Trending Topics: Assessing Thunder’s roll this season

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Periodically, NBA.com’s writers will weigh in on key storylines or trending topics across the league.

The Thunder have reached 60 wins, the primary group to take action this season. What do you make of their dominance this season?

Steve Aschburner

There’s no denying that this has been a magical season for the Thunder. And there’s no cause it will possibly’t proceed within the postseason. (Sure, that features the primary OKC title ever.)

The roster is multi-faceted, enabling coach Mark Daigneault to pressure or match up with any fashion. Isaiah Hartenstein was the offseason’s finest acquisition, giving OKC the dimensions it craved final season and a formidable companion to Chet Holmgren once they use two bigs.

Everyone performs protection, with no weak hyperlinks within the rotation. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is an amazing scorer and nearer who might remind us of 2006 Finals Dwyane Wade in a sequence or two (numerous free throws).

Boston and Cleveland have all the pieces they should snag the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June. However any “expertise” deficit the younger Thunder have will largely be erased by their third or fourth spherical.

I’m anticipating a number of flights to Oklahoma this spring.

Brian Martin

We’re maybe simply getting began on what might be a run just like what the Golden State Warriors of the previous decade and the San Antonio Spurs within the 2000s loved.

The Thunder entered the season with the youngest roster in the league (24.1 common age) and have been the highest group within the deeper convention day-after-day since Nov. 25. They’ve the main candidate for Kia MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, and are on tempo to set the NBA report for highest common level differential (+12.9).

They’re doing this with the sixth-lowest wage and have a treasure trove of Draft property sooner or later that they’ll use so as to add younger expertise or commerce for established gamers to fill any holes that come up. The Thunder has been constructed to win now and sooner or later, opening a window to compete for championships for a few years.

Shaun Powell

Sixty wins is a milestone that may’t be nitpicked aside. It’s uncommon air, unique solely to elite groups with a championship gleam. That description suits the Thunder, and it’s protected to say that, on the very least, the Western Convention title is theirs to lose.

It begins with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, then Jalen Williams, then a relentless protection able to giving any group suits. That stability at each ends is why OKC resides within the West penthouse. They’ve crushed all the highest groups a minimum of as soon as and are projected to complete nicely forward of the West posse. Oh, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, the bigs, missed chunks of the yr and have solely been obtainable these days, which implies the Thunder nonetheless have … a excessive ceiling? Horrifying.

John Schuhmann

The Thunder are, statistically, the perfect group in NBA historical past. They’ve outscored their opponents by 12.9 points per game, which might be the perfect level differential amongst 1,693 groups throughout 79 seasons. And sure, they need to be the favourite to win the 2025 championship. It’s at all times exhausting to imagine within the “new” contender, however when a brand new contender has been something near this good, it has virtually at all times pressured us to imagine in the long run.

They should reply some questions within the postseason, primarily about their offense when the ball is pressured out of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s fingers. However the Thunder (14-4, +10.7 per sport inside the top 8 within the league) may even play video games on their phrases, making opponents work out how they’re going to attain towards a protection that’s allowed 3.3 fewer points per 100 possessions than each different protection within the league.