for Sam Presti’s future. But we start with Gilgeous-Alexander’s soaring status as an Oklahoma icon.
Russell Westbrook was an 11-year Thunder. Kevin Durant was an eight-year Thunder and the state’s greatest hero, until he ruined Independence Day 2016 and became the state’s most reviled villain.
From my vantage point, Gilgeous-Alexander has surpassed them in status and just signed up to double his six years of completed service in OKC.
Things change quickly in the NBA. Injuries galore. Franchise rollercoasters. Players’ contentment. For every Dirk Nowitzki or Tim Duncan, superstars who found a home and started singing “I Shall Not Be Moved,” there are a dozen superstars who get itchy and antsy and want to study the greenness of grass on the other side of the fence.
So there’s no guarantee that Gilgeous-Alexander still will be wearing Thunder blue when he turns 33 on July 12, 2031. But man, it looks promising, and what else could this fan base want?
Does everyone realize how lucky we are? This isn’t real life. Some franchises go decades between superstars. Some franchises still wait on their first. Oklahomans have had a true-blue superstar, at least one all-NBA player, in 14 of their 17 Thunder seasons! And the voids were seasons with clear up-and-coming stars (Durant 2009, SGA 2021 and 2022).
Sam Presti talked this week about not really deserving to be in this exalted place in the NBA, but what about us commoners? Twenty years ago today, the NBA wasn’t even a gleam in Clay Bennett’s eye, and here we are, two decades later, with star power to rival the Lakers and Celtics. The New York Knickerbocker fans walking Times Square can only dream of the NBA pedigree of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In the heat of a Game 7 deadline the night of June 22, I wrote that SGA was Oklahoma’s greatest sporting hero ever. Bigger than Jim Thorpe. Bigger than the Heisman winners. Bigger than Durant and/or Westbrook. If I was talking that far out on the limb, I should have thrown in Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench.
Bigger than Mickey Mantle? How can that be? But it be.
Shaivonte Alcian Gilgeous-Alexander — he sounds like a Centurion — didn’t take Oklahoma to the masses, the way Mantle did with all those glorious Yankee Stadium summers, he brought the masses to Oklahoma.
SGA came, he saw, he conquered, and now he’s going to stay, perhaps for at least another six years.
Talk about gold dust. We’ve been anointed. We’ve been plucked from the Plains and placed in Oz. We were minding our own sports business, cheering on the Sooners and Cowboys and Golden Hurricane and high schools from Booker T. to Broken Bow, when suddenly NBA superstars are flying at us like a runaway projectiles from Super Mario. Now we’ve got a team for the ages with a player for the ages, and danged if I know what we did to deserve it other than elect sharp civic leaders, buy tickets and go crazy in Loud City.
SGA is ours, possibly for a run longer than even Westbrook’s, a run that would make any Caesar proud.
BYU suddenly needs a QB
My lighthorse pick to win Big 12 football 2025 is Texas Tech. No surprise there. Everyone is intrigued by the suddenly well-named Red Raiders, who are pulling good players out of the transfer portal like my cousins pulling bass out of Fort Gibson Lake.
But my darkhorse pick was Brigham Young, a school uniquely positioned to thrive in the transfer era. A BYU-Tech Big 12 Championship Game seemed quite possible.
Then we were reminded that BYU also is a school uniquely positioned to lose players for reasons not really relative to its competitors, and sure enough, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff is on the move.
Retzlaff, who quarterbacked the Cougars to an 11-2 record in 2024, faced a seven-game suspension for violating BYU’s Honor Code, in this case, sex outside marriage. A civil lawsuit accusing Retzlaff of rape has been dismissed, but Retzlaff’s defense was that the sex was consensual. That’s a winning hand on most college campuses, but not in Provo, where the Latter Day Saints still hold to some standards.
A variety of reports say Retzlaff is leaving BYU, and the Cougars are back to having a quarterback derby involving McCae Hillstead, a part-time starter at Utah State in 2023; Treyson Bourguet, a part-time starter at Western Michigan in 2022-23; and Bear Bachmeier, who was a freshman at Stanford this spring but transferred to BYU in April in the wake of the Cardinal firing coach Troy Taylor.
Retzlaff wasn’t a star at BYU, but he was a veteran leader who somehow seemed to fit in with the Mormons, despite being Jewish. College football makes for strange bedfellows.
Retzlaff last season completed 57.4% of his passes, for 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and 2,947 yards. Retzlaff’s finest moment came on his 35-yard touchdown pass to Will Ferrin with 10 seconds left in the game, giving BYU a 38-35 victory over OSU.
But now Retzlaff is looking for a new team and BYU is looking for a new quarterback.
Joe Castiglione on the sideline of the OU-LSU game in Baton Rouge (copy)
Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione’s program placed ninth in the nation and fourth in the SEC in the final Learfield Director’s Cup standings, which measures success throughout the entire athletic department. Mike Simons, Tulsa World Archive
OU places top 10 in Director’s Cup
Sooner football had a disappointing season in 2024, but OU’s overall athletic program fared quite well in its maiden year in the Southeastern Conference. The Sooners placed ninth in the nation and fourth in the SEC in the final Learfield Director’s Cup standings, which measures success throughout the entire athletic department.
The ninth-place finish was OU’s second-best ever, behind only the seventh-place finish in 2012-13.
OSU finished 29th in the nation but finished second among Big 12 schools.
The standings are determined by a team’s finish in NCAA championships (or The Associated Press football poll). Nineteen sports are counted per school, and five of them must be baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.
OU won the NCAA title in women’s gymnastics and also placed third in men’s gymnastics, tied for third in softball, fourth in women’s indoor track, tied for fifth in men’s golf, tied for ninth in women’s basketball, 14th in women’s outdoor track, tied for 21st in women’s golf, tied for 17th in baseball, women’s tennis, men’s tennis and women’s volleyball.
OSU is hampered because it does not field a women’s volleyball team and because one of the Cowgirls’ best sports, equestrian, is not included, since its championship is conducted outside the NCAA.
OSU won the NCAA title in men’s golf and also placed third in wrestling, tied for fifth in women’s tennis, fifth in men’s indoor track, eighth in men’s cross-country, 11th in men’s outdoor track, 15th in women’s golf, and tied for 17th in baseball and softball.
The SEC schools included Number 1 Texas, 6-Tennessee, 7-Florida, 9-OU, 11-Arkansas, 14-Georgia, 15-Texas A&M, 17-Louisiana State, 19-Auburn, 22-Alabama, 23-South Carolina, 27-Ole Miss, 30-Kentucky, 46-Mississippi State, 50-Missouri and 58-Vanderbilt.
The Big 12 schools included 25-BYU, 29-OSU, 34-Arizona State, 38-Texas Christian, 40-Texas Tech, 42-West Virginia, 43-Arizona, 52-Baylor, 56-Iowa State, 60-Utah, 65-Kansas, 69-Colorado, 72-Houston, 79-Kansas State, 83-Central Florida and 125-Cincinnati.
The rest of the top 10 included 2-Southern Cal, 3-Stanford, 4-North Carolina, 5-UCLA, 8-Ohio State and 10-Duke.
Thunder Presti Past Basketball (copy)
Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti is the third-longest tenured head of basketball operations in the league. Sue Ogrocki, AP file
Mailbag: Presti for Governor
Reader Jim Tuttle of Chandler has found a new candidate for political office.
Jim: “I had some bumper stickers printed. ‘Sam Presti For Governor, A Team Builder.’ Sorta a joke, but me and my friends are displaying them. Of course he’s waaaay too smart for politics. If you want one, let me know.”
Berry: Thanks. I love me some Presti, but I am allergic to bumperstickers. A few preliminary thoughts. 1. Presti is far more valuable to the state as the Thunder general manager than he would be as governor. 2. I see no evidence that the state electorate seeks a team builder. This is not 1986. 3. There are no draft picks in politics, which would cramp Presti’s style.
The List: Largest cities without a title
In the Tuesday ScissorTales, we listed the smallest metros in the United States and Canada to sport a championship team in one of the four major team sports. Today, we list the 20 biggest metros without a champion in the four major team sports, with their populations and the teams they have or have had:
1. Inland Empire (San Bernardino, Riverside, Ontario, California), 4.7M: none.
2. San Diego, 3.2M: Baseball’s Padres, the NFL Chargers and the NBA Rockets.
3. Vancouver, 3.1M: Hockey’s Canucks, NBA’s Grizzlies.
4. Orlando, 2.7M: NBA’s Magic.
5. Charlotte, 2.7M: NBA’s Hornets, NFL’s Panthers.
6. Austin, 2.4M: none.
7. Sacramento, 2.4M: NBA’s Kings.
8. Columbus, Ohio, 2.1M: Hockey’s Blue Jackets.
9. Nashville, 2.1M: NFL’s Titans, hockey’s Predators.
10. San Jose, California, 2.0M: hockey’s Sharks, NFL’s 49ers.
11. Tidewater (Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Virginia), 1.8M: none.
12. Jacksonville, 1.7M: NFL Jaguars.
13. Providence, 1.7M: none.
14. Louisville, 1.4M: none.
15. Richmond, Virginia, 1.3M: none.
16. Memphis, 1.3M: NBA Grizzlies.
17. Salt Lake City, 1.3M: NBA Jazz, hockey’s Mammoth.
18. Birmingham, Alabama, 1.2M: none.
19. Fresno, California, 1.2M: none.
20. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1.1M: none.
berry.tramel@tulsaworld.com
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