A 68-14 regular season record, an elite defense and the presence of MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have made this Oklahoma City Thunder team special. OKC lost a late lead to the Indiana Pacers to lose Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but everything they’ve been working towards is still laid out before them. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, they are set up to dominate for years.
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When a team has been as dominant this season as the Thunder have been, comparisons to some of the best teams of all-time are bound to occur. With so many outstanding young players and a war chest of future draft picks in hand, many people have even been throwing the word “dynasty” around if OKC can lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy this year.
The last NBA dynasty was the Golden State Warriors, who got to the Finals five years in a row, winning three of them, from 2015-19. Unsurprisingly, OKC has been compared to those Warriors teams. Draymond Green, who was an integral part of that Warriors dynasty, gave his thoughts last night on how the teams are similar, and how they differ.
“Where I think they’re similar is the age — young guys with a few vets … we kinda had that balance,” Green said. “They got a few vets like we had that kinda settle things down for them. They got young guys like Shai, J-Dub, just kinda out there running wild, doing their thing, relying on their talent.”
The comparison is apt, because the only knock on this Thunder team all year long has been that collectively, they didn’t have any championship experience. Those Warriors dealt with the same thing, as they had lost in the first round of the playoffs the year before, and they didn’t have a single player with Finals experience on the roster.
Alex Caruso won the bubble title with the Lakers in 2020, but OKC doesn’t just lack Finals experience, most of their roster doesn’t have more than one or two playoff runs in their career. Outside of Caruso and Hartenstein, the team is all incredibly young and inexperienced.
Green acknowledged that statistically, the two teams are a lot alike. They both boast league-best defenses and elite offenses. Their regular season record and postseason record are similar. They each took their lumps the year before reaching the Finals. As Draymond mentioned though, they both find different ways to get things done.
“The style of play couldn’t be further from the same,” he said. “I think it’s a completely different style of play.” He’s right about that, as the Warriors were heavily reliant on the 3-point shooting of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, while OKC, compared to the rest of the league at least, does more of their damage from inside the arc.
It really highlights how much the NBA has changed, because this Thunder team actually attempts almost 11 more 3s per game than the 2014-15 Warriors did, but you’d never think of them as a perimeter-oriented team because other teams around the league jack up so many more outside shots. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander makes the Thunder offense go, and he does most of his work from inside the arc and at the free-throw line.
Shaun Livingston brought up another way the Thunder are similar to the Warriors. “They were the best team by far this season. And watching them, they did not take games off. That was one thing, if they were supposed to beat a team that they were a lot better than, they beat the dogs*** out of them.”
Livingston is right, and in that regard, the Thunder are even better than the Warriors were. They outscored opponents by 1,055 points this season, the highest mark in history. The 2014-15 Warriors outscored their opponents by 828 points, good for 13th all-time. The 2015-16 and 2016-17 teams were ninth-best and fifth-best, respectively.
All of these comparisons are fun to talk about, but as Green said, it will all be for naught if OKC can’t close the deal. “You gotta close it out,” he said. “You gotta finish the deal in order for those comparisons to really mean something. If you don’t finish the deal, those comparisons don’t mean anything.”
Losing Game 1 to the Pacers doesn’t help, but it will show what the Thunder are made of. The Warriors trailed the Cavaliers 2-1 in the 2015 Finals before reeling off three straight to clinch their first title in 40 years. If OKC wants the comparisons to stick, they’ll have to show similar resolve in making a comeback of their own.
