Okie(s) in Florida

Oklahoma City finally gets their chance to shine.

The NBA approved the relocation of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City this past week. It’s all over but the shoutin’ for Seattle. Or so it seems.

But I have a few questions:

1) How is Tulsa going to treat this team? I grew up in Tulsa, where people long looked down upon Oklahoma City as nothing but an old cow town. That was before Oklahoma City decided to remake itself.

I dated a girl whose parents epitomized the denial Tulsans had about their city. Her mother once blew a gasket because I pointed out the Captain Obvious things about Tulsa getting left behind. As I recall, the comments were linked to Tulsans voting down an attempt to build a brand new sparkling central library on land donated by a prominent T-town family.

Now Tulsa is building a pretty sweet arena. But they don’t really have anything to put in it. It’s not a whole lot unlike the white elephant they built in San Antonio.

NBA Commissioner David Stern thinks it should be an Oklahoma team. The ownership group and Oklahoma City mayor feel differently. I noticed the Tulsa World hardly paid attention to the development — at least on their Web site. So this should be fun to watch.

2) Even better is my curiosity toward how the team will be treated by The Oklahoman, OKC’s hometown newspaper and still the state’s largest in circulation. You see, the ownership group is led by the husband of the woman who is second-in-command of The Oklahoma Publishing Co. — wait, I guess I mean Chris Reen’s OPUBCO Communications Group (Sorry, but I can’t stand stupid corporate psychobabble, such as calling the newspaper things like a “communications vehicle”).

So will it get a critical eye — especially when they start dipping into the public’s money for incentives or arena renovations?