The 2024-25 Oklahoma City Thunder is the best team in franchise history, at least by regular-season record.
With Thursday’s win over the Memphis Grizzlies, OKC clinched at least 61 wins, breaking the single-season record that was previously held by the 2012-13 team. That team went on to lose in the second round of the playoffs after Russell Westbrook suffered a knee injury in the first round that would cost him the rest of the playoffs and nearly half of the 2013-14 season.
The 2012-13 team is revered as one of the biggest “what ifs” in the history of the franchise. That team was a real contender to win the NBA championship by every advanced metric. Coming off an NBA Finals appearance in 2011-12, OKC was fresh off trading James Harden. As a result, they had Kevin Martin, who finished fourth in Sixth Man of the Year voting, filling a role that OKC would struggle to replace for the rest of the Kevin Durant-Westbrook era.
Obviously, that team failed to live up to its potential, whether that was in that season or in future seasons up until July 4, 2016, when Durant changed the course of OKC, Golden State and the NBA, forever.
My guess? A parade will be held in Oklahoma City at some point in the next couple of years, and this version of the Thunder will remove the skeletons from the closet of Thunder’s past.
For this iteration of the Thunder, whether or not it will succeed or fail remains a mystery, and all avenues have to enter the mind of an OKC fan.
Could history repeat itself?
A championship banner going into the rafters at Paycom Center seems like a matter of when, not if. With an MVP candidate yet to reach his physical prime, all-star companions who complement his skillset and a bevy of assets and tradeable contracts, OKC is set up better than any team in the NBA. Sound familiar?
Look back 15 years. The same things were being said about the group of players that would eventually reach their peak with a 60-win season in 2012-13. Durant and Westbrook were taking the league by storm, and James Harden was getting better than anyone had ever imagined, faster than anyone had ever imagined. Not to mention the surprising emergence of an elite rim protector in Serge Ibaka.
The “when” for that group never came, so who’s to say it will for this one?
Yes, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is rivaling the peak of Durant, whether or not we as a basketball society want to embrace that fact in the moment or not. Yes, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren both have All-NBA potential, and while I don’t see either reaching the heights of Westbrook, they complement SGA better than Westbrook ever complimented Durant.
That said, the NBA has an existing superpower in the Boston Celtics, a team that is rivaling the regular season success of the Thunder in the Cleveland Cavaliers and an all-time terrifying prospect who could easily turn into a one-man wrecking crew in Victor Wembenyama.
The league is deeper and more talented from top to bottom than it’s ever been, and the same could not be said when Westbrook and Durant were changing the reputation of Oklahoma City season by season.
The NBA also recently implemented salary cap rules that are going to make it difficult for OKC to keep their players together once SGA, Williams and Holmgren are all, rightfully, on max contracts.
Those are the reasons why OKC could fall into past pitfalls. But, as the title suggests, I do not believe that will happen. Here is why.
Sam Presti learned from his mistakes in the Westbrook-Durant Era
Isaiah Hartenstein is all the evidence I need to hammer this point home.
Presti has always made roster decisions that suggest he prefers internal, organic growth to major outside acquisitions. When Durant and Westbrook were in town, the most earth-shattering move he made was trading Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins. The most notable free-agent signing he made was a buyout signing of an ancient Derek Fisher.
In the infancy of his second potential dynasty, Presti has already dwarfed those moves.
He traded Josh Giddey (good for him, by the way) for Alex Caruso. Giddey was OKC’s second pillar. SGA was clearly the focus of the franchise, but Giddey was a favored son in OKC — until he wasn’t.
Instead of sitting on his hands, letting a player who, while talented, didn’t fit what OKC wanted to do, Presti traded him despite his value never being lower.
During the same summer, Presti signed Hartenstein to, by far, the biggest free-agent contract in franchise history. In just a season, Hartenstein has ingrained himself into the DNA of the Thunder. Imagining this team without him feels weird.
When Westbrook and Durant were in town, OKC certainly had holes. Perkins was always an issue, who was deemed obsolete as soon as the NBA moved to a switch-heavy, perimeter-oriented league. After Martin left, OKC’s sixth man was an interchangeable role between multiple players who wouldn’t even sniff 10 minutes per game on this team.
Presti learned that while organic development is what will lead any team in OKC to a championship, supplemental pieces are necessary and he acted on that realization.
Depth, Depth, Depth
In 2016, the season in which OKC got the closest it ever got to winning a championship after its lone NBA Finals appearance, OKC’s rotation was as follows.
PG- Russell Westbrook
SG- Andre Roberson
SF- Kevin Durant
PF- Serge Ibaka
C- Steven Adams
6th- Dion Waiters
7th- Enes Kanter
8th- Nick Collison/Anthony Morrow/Kyle Singler/Cameron Payne
Needless to say, it wasn’t the deepest group.
Waiters had a one-way ticket to irrelevancy and his bags were packed. Kanter was one season away from being played off the court by Harden. The rest of the bench group never played another relevant NBA minute after these playoffs outside of Payne, who needed multiple stops to prove himself as, at best, the last man in a playoff rotation.
Now, while we all know it, let’s look at the rotation for the 2024-25 Thunder.
PG- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
SG- Lu Dort
SF- Jalen Williams
PF- Chet Holmgren
C- Isaiah Hartenstein
6th- Aaron Wiggins
7th- Cason Wallace
8th- Isaiah Joe
9th- Alex Caruso
That look at OKC’s rotation doesn’t even include Jaylin Williams, Kenrich Williams or Ajay Mitchell, all of whom could’ve staked a claim as one of the five best players on the 2015-16 team.
This is the most relevant of the differences. Presti, in a variety of ways, has built a roster that, if anything, has too many playable guys. That couldn’t be more different from the Durant-Westbrook Era Thunder.
The power of friendship
Cringey, immature, unserious, nonthreatening.
Veteran NBA players can describe the goofy nature of the Thunder however they want, but pretending it isn’t unique is ignoring an obvious reality.
Since OKC started doing interviews as a team during the NBA Summer League in 2022, you’ve seen it slowly trickle from a joke on NBA Twitter to a calling card for arguably the best team in the NBA.
The vibes in OKC are high. From the outside, it feels like the team really likes one another. It feels like there isn’t a desire to keep it strictly basketball.
Looking back at it, it didn’t feel like the Westbrook-Durant teams didn’t like each other, but I wouldn’t say I ever pictured Russ and KD chopping it up at dinner over the summer.
The power of friendship sounds like a joke, and, on some level, it is one. But it means something that these guys seem to like being with one another. It bleeds onto the court. Westbrook and Durant were infamous for their iso-ball. In fact, it was one of the reasons Durant ended up leaving. He wanted to go play in a non-heliocentric, ball-movement-focused basketball paradise in Golden State.
Now, OKC is the basketball paradise. Gilgeous-Alexander is ball-dominant, but in a way that uniquely involves his teammates. Playmaking is clearly a point of emphasis in the team-building process for the Thunder. Williams has a point guard background. Hartenstein is one of the best passing bigs in the NBA. Caruso is one of the most underrated playmakers in the league.
Up and down the roster, OKC has guys who can create for others, a stark contrast to the long, athletic, nonskilled teams that Durant and Westbrook played on.
That could have nothing to do with the fact that the guys seem to enjoy being around one another off the court, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
In conclusion
For several reasons, history won’t repeat itself in OKC.
Injuries are the only way I see this Thunder team not winning a championship at some point along the line. I don’t know if it’s this year or next, but the combination of aggressiveness from the organization, depth, chemistry and future assets make for a combination that mixes perfectly for a long-standing contender.
Westbrook and Durant were a legendary duo and they deserve their flowers for putting basketball on the map in OKC, but Gilgeous-Alexander has a chance to be as good as either of them and his supporting cast is worlds better than anything they ever had.
Maybe this will be a jinx. An overzealous decleration of a future championship for a team that has yet to make it out of the second round of the playoffs. But I’d rather bet big on a team that checks all the boxes than ignore the signals out of a fear of being wrong.
