THIS is What Makes the Thunder Unbeatable

THIS is What Makes the Thunder Unbeatable

Well, the Oklahoma City Thunder are undeniably special and make no mistake, they are just that at a historical rate. Their current 17-1 record puts them on pace for a goddy 77 and5 record, shattering the record set previously by the Golden State Warriors of 73-9. While their 16.9 differential right now is equally as stunning. More on that number later. Yes, the Thunder are special, but what exactly makes them so special? Well, spoiler alert, it isn’t. The probably soontobe back-to-back league MVP in Jay Gilis Alexander. And this isn’t an SGA slander piece. In fact, let’s just get this out of the way before we really get underway in allowing me to give SGA his muchdeserved flowers. The guy is elite at a historical rate this year. He is outpacing everything that Steph Curry did that made Steph Curry a unanimous MVP in that aforementioned 73 and9 season that he had. SGA is so great that I’m about to give him probably the biggest compliment anyone possibly can. He is moving into the pantheon of alltime great individual guard seasons ever. joining the likes of yes, Michael Jeffrey Jordan and Kobe Bean Bryant. But as great as SGA has been the last two years and as great as he is this year, Nicola Joic is undeniably better. He’s been better at everything. Every measurable tangible metric Nola Joic is substantially outpacing SGA in. So why is it despite this herculean effort by Nicole Joic, the Oklahoma City Thunder are this much better than the Denver Nuggets? And make no mistake, despite the Nuggets great start to this season, the Oklahoma City Thunder are not merely destroying them, they’re destroying the remainder of this league at an unparalleled rate. Something that makes them arguably the greatest team in NBA history. And it has nothing to do with SGA. It has everything though to do with this Oklahoma City Thunder defense. And it all began back in the 2024 summer in a two-eek span starting at the end of June and bridging to the beginning of July. It was when the Oklahoma City Thunder traded away Josh Giddy for Alex Caruso on June 20th of 2024. And then, oh, roughly 2 weeks later on July 1st, they signed Isaiah Hartinstein away from the New York Knicks, a three-year deal worth $87 million. And in the season that preceded these deals, bringing Caruso and Hartinstein in, Alex Caruso was a top two netrated guard defensive player. And Hartinstein was a top two rated big defensive player. You took two AllNBA caliber performers and placed them on a lineup which had three AllNBA defensive performers already in place in Lou Dort, Chad Homegrren, and Jaylen Williams. And that wasn’t even factoring in the emergence of Kase Wallace. So, this team has four to five or even six AllNBA defensive performers on one team. And there is much made about Shay Gildas Alexander’s defensive prowess. and he is no doubt a great two-way player, but he is the fifth or fourth maybe at best best defender on this team. If you want to dig into the advanced metrics of it all, let’s take a look at defensive box plus minus, a metric in which Nicole Joic leads the NBA by a country mile. Currently, he’s posting a 5.5 in this metric. And look, while SGA is great in this metric as well, he’s third leaguewide. He’s not even first on his own team. That would be Kase Wallace, uh then SGA, followed by Victor Webbyama, then Isaiah Hartinstein. So, three of the top five uh defensive BPM rated players on one team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. But look, I know I know many of you uh will poo poo the BPM metric. You think that Nicole Joic is simply an all-time cheat code and that BPM shouldn’t really be counted or taken seriously, especially when talking about defensive BPM as it relates to Nicole Joic. Well, all right. I I hear you. Let’s go with defensive rating. That would be net defensive rating. And this is a far better estimate of an individual’s true value on the defensive side of the ball. It takes into account how many points per 100 possessions their team allows with them off the floor versus on the floor. And you got me. SGA is better than N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Yola Joic in this metric, but not by much. SGA is seventh best leaguewide while Nola Joic is 10th best leaguewide. No, the true separation for Oklahoma City and what makes this team so special is in the team defense and all of the other elite pieces they have defensively and that can be bared out when looking at this net defensive rating metric where Isaiah Hartinstein and Chad Homegrren are ranked one and two leaguewide. Just ahead of Victor Webbyama and next comes Kase Wallace, AJ Mitchell. Oh, and then Isaiah Joe and Lou Dort rounding out the top 12. That would be if you’re not paying attention. Five of the top seven netrated defenders leaguewide all on the Oklahoma City Thunder. While seven of the 12 best leaguewide all call Oklahoma City home. And that is the true strength of this team, what really makes them all time historically great. And that can be measured in just how badly they are eviscerating teams this season through now o over a month of play. 18 games played. Last year, of course, they famously, at least famously on this channel because I talk about it all the time, broke the all-time net differential record. A record that until last season was held by the 1971-72 LA Lakers for 53 years. And you know the team, the team that finally put Jerry West over the hump and got him his first and only NBA championship. A team that paired West with Will Chamberlain and Gail Goodrich. Still one of the greatest historical teams ever. They still hold the all-time NBA record for most consecutive wins in a season at 33. Next on that list below them, the 1977 Bucks, of course, which famously paired Kareem Abdul Jabbar with Oscar Robertson. After them, the 9596 Bulls. Perhaps you’re familiar with them, the 72-10 famed Bulls team. The greatest Michael Jordan team ever. After them, checking in is the 2016 2017 Golden State Warriors, a team that added Kevin Durant to the 73-9 record setters from the year before. Those were the all-time leaders in net differential until last season. That is when the Oklahoma City Thunder of 2024 2025 shattered the 53-year record held by Jerry West and Wilts Lakers beat it by over a half point per game last year. But now this is just getting straight stupid. This year’s Thunder are on pace to obliterate their own record from last season by over four points per game. 17 points per game nearly with a 17-1 record. And that is how special this team is. And despite how special SGA is, he’s not outdoing Nicole Joic in literally anything, but his team is the strength. That’s why SGA has sat out oh roughly 10 to 12 total fourth quarters at this point. They simply don’t need him. They are running teams off of the court through three quarters and they’re doing it with, yes, I’m about to say it, the greatest defense in NBA history. And to measure that, there is no better metric than relative defensive rating. And it is fundamentally difficult to cross compare eras, not just for players, but for teams as well. But what relative defensive rating does is it reduces the pace, the rules changes, etc. It normalizes errors and compares a defensive performance versus the league average in that same season. It takes that team’s points allowed per 100 possessions and compares it to the leaguewide average per 100 possessions. This season uh happens to be around 115 points per game on the defensive rating scale. and the Oklahoma City Thunder are allowing 104 at the moment. Now, let’s look at what that means compared to some of the other greatest historical defenses in NBA history. Of course, the gold standard for this century generally is believed to be the 2004 Detroit Pistons, who allowed only 84.3 points per game. So, obviously, if you’re just looking in a vacuum, you would say, Scap, you’re insane. You’re telling me that a team this year in the Oklahoma City Thunder allowing 105ish points per game is better than a team that allowed 84 per game uh 20 years ago, that would be 20ome points less per game by the Detroit Pistons. Well, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Because leaguewide scoring in that 2003 2004 season when the Pistons laid that 84 per night number down was only 93.4 per game. Whereas today, leaguewide scoring is sitting at a comfortable 117 per game. That is nearly 25 points per game more scored per night in today’s NBA than in that NBA. But the relative defensive rating for that 2003 2004 Pistons team was minus 7.5 from league average. So 7 1/2 points below league average. And that is considered to be the gold standard for at least this century. if not one of the very best defenses of all time. And speaking of all time, let’s just stay with Detroit and go back to those famed bad boys Pistons. And the peak of their run, the best relative defensive rating that they put down was in the 1988 league year when they were minus3 and they won the NBA championship. Hell, let’s just go around to every single team from a historical standpoint and look at their very best seasons. How about that 199596 Chicago Bulls team? Yes, I mentioned them earlier. The 72-10 team, that nasty defensive team of the Chicago Bulls, spearheaded by two of the greatest perimeter defenders ever in Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, and anchored at the rim by Dennis Rodman, one of the greatest big defenders of all time. and their best relative defensive net rating was minus 5.8 in that 72 win season. Keep on coming around the association, the Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs. The very best year they ever put down minus 8.8. Hell, how about the Boston Celtics of 2007208? Well, minus 8.6. And quick sidebar here. Are you guys noticing a trend that some of the greatest historical defenses of all time came in the Kobe Bryant era? So Kobe Bryant was playing against all these great NBA all-time defenses and still putting up the numbers that he was putting up in that dead ball era and winning championships against all these teams. Sorry, I digress. Back to the absurdity of this year’s Oklahoma City Thunder. So basically an all-time great number would be around minus7 minus 8. The Oklahoma City Thunder defense this season are – 11.8 nearly -12 absolutely obliterating the field of alltime great defenses. I in fact have looked at every franchise for their entire franchise’s history and selected the best single season year of all time for all of them. The only one team that comes remotely close is the 1963-64 Celtics. That was of course in the midst of their legendary and iconic eight consecutive NBA championship run anchored by the greatest defensive player in NBA history in Bill Russell. And that 6364 season was their greatest season ever in relative net defensive rating. A minus 10.8 still being outpaced by this year’s Thunder by a full point per game. And this is why the Oklahoma City Thunder are so special. This is why the Oklahoma City Thunder are right in the midst of the greatest dynasty this side of the 90 Chicago Bulls. Something that I speculated would happen way back in the summer of 2024 when those acquisitions of Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartinstein were made. Not because of SGA. And Shay Gildis Alexander is an undeniable all-time great player, but he is not the most valuable player in this league this season. He was not last season. The most valuable player or entity of this Oklahoma City Thunder team is their defense. Believe what your eyes are telling you right now. Despite this crazy, highpaced, prolific offensive era, you are seeing the greatest defense in the history of the NBA. And that is why this team, I would be shocked, isn’t going to win, oh, three consecutive championships, maybe four or five out of the next six or seven years, because there is no team that can compete and beat this team four times out of seven in a sevename series. They’re too deep. They have nine to 10 starters on this roster, and all of them defend at an absolute nasty pace. Again, probably seven AllNBA defensive caliber players. Remember, there’s only two AllNBA defensive teams. So, 10 players make this team. I’m not suggesting that all seven of these guys will make it because of course there will be voter fatigue based on the team. But look, last year they still had two AllNBA defensive performers and their two best defensive players didn’t even play enough games to be qualified. This year, Chad Homegrren is likely to be defensive player of the year. Oh, and by the way, they’re doing all of this without Jaylen Williams, who was all NBA defense last season. Guys, get ready. Buckle up for what is going to be a historic run by this Oklahoma City Thunder for this season. I would estimate, as I’ve been saying for two years, that they are going to break the all-time wins record and they are going to easily win the NBA championship again this season. Guys, many thanks for joining me here as always. And please do, as always, make sure that you like this video, comment on it, hype it up if you have those hype points, and most importantly, please click that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Turn on notifications to stay uptodate with more from me. Until next time, guys.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have the greatest defense EVER…and the numbers don’t lie.