Can the Thunder challenge the Wolves to be the NBA's best defense?

OKC has elite defensive talent on hand

Photos by Rich Storry, Elsa/Getty Images

Last season’s Oklahoma City Thunder were a massive exception to a great many purported rules in the NBA.

Most notably, teams as young as the 2023-24 Thunder just do not have as much success as they did: Last year’s version of OKC was the 15th-youngest team in post-merger NBA history (out of 1,320 teams), yet still managed to win 57 games. In my Wins Above Age-Derived Expectation (WAADE) metric, they ranked FIRST out of those same 1,320 teams, narrowly surpassing the 73-win 2015-16 Warriors, who had previously held the record.

What is perhaps even more interesting about OKC’s over-performance, though, is that it was driven in part by an elite defense. Young teams can have really good offenses on occasion, but a young team like last year’s Thunder sporting a top-five defense is almost unheard of. Young teams are bad on defense. That’s just the way it is. Or was, at least.