13 Thoughts on the Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder are your NBA champions. Let's run through 13 thoughts about the team, the season, and the future.

• This really feels like the beginning of something, rather than the end of a journey. I've said it all year, but this team reminds me very much of the 2015 Warriors, who were just getting started when they won 67 games and then the title. These Thunder won 68. Both teams were led by the MVP. Both were coached by one of the youngest coaches in the NBA. They both finished top five on both offense and defense, with the defense finishing first in the league. They both were in their just three years removed from winning 23 (Warriors) or 24 (Thunder) games before making two playoff (Warriors) or postseason (Thunder, who lost in the play-in in 2023) appearances and then winning their title. Their actual championship runs even played out in eerily similar fashion. They swept uncompetitive first-round series. They went down 2-1 in the second round before coming back to win series. They won the Conference Finals 4-1. They went down 2-1 in the NBA Finals before changing their starting lineup for Game 4 and coming back to win the series.
• So many people have talked ad nauseam about how young this team is, but it's worth noting again: They had a minutes-weighted age of just 24.8 years old during the regular season, making them the seventh-youngest team in the league this season and, as ESPN kept repeating during the Finals, the second-youngest team to ever make it that far and the second-youngest to win it all. In my Wins Above Age-Derived Expectation metric, they smashed the all-time record (set by the 73-win 2016 Warriors) by more than 6.5 wins. Alex Caruso is their only rotation player over 27 years old. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is 26. Jalen Williams is 24 and Chet Holmgren is 23. These guys are not going anywhere. We're going to be living with these Thunder for quite a while.
• Just as there was last year, there will be an effort to tell you this Thunder team is for some reason not an all-time great team. Last year it was because the Celtics didn't "feel" like an all-time great team. This year it's going to be about how the Thunder needed seven games to win two of their four playoff series. Or something. There's always something these days. I don't care. I know what I watched. They won 68 games. They set an all-time record for point differential. They had one of the best defenses in league history. They were led by an absolute stone-cold killer of an MVP, supported by two co-stars, and flanked by a cadre of elite role players. They weren't quite a team with no weaknesses, but they were one whose strengths were so pronounced and so far beyond those of any other team in the league that they almost couldn't help but win.

• SGA had — and I do not use this term lightly — a Michael Jordan-style season this year. As I wrote when doing my end-of-season awards picks, "Only two other players have ever averaged at least 32 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1.5 steals per game, as Gilgeous-Alexander has this year: Jordan twice, and James Harden twice. Throw in the additional requirement of a block per game and nobody has ever accomplished what Shai has this season. Among that group, by the way, SGA has recorded the highest effective field-goal percentage and the highest true-shooting percentage in one of those seasons, which is truly insane when you think about to whom he is being compared." SGA also became one of just four players, MJ obviously included, to win the scoring title, the MVP, the Finals, and Finals MVP in the same season. (He added the new Western Conference Finals MVP for good measure.) Again, this man is just 26 years old. He is practically unstoppable and, despite what you hear on the internet because nobody can ever just enjoy awesome players and absolutely must find a reason to tear them down and hate them, a joy to watch. The way he moves is mesmerizing. The pace and the combinations of moves and fakes are sublime. The level of physicality and drive it takes to attack the rim with the consistency that he does is just remarkable. And he's a hell of a defender, one of the best in the league at generating steals and at dealing with big men posting him up. Just a unique, truly fantastic player.
• Jalen Williams leveled up during the season and then did so even further during the playoffs. Obviously, he had some rough shooting games here and there. He actually shot under 40% from the field eight times during the run, and south of 30% three times. But he was so good, so often in the other games that you can't not be impressed. His ability to get exactly where he wants off the drive was one of the defining takeaways of the playoffs. He repeatedly beat defenders to his left hand and all the way to the cup. How many times did you see him cross over behind his back and get to that little scoop layup? Or spin away from the screen and do the same? Or just hit that scoop on either side of the rim? And how great was he defensively? And how much did he step up as a playmaker and at times primary ball-handler in the Finals when the Pacers were defending SGA in such a way that made it necessary to shift some of the responsibility his way? He's an elite two-way player, an All-NBA guy who, again, is just getting started. He's barely 24 years old. Look out.
• Chet Holmgren struggled even more with his shot than did J-Dub during the Finals, totaling just 39.5% from the field and 15.8% from deep across these seven games. He saved the best for last, though, making 6 of his 8 shots and scoring 18 points in Game 7, even nailing just his third three of the series — a massive one that helped the Thunder open up their third-quarter lead. More important were his 5 blocks, each of which was seemingly more impressive than the last. He got T.J. McConnell on a reverse layup, Bennedict Mathurin on a putback opportunity, and more. He protected the rim at such a high level throughout the series and the playoffs and the season as a whole. He at times struggled with the physicality on the other end of the floor, but NEVER on defense. And that matters. He's still just 23 years old. There is still so much more room for him to grow, whether as an on-the-ball creator or in speeding up the release on his jumper or getting even better at defending in space. If Victor Wembanyama didn't exist, we'd probably talk about Chet like he's an alien given his combination of size, length, and skill. We haven't even scratched the surface here just yet.

• The moves for Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein could not possibly have worked out better. I wrote last summer that by acquiring them, the Thunder were in position to challenge the Wolves for the best defense in the NBA, and they obviously did that and so much more. OKC absolutely does not win this title without Caruso, who swung games and series with his ridiculous defense. And it probably does not win without Hartenstein and his screening and rebounding and rim protection. They each brought a lot to the table offensively as well, with Caruso making a bunch of timely shots (including in Game 7) and Hartenstein working as a screener, roller, and facilitator in both hand-off and short-roll opportunities. They were the picture-perfect role players to fill out what was already an elite team, but that just needed a very little bit more to get over the top.
• It's worth shouting out Lu Dort. The man basically plays linebacker during NBA games. He bodies you up and down the floor and makes it so that you will damn well remember that you played against him that night. The longest-tenured Thunder player, he as much as anyone else save for maybe Caruso personifies what it felt like to play against this defense. The physicality. The limbs. The swarm. It must be exhausting, and annoying as all hell. Not that long ago, the Thunder were eliminated from the playoffs at least in part because the Rockets dared Dort to shoot a bunch of threes and he couldn't come close to making them. (That was in the bubble.) He's since turned into a guy who shot 39.4% from deep last year and 41.2% this year, who practically saved the Thunder's season with a monster string of threes in Game 5 against the Nuggets and whose tossed-up prayer in the third quarter of Game 7 helped get the momentum going for OKC to build its insurmountable lead.
• Given how stacked the team is, it's easy to overlook the contributions of guys like Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins. But they were massive throughout these playoffs, particularly in the Denver series when they and Caruso helped swing multiple games in OKC's favor. They each had their moments in the Finals as well. Wallace's defense and Wiggins' shooting should not go unremembered. I can't help but think how many teams these guys would start for, and they somehow seem like afterthoughts at times on this roster. Incredible.
• Kenrich Williams and Jaylin Williams each had their moments during this run as well. It seemed like the Thunder just annihilated whichever opponent was in front of them whenever Kenrich was on the floor, and he had massive stints in a pair of games against the Wolves and then again against the Pacers in Game 2. J-Will basically just got dusted off for the Nuggets series so the Thunder could try anything and everything to survive against Nikola Jokic, and he lived to tell the story.

• Amazingly, this might actually be the worst that this version of OKC is over the next several years. Again, SGA is not even yet in his physical prime. J-Dub and Chet are several years away from theirs. Those guys should somehow be better in the years to come, and it's not at all difficult to see J-Dub and Chet taking significant steps forward as offensive creators, to the point that it's essentially impossible to stop the Thunder from creating good shots — something they did struggle with at times during these playoffs and during the Finals. And they'll be adding Nikola Topic to the mix next year as yet another shot-creator, presumably coming off the bench to make things even more interesting. The defense should remain just as good for at least the next couple years until Caruso starts his decline phase, but even then a guy like Wallace might be ready to replace at least some of what he brings to the table. Throw in two elite rim protectors, elite individual and space defenders, and the scheme and the swarm, and it's going to be massively difficult trying to score on these guys for years to come. They're going to be hyper-elite on both ends for the foreseeable future.
• Mark Daigneault is a damn good coach. OKC incubated him in the G League for a few seasons before giving him the top job when Billy Donovan left, and boy does that look like a good series of decisions right now. He pushed the right button so many times throughout this season and these playoffs and this series. He appears to have 1000% buy-in from every player up and down the roster, as indicated by the way he can switch his starters and his lineups at the drop of a hat with seemingly no internal consequences and no drop-off on the court. Guys can flit in and out of the rotation and still go balls to the wall and make a massive impact when they're out there. Annoyingly, he's still just 40 years old, which makes me feel really badly about myself because I'm 38 so what the hell am I doing with my life? He's going to coach this team for a very, very long time.
• This team, of course, is Sam Presti's crowning achievement. It is somehow simultaneously a total juggernaut in the moment and as well set up for the future as any team — not just any great team — has been in the history of the league. The Thunder won 68 games and the title and have the MVP, another All-NBA player, a third guy who may have been in that mix if he'd been healthy, two guys on All-Defense and at least three more who could or would have made it had they been healthy, and as many is THIRTEEN first-round picks in the next seven drafts, including Nos. 15 and 24 on Wednesday night. The same guy who built the Kevin Durant - Russell Westbrook - James Harden - Serge Ibaka group has done it again, this time while getting out ahead of the potential financial constraints that "forced" the Harden trade and making it so that something like that doesn't have to happen this time around. The Thunder are position such that they can navigate the luxury taxes and the aprons while retaining all three of their main stars, keeping some of their hyper-competent role players in place while cycling through the others because they can keep replenishing the coffers with their draft assets. It's really a situation unlike anything I've ever seen. Buckle up. It's going to be a very fun next half-decade or more.

For more thoughts on the Thunder, the Pacers, Game 7, and the Kevin Durant trade, here's the latest episode of the Double Dribble podcast with myself and Mo Dakhil.