“Thunder signed it ‘To Robin – where’s the W?’”: Robin Lopez reveals the origins of his seemingly unfounded hatred for mascots goes back to elementary school

"Thunder signed it ‘To Robin - where’s the W?’": Robin Lopez reveals the origins of his seemingly unfounded hatred for mascots goes back to elementary school

Robin Lopez has made a name for himself in the NBA for having a weird grudge against mascots without any apparent reason. However, it appears that there is an origin to it.

Robin has had the career of an NBA journeyman, never sticking to one team for too long, and never reaching that true ‘star’ distinction. Throughout his career, Robin has played for seven different NBA teams.

He’s had some very memorable moments during his years, particularly some very entertaining ones with team mascots as he finds some way to beef with them.

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Robin Lopez Explains Where His Hatred For NBA Mascots Comes From

Before the Oklahoma City Thunder were the team they are now, they used to be the Seattle SuperSonics. However, in 2008, the team would relocate to Oklahoma City and took on the Thunder as their team name.

Before that, however, the name ‘Thunder’ was completely up for grabs around the league in whatever aspect. The Golden State Warriors, playing to their lightning bolt logo, adopted the name ‘Thunder’ for their team mascot.

Eventually, they changed the name as the SuperSonics became the Thunder, but it’s still an interesting bit of NBA history to remember.

While ‘Thunder’ seemed like the perfect mascot for the Warriors, Lopez’s beef with NBA mascots stems from an incident involving him. Mascots usually like to play around with NBA fans, messing with them and doing things that are sometimes only excusable because of the fact that they’re mascots. Just ask ‘Benny the Bull.’

‘Thunder’ was no different. Lopez was at a Warriors game in 3rd or 4th grade, and he went up to the mascot for an autograph. Due to a speech impediment, Lopez pronounced his name as ‘Wobin’, something the mascot made fun of. And there’s your origin story for Lopez’s beef with mascots.

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Post Edited By: Ashish Priyadarshi
NBA Robin Lopez

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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