Iowa Native Part of the NBA Champion Oklahoma City Thunder Team

Unless you were an Indiana Pacers fan, it was awesome to see the Oklahoma City Thunder win the 2025 NBA Finals. The second-youngest team to make the NBA Finals in the last 70 years, the Thunder are a team that were organically built. They drafted many of their best players, and acquired their star (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) from the Los Angeles Clippers when there were no expectations for him to be the player he became.

Of course, when a sports team wins their respective championship, more than just the players are given a commemorative ring. There are numerous people in the front office that were instrumental to the team-building process, and the success that followed. In the case of the Thunder, a franchise legend whose roots began in Iowa was part of the team that finally hoisted the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.

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Just a Kid from Iowa:

That man is Nick Collison, an Iowa Falls native, who is royalty for two NBA franchises. Collison was a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder back when they were the Seattle SuperSonics. He was drafted 12th overall in the 2003 NBA Draft, and spent his entire, 14-season career with Seattle/Oklahoma City (four for Seattle, 10 for Oklahoma City).

Collison had a stellar college career at Kansas, which saw him being awarded first-team All-American honors and the Big 12 Player of the Year Award in 2003. The Des Moines Register also notes that Collison led Iowa Falls High School to back-to-back Iowa state championships in 1998 and 1999.

What Does Nick Collison Do for the Thunder?:

After the 6'10'' utility player retired in 2018, he transitioned to a role with Oklahoma City's front office. In 2021, he became the special assistant to the Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti, who has been with the Thunder since 2007. As of this writing, Presti is the third longest-tenured executive in the NBA, and widely regarded as one of the best in the league.

Collison holds a wide variety of responsibilities, most notably handling short-term and long-term initiatives and projects across OKC's basketball operations. Collison, who was once known as "Mr. Thunder," had nothing but high praise for the 2024-25 team, which will now go down in NBA history:

[The players] do it the right way, so I'm happy for them and happy to be a part of the team. It's been a long road for everybody, so it's a pretty special moment - Nick Collison in the Thunder's lockroom following Game 7 of the NBA Finals, per The Des Moines Register

No Other Thunder Player Can Say This (Yet):

The Thunder retired Collison's No. 4 jersey back in 2019. It remains the only retired number in the franchise's history. With this Thunder team poised to be a force for a few years down the road, there's a good chance more will hang in the rafters alongside Collison's in the future.

Read more about Nick Collison on his Wikipedia page and on The Des Moines Register's website.