SI

Fans Shocked by Underwhelming Thunder Championship Locker Room Celebration

The Oklahome City Thunder played like champions on Sunday, but some think they partied like rookies.

Tyler Lauletta

The Oklahoma City Thunder celebrate after winning the 2025 NBA Finals.
The Oklahoma City Thunder celebrate after winning the 2025 NBA Finals. / House of Highlights / YouTube
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The Oklahoma City Thunder bested the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday, lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy for the first time since their move to OKC.

Given the strength of their core, and the fact that the Thunder entered the series as the second-youngest team to ever reach the Finals, it’s possible that there are more titles coming their way in the next few years.

Simply put, Oklahoma City has this basketball thing down, but apparently they still might need to get coached up a bit when it comes to partying like a champion.

Per Marcus Thompson of The Athletic, the Thunder’s locker room celebration was the “most tempered” he had ever seen.

It was clear from the start that the Thunder players were inexperienced in the ways of spraying champagne—Isaiah Hartenstein told reporters after the game that team veteran Alex Caruso had to guide many of his younger teammates on how to open their bottles.

But even after those bottles were popped, the party apparently remained rather restrained, at least compared to other championship squads.

Fans online were quick to point out the somewhat bummer vibes emanating from the locker room.

This feels like something of a no-win situation. We’ve seen players get called out as corny and accusations of performative emoting when they’ve had large reactions to winning a title. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton raised his concern of being accused of “aura-farming” earlier this postseason. Maybe this was an overcorrection to the other side of that coin.

Or maybe these guys just had a better party waiting for them elsewhere, and preferred to save the big release for then when there were less cameras around.

Either way, maybe next time they can dim the lights, blast the music, and at least make sure they cover every reporter in the room with booze. That’ll teach ‘em.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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