The Oklahoma City Thunder have been dominant throughout the course of the NBA season. They are currently 64-12 and ready to waltz to the top seed in the tough western conference for the second straight season. And they may just now be getting the recognition that they deserve.
The Thunder aren’t a big market team. They have a superstar and one of the two best players in basketball in Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, but one that hasn’t been marketed by the league and television partners as such. But better late than never in giving them their flowers, right?
At least that was the approach of Mike Greenberg on Wednesday morning’s episode of Get Up after a relatively rare national television appearance on ESPN the night before against the Detroit Pistons where they racked up another double digit victory.
After the national showcase, Greenberg was ready to put the Thunder in the conversation of the greatest teams in NBA history.
Are the OKC Thunder having the best NBA season ever? 🤔 @Espngreeny pic.twitter.com/CrNq7L39dQ
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 3, 2025
“The Oklahoma City Thunder of 2024-2025 are having one of the greatest seasons in the history of the NBA. That’s not an opinion, it’s a statement of fact. Stating it is probably long overdue,” Greenberg said.
The Get Up host went through the impressive stats of the Thunder’s season, talking about their point differential that will be among the very best in NBA history. In fact, Greenberg may be underselling their dominance because their average point per game differential is on track to be the very best the league has ever seen.
With the latest OKC blowout win, the Thunder (63-12) seem to have a lock on the most dominant regular season in NBA history.
All they have to do is outscore their final 7 opponents by a total of 6 points to break the Lakers’ 53-year old NBA record for scoring differential. pic.twitter.com/WbIPZmJLbx
— Sean Grande (@SeanGrandePBP) April 1, 2025
Greenberg also gave plaudits to OKC superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the presumptive MVP who has tied Michael Jordan’s streak of 20 point games at 69 straight games and talked about their incredible stats offensively and defensively as well as their youth.
“What we are seeing is not merely the best team in basketball, it is also quite possibly one that we will be talking about for years and just maybe decades to come,” he concluded.
Of course, we can’t have this conversation about the Thunder unless they go on to June and win an NBA championship. And given they lost in the conference semifinals to the Mavs last year and have such a youthful team, there will be a shred of doubt that follows them in the postseason no matter how great their regular season has been.
But forget talking about the Thunder in the years and decades to come… what about now? Perhaps Mike Greenberg, Stephen A. Smith, and everyone else at ESPN should look at how much coverage they have given to OKC this season while they’ve been focused on the drama surrounding Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James, Bronny James, ridiculous and never-ending “era” debates, and where Kevin Durant is going to play next season.
If ESPN was giving the OKC Thunder the coverage they deserved all season and actually knew how to talk about basketball, we wouldn’t need monologues like this acting like we’ve miraculously discovered gold in California.