WASHINGTON — The reigning NBA champion Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder won’t go to the White Home throughout their highway journey to the nation’s capital this weekend, a group spokesperson stated Friday.
The group and the White Home had discussions a couple of celebration of the 2025 champs, however “timing” prevented it from occurring.
“We’ve got been in contact with the White Home, and we’re appreciative and grateful for the communication we’ve got had, however the timing simply did not work out,” the Thunder stated in a press release.
Visiting the White Home has been a long-standing custom for NBA champions, relationship again to Boston’s journey in 1963. Groups sometimes schedule the celebration when a regular-season recreation brings them to the nation’s capital. The Thunder play Washington on Saturday.
A number of groups have declined invites in recent times, most notably the NBA’s Golden State Warriors in 2017.
Final month, the gold-medal-winning U.S. males’s hockey group attended the State of the Union following an invite from President Donald Trump. The group additionally attended an occasion within the Oval Workplace with Trump and had lunch on the White Home.
Trump additionally invited the gold-winning U.S. girls’s hockey group to the State of the Union, but it surely determined to not attend, citing “the timing and beforehand scheduled educational {and professional} commitments.”
