Talk:Essbase

There have been 16 head coaches for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise, formerly known as Seattle SuperSonics from 1967 to 2008. The Thunder is an American professional basketball franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, playing in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team will play its home games at Ford Center beginning in the 2008–09 NBA season. The Thunder is currently owned by Professional Basketball Club LLC and coached by P. J. Carlesimo with Sam Presti as the general manager.

The team, previously named the Seattle SuperSonics, was formed in 1967. After spending 41 years in Seattle, Washington, the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City. Owner Clay Bennett, who purchased the team back in 2006, sought to get public funding for a new arena, or a major renovation of the KeyArena in 2007. After failing to do so, he decided to move the team to Oklahoma City. Seattle sued Bennett's group in order to enforce the lease that required the team to stay until 2010. However, the two sides reached a $45 million settlement to pay off the team's lease with KeyArena in July 2008.

The franchise won their first and only NBA championship in the 1979 NBA Finals as the SuperSonics while coached by Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens. Wilkens is the only member of the franchise to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach. He is also the franchise's all-time leader in regular season games coached, regular season games won, playoff games coached, and playoff games won. Wilkens, Nate McMillan and Bob Weiss formerly played for the team in Seattle.

Key

#	Number of coaches[a]
GC	Games coached
W	Wins
L	Losses
W–L %	Win–Loss percentage
*	Spent entire coaching career with the Sonics/Oklahoma City Thunder
†	Elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach

Coaches

Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the 2007–08 season.

#	Name	Term	Regular season				Playoffs			Achievements	Reference
			GC	W	L	W–L %	GC	W	L
Seattle SuperSonics
1	Al Bianchi	1967–69	164	53	111	.323	—	—	—
2	Lenny Wilkens†	1970–72	246	121	125	.492	—	—	—
3	Tom Nissalke	1972–73	45	13	32	.289	—	—	—
4	Bucky Buckwalter	1973	37	13	24	.351	—	—	—
5	Bill Russell	1973–77	328	162	166	.494	15	6	9
6	Bob Hopkins*	1977	22	5	17	.227	—	—	—
—	Lenny Wilkens†	1977–85	634	357	277	.563	69	37	32	1 Championship (1979)
7	Bernie Bickerstaff	1985–89	322	160	162	.497	27	12	15
8	Tom Newell*	1989	1	0	1	.000	—	—	—
9	Bob Kloppenburg	1989	5	1	4	.200	—	—	—
—	Bernie Bickerstaff	1989–90	82	41	41	.500	—	—	—
10	K.C. Jones	1990–92	118	59	59	.500	5	2	3
—	Bob Kloppenburg	1992	4	2	2	.500	—	—	—
11	George Karl	1992–98	534	384	150	.719	80	40	40
12	Paul Westphal	1998–01	147	76	71	.517	5	2	3
13	Nate McMillan	2001–05	395	212	183	.537	16	8	8
14	Bob Weiss	2005–06	30	13	17	.433	—	—	—
15	Bob Hill	2006–07	134	53	81	.396	—	—	—
16	P. J. Carlesimo	2007–08	82	20	62	.244	—	—	—
Oklahoma City Thunder
—	P. J. Carlesimo	2008–present	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Notes

• ^a A running total of the number of coaches of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Thus any coach who has two or more separate terms as head coach is only counted once.

References

General

• "Oklahoma City Thunder Coach Register". basketball-reference.com. Retrieved 2008-06-21.

Specific