In Sam Anderson’s brilliant 2018 history of Oklahoma City, Boom Town, the New York-based writer offered some observations of OKC that at the time were very true, but 2012 — the year his assignment began — was the last year those things were true.
“In the larger economy of American attention, Oklahoma City’s main job has always been to be ignored,” he wrote. “Every five or 10 or 20 years, the world is forced to pay serious attention to Oklahoma because something terrible has happened there: a tornado or a bombing or an economic collapse.”
The Oklahoma City Thunder brought Anderson to town; he was covering the young upstarts for New York Times Magazine, but his fascination with the city, its people and history turned into the book. In 2012, the core of the Thunder — Durant, Harden and Westbrook — had the team in the NBA Finals, and I’m writing this the day after the 2025 Thunder lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals to the Indiana Pacers. The NBA Finals appearances serve as ideal bookends to look at Oklahoma City progress in that span of years, or as Mayor David Holt wrote in a recent editorial for The Indianapolis Star: “Team success in professional sports often serves as a metaphor for a city’s progress.”
Right mayor
Looking back at OKC’s progress via the MAPS initiatives, Holt describes OKC in 1993, the year voters narrowly approved the downtown revitalization plan known as MAPS 1.
“OKC was also a pretty large city, but after being hollowed out by urban renewal, an oil bust and a banking crisis, it felt more like a place where a lot of people just happened to live,” he wrote.
That initiative led to the construction of the Ford Center — now Paycom Center — that would host the NBA Finals in 2012.
Mayor Holt talked to Oklahoma Gazette the day of Game 1, and we asked him to reflect on the state of the city now with the Finals as a backdrop.
“We’re operating at a very high level right now,” he said, using an assessment that applies nicely to OKC and the Thunder. “Unemployment is the lowest in the country; the crime rate continues to fall; we’re getting ready to build the new arena, and we’re doing groundbreakings regularly on MAPS 4 projects like the Diversion Hub and Palomar, and we’ll have a ribbon cutting for the coliseum in the Fairgrounds in a couple weeks.”
Holt started his first term in 2018, and he said he came into office planning to develop MAPS 4, which voters passed in 2019.
“Serving in the Oklahoma Senate, I shepherded 72 bills into law,” he said, “and that takes patience and persistence. It’s a target-rich environment for learning which battles to fight, which to concede, the importance of timing and deep insights into human behavior. All these MAPS-related accomplishments are different versions of that story.”
The MAPS initiatives have been instrumental in OKC’s growth and progress since the 1990s, and as Holt notes, “We are really good at getting things done, but the stories are 10 to 15 years long. I worked on the Olympics deal for six years behind the scenes before anyone knew something was happening. The city has made what I like to call relentless, incremental progress for 30 years.”
Right team
The idea of relentless, incremental progress works well for the current Thunder team, too. After the Finals loss in 2012, the wheels didn’t come off immediately, but the end result was the slow decline of the team through player departures, beginning with Kevin Durant, and then Russell Westbrook and finally James Harden. They weren’t the only names. Serge Ibaka, Steven Adams, Thabo Sefolosha, Kendrick Perkins, Reggie Jackson, even Coach Scott Brooks — all would leave eventually. That left Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti faced with a rebuilding process.
Daniel Bell is on-air talent for Tyler Media’s KRXO, 107.7 The Franchise. He’s also the best NBA analyst working in local radio in the metro. Bell, a Memphis native who grew up in OKC (PC West 2009 graduate) talks about the 2012 team as “top heavy” and recognizes that an NBA team was a very new thing to OKC during those first Finals.
“Where we are as a city now probably translates really well to where the Thunder are now,” Bell said. “This Thunder is more expansive, more together; they’re often compared to a college or AAU team, as a group of friends. No one talked about the 2012 team like that. I remember interviewing Sam Presti about this, and he talked about seeing the growth in the city, and he wanted the team’s growth to parallel that and for this team to be an historic team.”
The patience of the OKC fanbase is critical to Presti’s success in this rebuilding project.
“Presti talked about how much he appreciates the fanbase being gracious,” Bell said. “The patience of the fans has been a huge factor in this team’s success. Just look at other cities where the fanbase has been impatient, where they want it now, and you see coaching changes, players leaving, dissension. Honestly, I think the COVID year helped us get through it. The fans weren’t in the arena to see how bad the product really was, and they didn’t have to waste money on a team that wasn’t trying to win every game. Presti never faced any real pressure to run him out of town.”
Right attitude
MAPS has taught us, maybe conditioned us, to be patient. Our status as an overlooked city built in us a sense of humility and low expectations. Holt notes in his Indianapolis op-ed that downtown OKC had one hotel in 1993 — really one hotel anyone would stay in — and now we have close to 30. By 2012, we had more than 2000 hotel rooms in the urban core. It was also the year the Devon Tower opened.
Perhaps as a contrast, it’s worth noting it was the year Republicans took control of both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature and Mary Fallin was governor. From that point, the city’s well-being has been on a different trajectory than the state’s. In 2012,CNBC ranked Oklahoma 23rd nationally in public education. Now we are 49th according to The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count report. We are engaged in a bizarre experiment to see how well a thriving city can fare in a state headed the opposite direction.
MAPS 4 passed almost midway between the two Finals, and it was markedly different than its predecessors. “Seventy percent of MAPS 4 is devoted to human and neighborhood needs,” Holt said. “This is by design. We have managed to find a way to work on vital issues like civil rights and domestic violence, while also fostering economic growth that helps us help those who need it.”
Path forward
Cafe 7 Downtown opened in 2012. It closed in 2020, not as a result of COVID, but the pandemic didn’t help. Jimmy “J” Mays is the co-founder and operating partner of Killer Squid Hospitality (Cafe 7, Dado’s Pizza, The Hamilton Supperette & Lounge), and he said they opened the downtown store because they had already been doing a substantial amount of catering in the urban core.
“It was the year of the first Finals, and the city was just different,” he said. “The windows were painted, people were excited, the streets were bustling. It was a great time to be downtown. Rent was a fraction of what it is now.”
Mays is looking to open a new restaurant this year, but like many operators, he’s concerned about inflation, the rising rents — rates around the prime spots in the city are going for $30-$60 per square foot — rising labor costs and volatile food prices. He’s optimistic though.
“Best way I can put it: We have overcome adversity many times in this city, and we’ll do it again,” he said.
Holt notes that we have to solve the public transit issues.
“We’re growing disproportionately to the rest of the country,” he said. “The only way to stop growing is to have a city no one wants to live in.”
Growth brings a set of problems that have to be solved; there is not growth without complex issues. That includes our favorite team.
“The new collective bargaining agreement makes it tough to keep a team like this together,” Bell said. “Tough decisions will have to be made, win or lose. We’ll likely not see this roster together again after this year, which means players the fans love — maybe Dort, maybe Wallace — won’t be here next year. But if we keep the core together, the big three, the team will be fine.”
The sporty metaphor does work here, it seems. Win or lose, there is work to do; change is inevitable, but we have the character, patience and persistence to overcome. We’d just like to start with an NBA title and good schools.
This article appears in deadCenter Film Festival 2025.