Mussatto: Does Thunder really need a new arena? Only if it wants to keep up with NBA peers

Back in October, on Thunder media day, I asked Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a simple question: What is your favorite arena to play in?

“Paycom Center,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

How about on the road?

“I guess I’d say Toronto,” he said. “But it’s more about the fans than the actual arena.”

The superstar guard from Hamilton, Ontario, could have picked an iconic venue like Madison Square Garden. Or an opulent one like Chase Center in San Francisco. Or Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, with its celebrity-packed sidelines.

But Gilgeous-Alexander is a basketball player of basic needs.

“As long as the ball gets tossed up and our five versus (their) five, I’ll be all right,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

In other words, a ball, a court and a couple of hoops will do the job.

Paycom Center more than meets those requirements, but in the NBA arena game, the Thunder’s gym is obsolete.

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Hence the vote Tuesday, when Oklahoma City residents will check yes or no on a sales tax to fund a new $900 million arena. Thunder ownership said it will contribute $50 million to the project, and if the vote passes, the Thunder will commit to play in the arena for 25 years. That would cement OKC’s big-league status beyond 2050.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt has presented the proposal as an ultimatum. Vote yes and the Thunder will stay. Vote no and run the risk of the Thunder skipping town for brighter lights should the Oklahoma-based ownership group ever sell.

Finances and politics aside, the questions I hear most often are these: Does the Thunder really need a new arena? Isn’t Paycom Center nice enough?

Yes and no. As in yes, the Thunder really needs a new arena. And no, Paycom Center isn’t nice enough.

I’ve covered a game in all 29 NBA arenas, and in July 2022 I ranked Paycom Center 27th, ahead of only Frost Bank Center in San Antonio and Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

Madison Square Garden was my No. 1. It’s outdated, but I’m a sucker for history. If Muhammad Ali had fought Joe Frazier at Paycom Center, it’d be higher on my list.

Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center, both built in the last seven years, ranked second and third on my list. Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee was eighth.

The new buildings in Sacramento and Milwaukee — Milwaukee, especially, given the market similarities — are an example of what Oklahoma City could have. A new, state-of-the-art venue built for basketball.

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Because here’s the deal: Paycom Center was built as a stopgap. It was designed as a hockey arena, one that successfully disguised itself as a basketball gym for hundreds of glorious games, including the Thunder’s NBA Finals run in 2012. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander launched superstar careers in that building.

So yes, it’s functional, but functional only flies for so long in the NBA. Despite its latest upgrades, brand-new seats and a gigantic video board among them, Paycom Center lags behind its peers.

It was built on the cheap, with a total investment of $250 million, which includes renovations. It’s the smallest arena in the NBA by square footage (586,000). That kind of thing matters, especially when luring big-time artists and such. It’s also, well, plain. Inside and out. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the brick bowl doesn’t inspire awe.

“The architectural ambitions of this new arena will exceed anything our residents have ever experienced,” Holt said this summer. “Remember the pride you felt seeing this convention center or Scissortail Park for the first time? This arena will meet that standard, and finally people will stand outside of our arena and marvel.”

Added Holt: “When you see a modern new NBA arena, you don’t even need to go inside. You look up and you go, ‘Oh.’ The modern NBA arenas, whether they are brand new or they have had a major upgrade, are simpler on another level.”

Holt, the mastermind and lead promoter of the new arena campaign, is right about this. Sometimes I have a hard time explaining to people where Paycom Center falls short of other NBA arenas. It just … does. You can see it. You can feel it.

Paycom Center, formerly known as Chesapeake Energy Arena and Ford Center, predated the Thunder by six years. It was only by an act of nature, Hurricane Katrina, that pro basketball found a home in Oklahoma City.

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When the building hosted the displaced New Orleans Hornets for two seasons, Oklahoma City, because of its fervent fan base, proved its big-league potential in spite of its small-market stature.

Paycom Center opened in 2002, before Thunder players Cason Wallace and Ousmane Dieng were born. If 22 years doesn’t sound all that old for an arena, get this April 4, 2007, headline in The Oklahoman: ‘Ford Center could be too old for any NBA team to call home.’

In 2007! That was written a year before the SuperSonics franchise moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City.

My pal Berry Tramel wrote in that story: “Be it Clay Bennett’s Sonics, or George Shinn’s Hornets, or whatever franchise we might try to lure to town, new digs will be part of the demand. Bennett said this week the Ford Center is fine for the immediate future, but the city eventually will need a new building.”

“You want the NBA, Oklahoma City?” Tramel wrote. “This goes with the territory.”

More than 16 years later, it’s almost time to answer the question.

Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder's Paycom Center pales in comparison to other NBA arenas