The Oklahoma City Thunder might be the defending NBA champions, but what are the odds that they will defend it successfully in the upcoming season? The prevailing sentiment in the league, at least among the cross-section of scouts, coaches, and executives that ESPN recently polled in an anonymous survey, is that nobody is going to stop OKC.
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Eighteen of the 20 people polled had the Thunder defending their title. And this survey was done before the Houston Rockets got the devastating news that Fred Van Vleet would be out for the year with a torn ACL.
Rachel Nichols and Chris Mannix discussed the poll results on the latest episode of Sports Illustrated’s Open Floor. While they agreed that the Thunder have earned the right to be the favorites, they questioned whether OKC is getting too much respect.
“They think that the Thunder are so high, on the highest pedestal, that it doesn’t matter what the rest of the West does, it doesn’t matter who the best player is, that they are still going to win,” Nichols said.
“The last team that kind of had that juice was the Kevin Durant-Steph Curry Warriors teams,” she added.
Those Warriors definitely had an invincible aura, to the point that the rest of the league and fans around the world were angry at Durant for leaving the Thunder for Golden State and tipping the scales of power so dramatically.
This OKC team is great, as they proved by winning the title with such a young roster. But Nichols has a point. All that matters is winning, but it should be noted that both the Nuggets and Pacers took the Thunder to a seventh game. So it’s not like they coasted through the playoffs unscathed.
Nichols pointed out that in the poll, 19 out of the 20 people surveyed named Nikola Jokic as the best player in the league. None had picked reigning MVP Shai-Gilgeous Alexander. The Nuggets also finished second behind the Atlanta Hawks when the question was, ‘Which team had the best offseason?’
Theoretically, that means the Nuggets have closed the gap with the Thunder. Yet, they’re getting no love in this poll, even though they were just a game away from eliminating the Thunder with a lesser team last year.
“I’m not sure that the Thunder should get that level of designation,” Nichols said. “They’ve earned the right to be the favorite this year, but I don’t know if they are ‘Golden State Warriors in their prime’ level of a team.”
Mannix took it a step further by saying, “I’m with you. I hesitate to say that Denver should be the favorite going in, because Oklahoma City is the defending champ, and they are so good, but I keep going back to the second-round series. And yeah, the Nuggets got annihilated in Game 7, but that has as much to do with fatigue and lack of depth.”
The Nuggets have added Cam Johnson, Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Jonas Valanciunas to take the pressure off of Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon. So they will be better equipped to be the one left standing if they meet the OKC again.
With Van Vleet’s injury in some ways negating the Rockets’ trade for Kevin Durant, the Thunder and Nuggets are the clear favorites in the West. The regular season is still nearly a month away, but it’s going to be can’t-miss TV to see which team reigns supreme.
