THE Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder (and the Seattle Supersonics earlier than them) have 51 jersey numbers The jersey numbers have been worn by gamers who’ve worn the franchise since its founding firstly of the 1967-68 season. To commemorate the gamers who’ve worn these numbers, Thunder Wire traces your entire historical past of the jersey numbers and the gamers who’ve worn them for the reason that crew’s founding.
And whereas these Supersonics jerseys could not go down in franchise historical past if a brand new crew is created in Seattle like they did with the return of the Charlotte Hornets, they’re part of Thunder historical past at this time. For this text, we proceed with the fifth jersey quantity within the sequence, jersey #3, with 20 gamers in complete having worn this jersey in franchise historical past.
The fifteenth of these 20 gamers to put on the quantity 3 did so in Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder On the time, former OKC nice Nerlens Noel. A local of Malden, Massachusetts, Noel performed school soccer on the College of Kentucky earlier than being chosen with the sixth general choose within the 2013 NBA draft by the (then) New Orleans Hornets (now Charlotte).
A number of weeks later, he can be traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for Jrue Vacation and Pierre Jackson, the place he would play his first season within the NBA as a consequence of a knee harm. The 6’2″ middle would play components of three seasons with the Sixers in addition to stints with the Dallas Mavericks earlier than signing with the Thunder as a free agent in 2018.
Noel performed for OKC for 2 seasons earlier than leaving the crew in free company to affix the New York Knicks in 2020. Throughout the first of these two seasons, he would put on quantity 3 (switching to quantity 9 for the second of these seasons) for the Thunder.
Throughout his time in Oklahoma Metropolis, Noel averaged 6.0 factors, 4.5 rebounds, 0.9 steals and 1.4 blocks per sport.
This text was initially revealed on Celtics Wire: Thunder #3 Jersey Historical past – Nerlens Noel (2018-19)
