OKLAHOMA CITY — They are the NBA’s best defensive team … and they have played nearly half the season without their best defensive player.
They are a top-10 offense … which has been without an All-Star wing all season.
They are 12–1 with a net rating 2.5 points better than the closest competition.
And they think there is still room to get better.
No team since the 2017–18 Golden State Warriors has repeated as NBA champions. The Oklahoma City Thunder are fixin’ to change that. That 68-win juggernaut that won the Western Conference by 16 games last season? This version looks like it will zoom past 70.
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Watching Oklahoma City the last two games has been like watching one of those coaches vs. media matchups. Golden State was 6–5 and had Stephen Curry returning to the lineup. The Warriors lost by 24. The Lakers were 8–3 with Thunder-killer Luka Dončić playing at an MVP level. They got waxed by 39. Of the 96 minutes Oklahoma City played this week, I’d estimate eight of them were competitive.
Said Draymond Green, “They are a well-oiled machine.”
Indeed. With a superstar steering it. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 32.5 points, a tick below the 32.7 he averaged in his MVP season. His assists (6.6), rebounds (5.2) and field goal percentage (52%) are a tick up while his effective field goal percentage (57.1%) matches his previous best over a full season. If anyone expected Gilgeous-Alexander to be satisfied after one of the greatest single seasons in NBA history, they were mistaken.
“As the games go on, as the years go on, the game just continues to slow down for me,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “I understand defense more, I understand our offense more. I understand my strengths more, I understand my weaknesses more, too. Try to turn into strengths and stay away from them as well.”
Said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault, “He sees himself as an unfinished product. He sees himself as a work in progress, and that’s a powerful signal for someone that has the temptation of all the success that he’s had, and so that’s what makes him special and it’s also why he continues to improve.”
Chet Holmgren appeared on his way to an All-Star berth before a pelvic fracture sidelined him for a large chunk of the last season. Holmgren was good when he returned. After a full offseason, the Thunder knew he would be better. Holmgren is averaging 18.7 points and 8.2 rebounds on nearly 60% shooting this season. All while playing a shade under 30 minutes per game.
Thunder center Chet Holmgren drives to the basket as Grizzlies forward Kentavious Caldwell-Pope defends.
Chet Holmgren (7) is living up to the promise he showed before going down with an injury last season. / Petre Thomas-Imagn Images
I could go on. Isaiah Hartenstein continues to be a much-needed physical presence in the middle. Cason Wallace is among the league leaders in steals. Ajay Mitchell—an ex-two-way player Thunder general manager Sam Presti wisely signed to a long-term extension last summer—is a front-runner for the NBA’s Most Improved Award.
It’s the defense, though, that makes this team lethal. Even without Lu Dort (who has missed six games with injury) and Jalen Williams (who is recovering from wrist surgery) the Thunder are surrendering a league-low 107 points per game. They send waves of versatile defenders at you (Wallace, Alex Caruso) backed by length (Holmgren, Hartenstein) at the rim. Curry mustered just 11 points against Oklahoma City on Tuesday. A day later, Dončić could manufacture only 19.
We won’t really know how good Oklahoma City is until February, when the Thunder play the first of their four games with Denver, a bizarre quirk in the NBA’s schedule. Denver is OKC’s only true peer: The Nuggets are second in defensive rating, second in net rating and have the only player (Nikola Jokić) standing in the way of Gilgeous-Alexander’s push for a second straight MVP. It took seven games for the Thunder to eliminate the Nuggets last postseason. It will take an equal effort—or more—to knock them out of this one.
Still, the Thunder have all the hallmarks of a budding dynasty. They have the stars, sure. But they also have stability. Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Williams all signed long-term contract extensions last summer. Daigneault has coached the team since 2020. Presti has run it since it was in Seattle. That kind of continuity is critical. Just ask members of the NBA’s last dynasty.
“The continuity that we have had has helped,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “Ownership, front office, coaching staff, best players. When you can line all that stuff up and be really unified it allows you to get through the inevitable adversity that you face.”
Green points to Gilgeous-Alexander, who plays the Curry role in OKC.
“When you have a leader that has that commitment to excellence day in and day out that Shai does, everyone else has to fall in line,” Green said. “They’re doing that, and it’s special to watch. That’s a level of excellence in order to reach the [championship] over and over again that you must have, and they got that.”
You won’t catch the Thunder mumbling the D-word, of course. The phrase “turning the page” gets tossed around so often they might start printing them on T-shirts. The ability to live in the moment is drilled into the team like it’s a corner three.
“Can’t win anything in October thinking about it in October,” says Williams. “It’s more like, ‘How can we get better tonight?’ And then go from there.”
And the Thunder will get better. Williams earned his first All-Star nod last season and Oklahoma City believes there are many more to come. Dort is the kind of rough-and-tumble defender who can be deployed on anyone from Kevin Durant to Trae Young. The return of both will bump players down the rotation that could be starters elsewhere.
“They are going to be doing this for a long time,” said Kerr.
Hard to argue with that.
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