The Thunder play on national TV for the first time in 28 months: What's changed?

Jan. 9—The Oklahoma City Thunder will play its first nationally televised game in over two years on Tuesday, Jan. 10 against the Miami Heat.

The last time the Thunder was on national TV — sans NBA TV — was on Sept. 2, 2020. It was the decisive Game 7 between the Thunder and Houston Rockets, which aired on ESPN.

Exactly 860 days and roughly 28 months between national appearances.

After the NBA removed the Thunder's Nov. 1 game against the Orlando Magic from TNT, the league called an audible and flexed Tuesday's game to the national slot.

Thunder fans throughout the 2010s were spoiled with national television appearances, as the team played on ESPN or TNT on a regular basis. But the current two-plus year drought has given fans time to appreciate their early success.

With that said, fans are excited as a TNT game means a step in the right direction for the current rebuild.

Getting recognition from the league and playing in front of non-local markets is a huge indication of where the Thunder is heading.

For Shai Gilgeous-Alexander though, the main reason as to why the Thunder will play on TNT as he averages 30.9 points on 50.1 percent shooting, it's just another game.

"To be honest, we haven't spoke much about it," Gilgeous-Alexander said on Jan. 8. "We try to carry over the good things over every night and leave the bad things in the past. It'll be on national TV though, it'll be fun."

To commemorate the milestone, let's take a look at 28 fun facts in honor of the 28 months between national TV games for the Thunder.

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The only players left on the roster from the last time the Thunder was on national TV are Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Darius Bazley and Mike Muscala.

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Mark Daigneault was also on the team. But he was an assistant on head coach Billy Donovan's staff.

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Chris Paul, Steven Adams, Dennis Schroder and Danilo Gallinari were also on the Thunder. All have changed teams at least once since then.

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Paul was on his way into making the All-NBA second team. Meanwhile, Rockets guard Russell Westbrook was named onto the All-NBA third team.

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The defending NBA champions were the Toronto Raptors.

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Earlier in the week, the league postponed its games due to teams protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake. Games were not played from Aug. 26 to Aug. 29.

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The top prospects heading into the 2020 NBA draft included LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards and James Wiseman.

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18-year-old Chet Holmgren was a high school senior at Minehaha Academy, where he was the #1 recruit according to ESPN, Rivals and 247Sports.

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17-year-old Josh Giddey was enjoying his first NBL season with the Adelaide 36ers.

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OU head coach Lincoln Riley named redshirt freshman Spencer Rattler the starting quarterback the day before after winning an intense QB battle against Tanner Mordecai.

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Former Sooner wide receiver CeeDee Lamb was preparing to make his NFL debut in less than two weeks as a Dallas Cowboys rookie.

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QB Tom Brady was a little over a week away from debuting for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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The MLB regular season was less than a month away from concluding its abbreviated 60-game season.

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Bally Sports was still called Fox Sports.

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Hall-of-Fame starting pitcher Tom Seaver died two days prior at 75 years old.

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Actor Chadwick Boseman died five days prior at 43 years old. Boseman suffered from colon cancer. Boseman was most known for playing Marvel's "Black Panther."

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U.S. COVID cases reached six million.

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Most universities and schools across the country were returning back to in-person classes for the first time since March 2020.

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The top charted U.S. song was "WAP" by Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion. The top-charted song in the world was "Dynamite" by BTS.

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YouTube launched "YouTube Shorts" in order to compete with other social media apps like TikTok.

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The latest iPhone was the iPhone 12 Pro.

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The second season of Disney's "The Mandalorian" began.

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The most-watched Netflix show was "Lucifer" and the most-watched Netflix movie was "The Social Dilemma."

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The highest domestic box office movie of September 2020 was "Tenet."

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Taylor Swift's "Folklore" was the highest-selling album of September 2020 and eventually the entire 2020 year.

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The highest-selling book of September 2020 was "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man" by Mary L. Trump.

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The Travis Scott McDonalds meal launched.

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The Paycom Center was still called Chesapeake Energy Arena.

Clemente Almanza is a sports reporter intern for The Transcript. You can reach him via email at calmanza@normantranscript.com or on Twitter @CAlmanza1007