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Find out more about Matt: Matt is the pregame and postgame analyst on Golden State Warriors telecasts for Comcast Sports Net Bay Area. Previously, he covered the Warriors for nine seasons as a traveling beat writer for the Contra Costa Times. When not watching or writing about basketball, Steinmetz is on a constant search for the Bay Area's best pickup games. |

If you see a muscular, blue action hero with a lightning bolt for a hat stumbling around Oakland and muttering about life's injustices in the next couple of days, don't be surprised.
The NBA team in Oklahoma City will get its official nickname on Wednesday, and all indications are that it will be “Thunder.”
That's right: Thunder.
That decision probably didn’t sit well with the Golden State Warriors. Not to mention the guy who wears the suit.
Why?
Because “Thunder” is the name of the official Warriors team mascot _ NBA-approved, by the way.

Not only that, the image of Thunder is prominent in the Warriors’ primary logo _ the one with him holding the lightning bolt above the word “Warriors.”
The Warriors _ like all teams _ have a secondary logo, and theirs is called the “flying W,” which is the one with a lightning bolt ripping through the “W,” superimposed on a basketball.
Interestingly, the Warriors use the “flying W” logo more frequently than their primary logo with Thunder.
But that doesn't just mean you cast him aside, right?
It will be interesting to see how the NBA handles this little issue … if at all. Can it really have a team in one city with the nickname of “Thunder,” and an official NBA mascot for another team named “Thunder?”

That doesn’t seem right. Unless there's some kind of trade brewing.
Let's put it this way, the Warriors better be getting something out of this. And hopefully it's not at the expense of the guy in the suit.
But there's just no way you can have two Thunders.
What happens when Oklahoma City visits Oakland this upcoming season for a game against the Warriors and the public address announcer begins to introduce Thunder?
Who comes out? The team or the guy in the suit?
And will there even be that guy in the suit anymore?