After 15 years with the Thunder/Seattle SuperSonics, Nick Collison will have his No. 4 jersey retired in a ceremony prior to the Thunder hosting the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night.
As the organization prepares to honor Collison, several former Thunder and SuperSonics players are expected to be in attendance, including Kevin Durant and Raptors center Serge Ibaka.
While Collison wasn’t the most decorated player during his time in the league, his impact reached far deeper than just his on-court performance. He became a hard-nosed player that was the ultimate teammate and stayed professional through the good and the bad.
Former teammate Steven Adams believed Collison helped set the culture with the Thunder and helped the organization grow after moving to Oklahoma City.
It’s more than just playing, obviously. He’s more of a culture builder, that guy. He’s just one of those dudes that’s like constantly professional and just very — he’s not emotionless — but he’s just pretty steady. Just very cool, calm and collected. He’s just one of those dudes that everyone can talk to. He always says not necessarily the nicest thing, which is not what you want, it’s more of the right thing and that’s what kind of gets everyone to go forward; that’s how you grow. It’s very blunt and he puts it how it is. So you grow from there. That’s probably the best thing that he did bring. For me, it’s just a friendship.
Collison was one of two players (Russell Westbrook) to have spent the first 10 years of the Thunder era all with the team. He retired second in all-time games played for the franchise.
The move by the Thunder to retire his number was met with some criticism since he only posted a career average of 5.9 points and 5.2 rebounds but the decision was universally praised by other players.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich called it classy.
He was a wonderful player, a great teammate and one of the ultimate role players. No matter what the coaches asked him to do, he did it. He competed night after night after night; always made his teams better. I’m glad they are retiring his jersey, that’s pretty classy. Good for him.
The ceremony will take place prior to the game on Wednesday as the Thunder have asked that fans be in their seats by 8 p.m. CT for the events.
The game is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. CT.
