The Path: How the Thunder won their first championship, as told by Sam Presti
“When you have success like this, it’s easy to narrate it back and make it seem like it was this great plan.”
— Sam Presti, June 22, 2025
OKC’s historic defense had been as disruptive as ever during the Thunder’s Game 7, Finals-clinching victory, but the best deflection of the night may have been by Sam Presti.
The interview was by no means contentious. It was the very beginning of a celebration, after all—one that would stretch long into that night and through the parade a couple of days later. One that the 2025 NBA Draft would sneak up on. One that will continue in the hearts of Thunder fans until—well, we’ll have to let you know. Confetti still covered the court. If you listened closely, you might have been able to hear the sound of the NBA’s second-youngest team ever to win the championship struggling to pop their champagne.
Scott Van Pelt, no doubt emboldened by Presti’s uncharacteristic acquiescence to a live TV spot, must have thought he’d have his guard down. “I’ll bet I can get him to do it,” he must have thought, banking perhaps on Presti being drunk on Mich Ultra—or maybe on the moment. “I’ll bet I can get him,” he must have thought, “to admit that he planned it all.”
Sam Presti was having none of it.
He spent the next five minutes, instead, heaping praise on the players—for their maturity, their team-first nature, their families, their work ethic, and on and on. An architect praising the materials, the physics, the trigonometry for their solidity instead of himself for how he’d brought them together. “When you have success like this, it’s easy to narrate it back and make it seem like it was this great plan,” he said.
By the end, Scott Van Pelt bowed his bald, bald head in defeat. “Maybe I was wrong,” he must have thought. “Maybe he didn’t plan it after all. Maybe he really is just a jazz-rap drummer who got lucky.”
But Thunder fans knew. Thunder fans had sat through hours of voluntary Sam Presti media availability, taking the time to separate the chaff from the tasty morsels of direction. It’s common to hear people say Sam Presti likes to talk without actually saying anything, but Thunder fans know that’s far from true. He says a lot, if you listen. From the beginning, every step of the way, he actually said it all.
“We want it to be an arrival, not an appearance.”
— Sam Presti, May 20, 2021
Daily ThunderSpenser Davis
It would have been nice for them to have been the youngest 1-seed ever. They’d have to settle for second. The 2025 Thunder were young—make no mistake—it’s just that those pesky 2024 Thunder had a leg up due to that pesky tendency time has of being linear.
Still, an achievement nonetheless. The list of teams to repeat as the West’s No. 1 seed contains no scrubs. Steph Curry’s 2015–2017 Warriors. The Kobe/Pau Lakers. Before that, you have to go back to the early ’90s for Drexler’s Blazers and then to the ’80s for Magic’s Showtime Lakers. The Thunder had not made an appearance. They’d arrived.
It didn’t come easy, per se. Well, not after the first two home games, that is, which OKC and their crowd dominated by 51 and 19 points—something that would continue over the course of the playoff run. In Games 3 and 4, though, on the road, things got a tad more sketchy—something that would also continue.
Game 3 required a frantic comeback from a 26-point halftime deficit, which may not have even been possible without a Ja Morant hip injury sustained in the third quarter as he went airborne in the general direction of Luguentz Dort. It also required 23 points in the second half from Chet Holmgren—maybe the first time in the postseason the team evoked a feeling of “oh, it’s different this year.” Game 4 was a hard-fought win against a desperate team fighting for their playoff lives—and, it would turn out, fighting to delay the breaking up of their core.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (MVP pending) struggled in the series, shooting a horrendous—for him (for anyone, really)—40.2% from the field and 25% from three. The team as a whole managed only 31.3% from three, their lowest in any series. They put up a bizarre 78.8% from the free-throw line—the best free-throw shooting team in the league’s regular season shooting a number that would’ve ranked 11th—with Jalen Williams as the main culprit.
Even so, they swept the series.
Later along this year’s playoff run, they’d come up against situations that were new to them—challenges, struggles, and growth they’d never seen before. But an overmatched 8-seed who’d limped into the playoffs? This, they were familiar with. That youngest 1-seed ever had swept the Pelicans in the first round the year prior, and they did not intend to take any steps backward this time around.
“People talk about adversity being really important to growth when it's convenient to them, but I think it actually is universally important.”
— Sam Presti, September 28, 2021
The OklahomanJoe Mussatto, The Oklahoman
It was the smile of a man who’d stubbed his toe—like, really hard. Like he’d fallen all the way to the ground after. Kicked the ottoman right on the pointy part, done a complete barrel roll, maybe taken out a lamp on the way down. And not alone, either. People had seen. Half were holding their hands over their mouths in shock, half to hide their laughter. He held his probably-not-broken toe, and he smiled.
It was their youth that had put them here—that much was apparent.
Game 1 had been a complete meltdown. Up 11 with 4 minutes and change. Up 9 as it went under 3 minutes. Still up 3 with 13 seconds left. And again with 11 seconds left. And a chance to go up 3 again with 9 seconds. Chet Holmgren had missed both free throws. Mark Daigneault would take full ownership of the series of unfortunate events after the game—a glaring display of his own youth and inexperience. Aaron Gordon had splashed in a transition three, virtually at the buzzer.
No harm done, though. Not if the Thunder could take care of business the next two games. Game 2 went as planned—probably even better—as they set off a tidal wave of the-Nuggets-got-the-split-anywayses across the NBA landscape with a 43-point victory. Take Game 3, take back control.
But it happened again.
A three-point lead with the ball and 37 seconds left, too, was washed away by an open Aaron Gordon three. The Nuggets would run away with it in overtime. This one was maybe not quite as embarrassing in the grand scheme—the lead hadn’t been as large, the venue less friendly. The stakes, however, made this one feel devastating.
Now down 1–2, facing down the barrel of 1–3 and near-certain elimination, their 68-win, record-setting season was suddenly incredibly precarious. And not only that, but now they were proven chokers. Now the Nuggets were unbeatable if it was close. They had the championship pedigree, after all. They had the Rightful MVP (pending). The Thunder were too young, too inexperienced, their esophagi demonstrably narrow.
The series was being played on Jokić’s terms, with OKC leaning heavily into the double-big lineup and Chet playing at center barely at all. The spacing was ruined, and it wasn’t even working.
The Thunder were #NotBuiltForIt. And even if they had been, Denver’s zone had figured Shai out, holding him to just 18 points on 7–22 from the field.
And he was smiling.
“Trying to fix things quickly takes a very long time. So, we're going to avoid making it longer by making it shorter. I'm really confident we're going to be successful.”
— Sam Presti, April 18, 2022
Sam Presti: "Trying to fix things quickly takes a very long time. So we're going to avoid making it longer by making it shorter. I'm really confident we're going to be successful."
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) April 18, 2022
It was objectively not that long, but some of it had been bleak. Losing 26 of the last 29 in 2021. Winning the last one, which hurt most of all (OTURUUUUU). Isaiah Roby, Moses Brown, Jaylen Hoard, Gabi Deck. Poku. From the hope of two top-five picks to just pick six. Josh Giddey rolling his ankle in the first moments of Summer League so our only reward was watching the 55th pick. What do you even mean he saved basketball? Losing by 73. Poku.
But the time had not been wasted. The team had been intentional in sorting through the players who came through, developing and refining the roster until it was deep—the deepest in the league. It hadn’t really shown so far. But in Games 3 and 4, the roster started to sputter to life.
First, in Game 4, Cason Wallace and the aforementioned Savior of Basketball, Aaron Wiggins, showed up. With 3 threes apiece, they lifted OKC up from an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit to win in an absolute rock fight on the road, 92–87. Calling it a “rock fight” may be too kind, truth be told, as nobody was ever under threat of actually being hit by a rock. More like a rock-chucking demonstration, more like skipping rocks in the ocean. Both teams finished 24.4% from three.
In Game 5, Lu Dort, who’d gone 2–10 in the previous game—sparking discussions of a trip to the bench—pulled off his miracle. With the Thunder down nine in the fourth, Dort launched 3 threes into the thermosphere in a two-minute span. All three splashed in.
Every championship run in any sport has those moments you look back on that was a defining moment. OKC could not do anything all night and it was Lu Dort who saved the season by himself from a second round exit. Turned the most frustrating game ever into the most exciting. pic.twitter.com/6LZoI7xApU
— Shai Gilgreatness-Alexander (@Jhickness9) June 27, 2025
The depth that Sam and Mark had spent the rebuild accumulating and developing had rallied together and bought their star the time he needed to overcome his adversity and to grow. The big guy on the other side showed up big down the stretch, scoring 13 in the fourth and making tough shot after tough shot, the highest point being a spinning, fading three over Chet’s outstretched hand that would have broken most teams.
But on this night, Shai was up to the challenge. He went blow-for-blow with that proven, unstoppable Dragon Warrior. He found his teammates when the time was right, setting J-Dub up for a corner three that put OKC up three. He scored 10 of his own fourth-quarter points, including a step-back three of his own—the dagger.
It couldn’t be rushed. It couldn’t be forced. Maybe Shai’s teammates had pushed him to it. Maybe Jokić had pulled it out of him. Maybe it was just his time. Whatever the case, the moment came, and SGA was ready.
“In order to really enjoy the best parts, you have to also have some conscious discomfort on the hard parts. It makes it sweeter.”
— Sam Presti, September 22, 2022
If you’d taken a poll of the pundits and the naysayers and the haters—“Why do you think the OKC Thunder will fail?”—the winner would have been, “Because Jalen Williams wasn’t ready.” The real reason would have been, “Because I hope they will, as their success would cast a bleak shadow upon the rest of the league, including mine own team,” but the J-Dub answer is what they would’ve said.
Oh, how they were celebrating.
Game 6 against Denver was the first time this Thunder team had ever had an opportunity to advance to the Conference Finals. It would take an elimination win on the road—no small task. But Shai had proven himself up to that task. All he needed was his running mate to step up. Jalen Williams did the opposite.
Six points—a playoff career low. In fact, his only single-digit scoring game of the entire season. 18.8% from the field—the second-lowest game of his last two seasons. Zero free-throw attempts. A disaster class of the highest order. A Mark Sanchez Butt-Fumble of the bag. Streets were saying, wait, maybe he’s “the other Jalen/Jaylin Williams.”
How would you respond, 8?
This was the moment Jalen Williams grew up—the moment he became what Shai needed him to be, what the team needed, what the moment needed him to be. He was dominant in Game 7, scoring 17 points along with two assists in the second quarter alone. He never looked back.
Through Game 6 of the 2025 Western Conference Semifinals, Jalen Williams averaged 19.2 points on 45.2% FG, 24.1% from three, 75.5% from the line, and 4.9 free-throw attempts.
From that game on, he averaged 23.1 points on 46.7% FG, 36.1% from three, 81% from the line, and 6.1 free-throw attempts.
It would be announced after the season that J-Dub was suffering from a torn ligament in his shooting wrist that would require surgery. It’s been widely documented by sources such as Jalen Williams himself that pain was part of his life—and painkillers part of his pregame routine. He had to rework his shot on the fly, and there were parts of games when he could not even feel his hand.
These things surely contributed to his poor shooting, as well as to issues with his handle, his catching, and all the other basketball things hands are used for. But that’s not what changed between those games. What changed was mindset.
The increase in free-throw attempts, in particular, was indicative of the confidence and assertiveness that J-Dub demonstrated for the remaining 13 games of the run. 6.1 would have been good for 12th in the playoffs and 17th in the regular season. He was 42nd in the regular season. It was a star’s number.
A week or so later, Jalen Williams would be announced as a member of the All-Defense Second Team and the All-NBA Third Team.
Spoiler Alert: The Thunder would go on to win the title. J-Dub is now stamped, credentialed, a winner. He is a star. History will broadly remember the entire 2024-2025 season as the time of his becoming.
Thunder fans, however, will remember that he left Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals and entered Game 7 as one thing, and that he left Game 7 as something else entirely.
“You can't buy the paint for your house that you haven't bought yet. You don't know where the house is… You don't know what style it is. You don't know how much paint you'll need. We don't really know what we have right now.”
— Sam Presti, September 27, 2023
The Oklahoman, The Oklahoman
It was safe to say that Sam Presti had picked a house.
The Thunder had been smacked in the face by their needs in their six-game loss to the Dallas Mavericks. They were –16 points per 100 possessions with Josh Giddey on, per pbpstats.com, and +5.3 with him off. They were +4.4 with Chet Holmgren on and –15.2 with him off. The needs: a playoff-ready replacement for Giddey, and a playoff-ready solution for Chet-less minutes.
Without even using one of his war chest of draft picks, Presti solved both. First, trading Giddey to Chicago in a 1-for-1 swap for Alex Caruso—a back-to-back All-Defense guard and defensive analytics darling with a now-respectable three-point jumper. Next, he flew to Oregon and pitched Knicks big man Isaiah Hartenstein on a short-term-ish overpay, necessary to entice OKC’s largest-ever free agent signing.
The Hartenstein signing had borne fruit, unfortunately, much earlier in the season.
In a November matchup with the Warriors, Chet Holmgren came crashing haphazardly to the ground following a challenge at the rim, suffering a right iliac wing fracture—aka a broken pelvis.
Disaster. Calamity. Devastation.
Not really. The Thunder hardly missed a beat.
Following a brief centerless interlude (Hartenstein missed the beginning of the season with a broken hand; Jaylin Williams with a strained hamstring) in which the Thunder showed admirable fortitude but ultimately ran out of steam, Hartenstein returned and steadied the ship.
They went 29-5 while Chet’s pelvis healed, including a 15-game winning streak.
Upon Holmgren’s return, OKC had the No. 1 seed more or less locked up, and they spent the back third of the season pouring minutes into their double-big lineup, preparing for a time when they would need a curveball to go with their fastball. The series against Denver’s Nikola Jokić was that time. Mark Daigneault leaned heavily on lineups with Chet at the 4—lineups made possible by Chet’s versatility, yes, but also by Hartenstein’s passing and general basketball intelligence. Jaylin Williams, as well, received opportunities in the series—such was Daigneault’s hesitation to leave Chet on an island with a grizzly bear.
There were two scenarios that would most justify all that money to iHart: a Chet injury, and a series against Jokić. The Thunder’s path went through both.
The Caruso trade, however, took longer to reveal its value. Throughout the season, he dealt with a nagging, alleged hip injury. Every dive to the floor (one of Caruso’s favorite hobbies) seemed to bring with it a week or two off. By the end, Caruso had played in only 54 games. He’d played more than 27 minutes only once in 82.
The Thunder’s depth allowed them to carry Caruso through the season in bubble wrap, and they were aggressively patient in executing it. In the playoffs, it paid off. Caruso played more than 27 minutes in 9 of the 23 games. He was fresh enough to be their best shooter—41.1% on 3.8 three-point attempts per game. And in Game 7 against Denver, he wrote himself into legend.
Daigneault’s hesitation to play Chet as the lone big during the series had a simple cause: Jokić pushed him around. Through six games, the answer had been the obvious one—play Hartenstein or even Jaylin Williams with Chet and let them handle it. In Game 7, though, with OKC facing elimination, playing tight, and trailing by double digits in the first, Daigneault tried something else.
Chet, lone big. 6’5” Alex Caruso, you go get Jokić.
Caruso hounded him. He leaned on him. He did his work early, of course—fighting Jokić for positioning and pushing him out of the paint, insofar as a man can push a giant made of boulders. He did his work late, too—slapping the ball out of hands and deflecting passes, leading to runouts.
Caruso had a fine stat line—11 points and 3 assists, 3 steals to go along—but you have to go further right in the Game 7 box score to see it.
+40.
Sam Presti had waited until what the team needed was obvious, but needs are rarely addressed so efficiently or so thoroughly. The perfect opportunities presented themselves for Isaiah Hartenstein to show his worth, and he showed all of it. Alex Caruso found his own way to show his.
“It’s not a matter of knowing what you need. It’s a matter of knowing what you have.”
— Sam Presti, May 28, 2024
OKC Thunder WireClemente Almanza, OKC Thunder Wire
In his 2024 postseason press conference, Sam Presti addressed the idea of adding a star directly. “Are we sure we don’t have some players amongst us who could potentially walk in those shoes at some point?” he asked. “And if we were to try to accelerate something that maybe is best organically, could we be suppressing that potential?” “And I think we learned that we do have some guys in Chet and Jalen, that—are certainly not there yet—but I wouldn’t bet against them.”
It was a rare thing this season for the Big 3 of Shai, Dub, and Chet to really click.
Due in large part to Chet’s broken pelvis, they were only able to play together in 26 games in the regular season. In the postseason, all three shot poorly from three, making that event hard to come by. In Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, though, all the pieces fell into place.
There’s something romantic about two opponents trading blows. Civil War troops lined up across a blood-soaked field taking turns lobbing volleys toward each other with honor. A King’s Gambit Accepted between two chess masters. The ending of every Rocky movie, making the audience wonder whether they know dodging is legal.
Not to say that it’s optimal, or even smart. On the off-chance Nico Harrison is reading this, defense does win championships. The Thunder were good at defense, Nico! But there’s something undeniably pure about a bucket. Something glee-inspiring about the escalation of both teams getting them.
Chet dunk. Anthony Edwards pull-up three. Donte DiVincenzo corner three. SGA post-up, fadeaway middie on his cousin (have you heard they’re cousins?). Jaden McDaniels corner three. Caruso sneak-layup on an assist from Chet. SGA assist between McDaniels’s legs to J-Dub for three. McDaniels driving layup. SGA fouled on a jumper, two free throws. Another DiVincenzo corner three. An impossible driving, twisting middie by J-Dub.
Down the stretch of Game 4, Shai, Dub, and Chet made every single play. The Wolves played well. They won nearly every statistical category. Hilariously, they even had a higher offensive rating for the game. On the vast, vast, vast majority of nights, they’d have won this game and gone back to OKC tied 2–2, able to say, “We both protected home court, that’s all.”
But OKC’s Big 3 had other plans.
Teams entered today 0-190 all-time in the playoffs when having fewer rebounds, fewer assists, fewer free-throw attempts, a lower FG%, lower 3P% & lower FT% in a game than their opponent.
The Thunder just made that 1-190 ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/D3LLeHoZ0m
— Greg Harvey (@BetweenTheNums) May 27, 2025
They traded blows with the Wolves, answering every attempt at a comeback with a bucket of their own. It wasn’t perfect basketball—they didn’t get many stops, they didn’t shoot perfectly, they stumbled and fell (literally)—but they did what it took down the stretch to get the W.
The OKC trio combined for 95 points, the most ever by an OKC trio in a playoff game. You may have heard, but OKC had had a pretty good set in the past. The Thunder would go on to win the series in five and advance to their second-ever Finals, but Game 4 was when the Big 3 stopped being a charming probable-but-theoretical and made themselves official.
It’s funny how things work out sometimes. With OKC’s V1.0, the young set of three future MVPs was defeated by the epitome of a Big 3 in Miami. Then, just at the start of the NBA’s Big 3 era, Sam Presti opted for depth and flexibility (and chemistry and harmony and feng shui) and broke his own Big 3 apart.
Now, just as the Age of Parity is getting underway and the league as a whole is moving toward depth and wealth redistribution, Sam Presti is going to war with the biggest 3 in the league. And by all appearances, this one is here to stay.
“There’s no silver platters in Oklahoma… But anything is possible. It just can’t be expected, and shouldn’t be expected to be handed over and to be easy. We as an organization and as a team have to earn our arrival, and we have one season to try to do that with, because that’s all we have in front of us. That’s the opportunity we have. We’ve got an extremely young, energetic, ambitious team that’s constantly striving, and they’re inspiring people to be around—they inspire me. But what we’re trying to do is be the exception to the age-old rule in pro sports, which is that you cannot win at the highest level with young teams. We recognize that in order to be exceptional, to be that team, you have to be willing to be an exception.”
– Sam Presti, September 25, 2024
In a media scrum following the last OKC Thunder practice before the playoffs began, Joel Lorenzi (whom Chicago subsequently stole) asked Shai Gilgeous-Alexander an unusual question. “You mentioned that you realized what matters to you. What does matter to you?”
The list Shai gave was four items long: health, joy, failure, and love.
Naturally, one of those stands out from the others. Joel, always a consummate professional (who abandoned us), followed up for an explanation. “When you say ‘failure,’ why does that matter to you?”
“That’s how you grow, that’s how you learn.”
SGA, in talking about parenthood and marriage, mentioned that he realized what matters to him day to day. Asked what those things are:
“Health. Joy. Failure. Love. Prioritizing those things for yourself and the people around you, you’ll be pretty happy.”
Why does failure matter… pic.twitter.com/4uvjgo8UzH
— Joel Lorenzi (@JoelXLorenzi) April 19, 2025
The reason young teams fail is pretty simple. To learn, you must fail. When teams fail, they usually lose. Sam Presti had built a team that could be the exception to that process, but not because they wouldn’t fail—they failed quite a bit along the way, actually.
Coming incorrect for Game 3 in Memphis. Choking away Game 1 against Denver. Choking away Game 3 against Denver. Giving Denver hope in Game 6. Completely no-showing Minnesota Game 3. Allowing Game 1 of the Finals to be stolen from them. Getting straight-up beaten by the Pacers in Game 3.
They’d failed, alright, in many and varied ways. But they were still alive.
Sam Presti had cushioned his young squad with enough margin for error, enough depth, and—most importantly—enough defense to allow them to fail without being eliminated. They survived injuries and choke jobs and letdowns, and instead of going home to lick their wounds, they got another shot. They got David Jacoby’s proverbial scars, but on the fly.
By the time they got down 1–2 on the road in the NBA Finals, they were battle-tested, and they were ready.
In Game 4, supported by 27 from Jalen Williams and 20 from Caruso, SGA poured it on down the stretch, scoring 15 of his 35 in the fourth to walk the Pacers down. It was one of those performances. In the clutch, in hostile territory, NBA Finals on the line, the MVP went into his bag and pulled out his MJ costume.
There is no level of praise that could be given to SGA’s Game 4 that would be hyperbole. It was of that level of consequence, of that magnitude of quality. Since the first couple of games of the first round, Shai had been marvelous throughout the run, give or take, but this was his pinnacle. The Thunder went back to OKC having regained homecourt advantage, tied 2-2.
In Game 5, torn ligament in tow, Jalen Williams etched himself into history. He scored 40 points in the pivotal matchup on an array of dunks, runners, cuts, run-outs, and even a few jumpers. He became the fifth-youngest player ever to score 40 or more in the Finals, behind only Magic Johnson, Rick Barry, Russell Westbrook, and Jerry West—you might have heard of them.
Shai was also excellent in the game, adding 31 points of his own to go with 10 assists, two steals, and four blocks, but this was J-Dub’s night. It was the night he was forever set amongst legends. It was the night that any hand-wringing over his All-NBA selection became laughable. Jalen Williams is bona fide, now and forever, because he scored 40 points in Game 5 of the Finals.
Game 7 was Chet’s turn. After Tyrese Haliburton went down in the first with a torn Achilles, the game became about getting enough stops to survive. Shai and Dub carried enough of the offense, albeit inefficiently, to do the rest—Shai with 29 and 12 assists with only one turnover, J-Dub with 20.
Chet’s final line was 18–8 on only eight field-goal attempts to go along with a Finals Game 7 record five blocks. He was a menace on defense, switching all over the court, deterring drivers, annihilating the shots of the ones who weren’t deterred. He even managed to turn T.J. McConnell away once or twice. The Thunder finished the game with a 98.3 defensive rating in Chet’s minutes. It felt lower.
In the end, “they” were right about this team. Selling out on stars would lead to shooting variance. Sometimes, they’d get beaten physically and on the glass. The whistle would be different in the playoffs. Their shooting was fake. Their secondary stars were too young. They weren’t ready. They would fail.
In the end, they were right. The Thunder were just too good, too fast, for any of it to matter.
“Our goal is sustainable, long-term, collective excellence. The people of Oklahoma City should be able to one day watch the rise of another great team, as they have watched the rise of their rebuilt downtown, with the knowledge that they are witnessing something not only great but enduring.”
– Sam Presti, July 25, 2019
The entire route had been designed to bring about this moment.
Before the bus turned the corner that created the opportunity for Jimmy Do’s iconic photo. Before Aaron Wiggins and Jaylin Williams stole the show. Before the MVP left his Finals MVP trophy at home to share the Larry O’Brien with his teammates and supporters. Before the players dismounted the buses to walk with the people.
Even before the parade at all, or even the playoff run, or the season, or all of the growth, or the draft picks, or the trades, or the tanking, or Poku. Before it all, in an op-ed to The Oklahoman in July of 2019, Sam Presti had laid the path to this exact spot.
He described the pain that would follow, and the hope. He gave a friendly heads-up on the impending tanking, in barely not-so-many words. He described the unusual methods that would be needed in a small market and the challenges they would face. He talked about Oklahoma, and he talked about goals.
“Our goal is sustainable, long-term, collective excellence. The people of Oklahoma City should be able to one day watch the rise of another great team, as they have watched the rise of their rebuilt downtown, with the knowledge that they are witnessing something not only great, but enduring,” he wrote over six years ago.
Now, days after Finals Game 7, the championship parade turned the corner. The bus was labeled “2025 Champions.” The MVP, days away from signing an extension that would commit him to OKC through his prime and through the completion of the city’s next arena, held his arms up in victory. In the background, perfectly framing, stood the Oklahoma City National Memorial, a symbol of the rebuild Sam Presti had referenced in his piece, a rebuild from that tragedy 30 years before.
As we conclude the week that forever changed Oklahoma City, I leave you with this image from Thunder photographer Jimmy Do. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/hxnKlSrWgm
— Mayor David Holt (@davidfholt) June 30, 2025
There was nothing accidental about that photo. But then, there was nothing accidental about any of this.
The Thunder played the empirical odds, took the unusual path, learned and grew, won in an exceptional way. They built something Oklahoma could be proud of—something that could last. They did it the right way. The Thunder swam to the bottom of the pool so they could push off of it with both feet, their ascent too fast for petty concerns like age, experience, and growing pains to cling to them. Their flaws and their detractions slid off of them like rocket boosters jettisoned to speed them even higher.
And Sam Presti had said all of it—up front, repeatedly, and out loud.
The Thunder arrived, more suddenly and more loudly than anyone thought was possible. If you think they’re going away anytime soon, you haven’t been listening.