5 things to know about the Santa Ana Thunder, New Mexico's newest basketball franchise

New Mexico’s newest professional basketball team, the Santa Ana Thunder, is off to a 4-9 start in its inaugural season. The team has seven games remaining, including four on its home court, the Bernalillo High gym.

Here are five things every basketball junkie and casual fan needs to know about the Thunder.

The Basketball League

The Santa Ana Thunder play in The Basketball League, one of the five notable professional basketball leagues in the United States. The TBL is tiered under the G League, which is the NBA’s official minor league organization. Four former TBL players are in the NBA G-League.

The 38 teams in the TBL have rosters comprised of players from all levels of college, foreign players and others who want to continue playing pro ball.

The Thunder play in the Central Division of the TBL.

Notable owners

Santa Ana Pueblo is a minority owner/partner of the Thunder, which makes them one of only a few pro sports teams associated with an Indigenous nation. The Pueblo is in Sandoval County, north of Rio Rancho.

The Thunder’s majority owner is Ingrid E. Hutt, also the founder of the Basketball Legacy Group. She is the first Black woman to be the majority owner of a team in the TBL.

The team’s president of operations is Neil C. Holmes, formerly the vice president of the New Mexico Thunderbirds — an NBA developmental league team that become the Cleveland Charge.

Coach Cliff

Former NBA power forward Cliff Levingston is the head coach of the Santa Ana Thunder. After being taken ninth overall in the 1982 draft, Levingston played 11 years in the league, mostly for the Atlanta Hawks and the Chicago Bulls. He won NBA championships in 1991 and 1992 as a role player for the Bulls, helping NBA legend Michael Jordan win his first two titles while also learning from Hall of Fame Coach Phil Jackson.

Levingston has been coaching basketball since 2000 and began coaching in the TBL in 2020 with the Kokomo BobKats. He said he wants to teach Thunder players “how to play the game … by seeing situations and understanding what’s a good shot and what’s a bad shot … because of time, score, and possession.”

New Mexico players

The Thunder have several players from the Land of Enchantment on the roster. Forward Jordan Jones played football, track and basketball at Sandia High and also played part of his college career at New Mexico Highlands, where he was a member of the program’s first Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championship team.

Jones possesses elite jumping ability, having won dunk contests in previous leagues, and said he wants to “help the Thunder become a household name in the state of New Mexico.”

Former Rio Rancho High star Marcus Williams is also on the team. Williams’ message to fans is, “don’t knock it till you come out and see. … You know we are going to play hard.”

Another New Mexico player on the team is guard Nathaniel Yazzie, who is from the Navajo Nation and played at Gallup High.

Other players

Guard Chris Bradford (16.0 points per game, which is most among the players still on the roster) is the team’s vocal leader and said he tries to take on a leadership role. “It’s been a great experience seeing something different other than just my home state,” the Los Angeles native said.

Many of the players are from out of state, including guard Bakari Evelyn from Detroit; guard Victor Warison from Sacramento, California, guard Joshua Brewer from Indianapolis and power forward Ty Sean Powell from Cleveland. Powell’s message to the city: “Come out and support, and we will do our best to return that energy and give you guys exciting basketball.”