Sticking around
Nick Collison signs for another year with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Jerseys dangle from the rafters at Kansas’ famed Allen Fieldhouse, a who’s who of Jayhawks hoops, Nick Collison’s No. 4 among them.
It’s not the only place where his old jersey is on display. At Iowa Falls High School, too, there’s a salute to Collison.
“My jersey and my shorts are hanging in my (high school) gym,” Collison said Friday, the day he signed a one-year contract to return for a 10th season with the Thunder, a 15th with the franchise that once was the Seattle Super-Sonics. “I don’t know why they did that, but they did. I always say it looks like a chalk outline.”
One day, Collison might complete a jersey-raising triumvirate in Oklahoma City.
But whatever postretirement tribute comes will have to wait. Asked if this will be his final NBA season, Collison said on Friday “I don’t know for sure.”
“I know I’m a lot closer to the end than the beginning,” he said. “It’s hard to ever close a door. You just never know for sure.”
What Collison knew for sure is that he wasn’t ready to go after last season. And this summer he decided he wanted his career to continue with the Thunder — though he talked to other teams and weighed the possibility of signing elsewhere.
“Ultimately I knew there was not much I would leave for, and it never really got to that point, never really got down the road with anybody,” Collison said. “(OKC) wanted me back, and I wanted to be here, so we just kind of got to work on making it happen.”
It became official on Friday.
The 2017-18 season will be the Thunder’s 10th in Oklahoma City. It never has played a game without Collison as a member of the team. And though he sat out his first year in Seattle with shoulder injuries, he’s entering his 15th total season with the franchise.
His on-court role has diminished over time — he averaged a career-low 6.4 minutes in a career-low 20 games last season — but Collison has remained a valued piece of the organization and a popular figure in the community.
As the Thunder made other transactions this summer — acquiring Paul George in a trade, signing free agents Patrick Patterson and Raymond Felton — fans frequently asked about Collison, some concerned with the possibility he might not return.
When they saw him in town, those fans shared with the 36-year-old their hopes for his return.
“I’ve been able to be in one place long enough that fans appreciate what I do and kind of have gotten to know my game a little bit,” Collison said. “A lot of guys that play most of their career coming off the bench like me usually bounce around and they’re just kind of another face, but for me to be able to have that here is really cool.”
That alone wasn’t enough to keep Collison in Thunder blue.
Though he values that he’s a rarity in the NBA, a player with a long career spent with one franchise, he insists he didn’t re-sign for the sake of keeping that streak alive. He wanted to be with the Thunder.
But he can’t stay forever.
Collison has started to think about a post-playing life, he said, he’s putting any decisions about his future on hold.
Since even before he suited up at Iowa Falls or Kansas, Collison has entered every autumn preparing for a basketball season.
Even in the winter of his career, he’s not ready to stop that.
“I know I didn’t play much last year. I don’t know how much I’ll play this year,” Collison said. “But I want to be ready, because why not? It’s like, you’ve done this your whole life. Finish this. That’s where I’m at. I really want to put everything into it.”