The OKC Thunder Might Win 74 Games…

The OKC Thunder Might Win 74 Games…

The Oklahoma City Thunder last year felt inevitable. After narrowly losing in the second round to the finals bound Mavericks in 2024, the OKC Thunder, with the likely internal improvements from their young guys, were the favorites to come out of the West the following year. And the team did exactly that, snagging 68 regular season wins in the process. All while SGA had one of the greatest guard seasons in NBA history. Their path to the finals wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, which led to a good amount of doubts for their odds of repeating. I myself predicted that Denver would eventually win the 2026 championship. However, based on what we have seen this year, even though Denver has been great in their own right, I am starting to regret that take because honestly, I think OKC might steamroll their way to the 2026 title. They are 18-1 at the time of recording with their only loss being decided by just three points to the Portland Trailblazers. And to make it all the more absurd, OKC hasn’t even had their second best player all year. They have a chance to break the regular season wins record, and it doesn’t even seem like they’re trying. The NBA might be screwed. Hello everybody. Welcome to Rusty Bucket. Subscribe to the channel and drop a like. Trying to hit 150K subs, so that subscription would be much appreciated. also hype the video. That feature is only available if you are on your phone, but uh helps it do a lot better in the algorithm, apparently. I don’t know. This video is sponsored by Mint Mobile. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been frustrated with your wireless bill. It’s just complicated and expensive. Mint Mobile fixes that. They’re a premium wireless service, but they’re cutting out all of the nonsense. No stores, no salespeople. Everything is done easy and online. Here’s what I love. You’re not overpaying. You choose the data plan that is right for you, so you’re not stuck with a one-sizefits-all bill. And all of Mint Mobile’s plans include unlimited talk and text on the nation’s largest 5G network. It’s great coverage that even includes a hot spot. And you get free calling to the UK, Mexico, and Canada. The best part, switching is way easier than people think. You can keep your phone number, and if you have a compatible phone, you can sign up and activate in minutes with an eSIM right from your couch. No hassle. Plus, all plans come with a 7-day unconditional money back guarantee. And for a limited time this holiday season, you can get 50% off of an unlimited premium wireless plan from Mint. Lock in Mint’s lowest price of the year and pay just $15 a month for a three, six, or 12 month plan. Head to the link in the description or scan the QR code on screen to check it out. Thank you to Mint for sponsoring this video. Last year, the Thunder had the second highest net rating in league history. And if you are not aware, net rating is essentially the difference in margin of victory, a statistic in which the Thunder were only outdone by the 72- win 1996 Chicago Bulls who are perhaps the greatest team of all time. It’s it’s the 2017 Warriors, but at least record-wise, it’s definitely those Bulls. Last year, OKC won by an average of 12.8 points per game. However, this year they are blowing that number out of the water with a net rating of 16.3. Chicago’s record in 1996 was 13.4. OKC’s right now are a whole three points better than that. And the craziest thing about all of this is it doesn’t even seem like they’re working that hard to do it. See, I predicted the Thunder would actually not win 70 plus games this year, which was pretty contradictory to the general consensus in spite of the fact that I am indeed an OKC Glazer historically. But that was for one simple reason, an anecdote from Draymond Green. Draymond claims, and you can call this cope, a lot of people have, but he claims that trying to break the regular season win record just puts too much strain on a team. Draymond says that the 2016 Warriors were just trying way too hard late in the season in games in like April to get to 73 wins. They had two overtime games in April. And even playing Steph, Draymond, and Clay 33 to 36 minutes in some of the final games of the year. Typically speaking, NBA teams, especially the ones at the top of the conference with a really wide gap between them and the second seed, they’re going to rest their starters. And you know, they’ve already got the top spot secured, so slow down a little bit, put more energy into like game planning for the playoffs as the year comes to a close, and they will save that energy for when it matters most. The Warriors didn’t do that, so they had a much bumpier road on their way to a historic finals loss, going down 3-1 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. and it’s more likely than not they probably don’t do that and close that series earlier on if they were not trying so hard in April. So, as a result of that lesson learned, a literal 73 win team not ending up winning the championship, I thought it would ultimately be a bad move for the Thunder to go so hard for such a goddy record. But the thing is they are doing this with little effort. In the 2015-16 season, four Warriors starters averaged 30 plus minutes with Steph Clay and Draymond all averaging 33 to 35. Harrison Barnes averaging about 31. And their big three combined only missed six games all year. Thus far through 19 games, well, for one, a key thing here, JDub hasn’t played a single minute yet. He just got taken off of the injury list and is likely to play in their next game. So, that’s a development we will have to see. There might be an adjustment period. There’s people making claims that JDub actually makes the team worse, which is [ __ ] ridiculous. But, you know, when a star player comes back, it does sometimes have a weird adjustment period that can result in a in a room of losing. Uh but when you look at their minutes as a team thus far this year, no JDub, only one player, SGA is playing 30 minutes or more and he is averaging 33.1 minutes per night. Also, I just got to go on a quick sidebar here about how godamn good SGA has been this year. He is averaging 0.1 less points than last year on similar minutes, but he is shooting nearly 55% from the field. He is shooting 41% from three on a lot of step backs. Like it really seems like he’s improved his three-point shot a lot this year. And he is only 003% away from shooting 90% from the line. Literally, he is taking the same blueprint, the same general box score of the what he put up last year in his MVP season, but now he is edging on being a 50 40 90 player on top of all of that. after him. Chad Homegrren, who has missed four games this season, is only averaging 29 minutes. He’s putting up about 18 19 points in that time, but he really just does not need to be overextended, which for him when he’s had a history of some injury issues, that’s a perfectly ideal circumstance. Lou Dort has missed six games. Aaron Gordon, Aaron Wiggins has missed nine games. Isaiah Joe and Alex Caruso have both missed five games. like this does not read to me as putting too much effort, putting too much strain on these players. It might look a little bit different when we’re towards the end of the season. That could ultimately be the deciding factor, but like at least right now, they are doing this [ __ ] effortlessly. This team, aside from their number one guy, hasn’t even been healthy for real. I mean, there are teams in the league that are more injured than the Thunder, but like most teams have not not had their second best player for the entire time to this point. Like, key pieces have missed a combined 24 games. And that’s not counting JDub, who has missed 19 and they’re this good. As for why, well, it’s the same reason they were this good last year. Their defense is the best of the decade. Hell, you could argue it is the best of all time. Their relative defensive rating, so their defensive rating by comparison to the average of the rest of the league is, I believe it’s the highest ever. And the only teams that are remotely competitive in that category are the 1960s Boston Celtics, who uh in terms of dominance are the best defense ever because of Bill Russell. like the Celtics were just way better defensively than every other team in the league. But right now in the modern era, in the era where people talk about how defense is dead in the NBA, they have the widest margin defensively ever. And their offense is always great so long as SGA is on the floor. Which again, as a quick sidebar, I do believe that people who are trying to discount SGA’s all-time ranking or his achievements at just the age of going on to be 27 this year going like, “Ah, he’s he’s on a damn super team.” Uh, I don’t believe a team is a super team unless they have like at least two bonafide superstar caliber players. And as of right now, SGA is the only one. I do believe that Chad and JDub do have the potential to be a superstar, but I’m also nowhere near the point where I think that’s definitely going to happen. H, and I do think it is worth mentioning that their offense without SGA has not been very good. The difference in the offense with SGA on the floor versus off is like a matter of 20 points. Like, he is still unbelievably essential to this offense. Like, the team just does not really work offensively without him on the floor. That will be helped a little bit by Jay Dove’s addition. And AJ Mitchell as a backup ball handler has meant a lot. But overall, the Thunder are of course number one in defensive rating. And after their game versus Minnesota, they are number three in offensive rating. SGA had a 40point game there. But on top of the standard OKCAR, they have some young players who are somehow breaking out. like more young players who are better than previously thought. So far this year, Chedgrren has been way better than the last time we saw him in the playoffs. He was, you know, about this good last year before his hip injury to be fair. So, I don’t know that he actually got that much better so much as he got healthy. But one way or the other, he has been better than our most recent memory of him. And AJ Mitchell has a pretty substantial place in the most improved player leaderboard right now. He is legit one of the best backup guards in the NBA. I do worry about his three-point shot a little bit because he has not shot super high volume or a super great percentage there, but everything inside the ark has been awesome. Like professional highlevel feel veteran level point guard play from him off of the bench in year two. And that’s just so [ __ ] unfair, dude. The depth of this team is absolutely insane. They have six players averaging double-digit points. When you think about the guys at the end of their bench who occasionally check into the game like Kenri Williams or the other JDub, the other Jaylen Williams, those guys would be like sixth or seventh men on a lot of NBA teams and they will sometimes get coaching coaching decisions DNPs. Like these players are so so good. They are literally 25 plus minute per game caliber guys at the end of this bench. There is so much versatility in their offensive approach because they just have a lot of ball handling. They have a lot of play finishing. They have a decent amount of shooters, a decent amount of self-creators. Tetgrren has developed a little bit as a self-creator this year. He has been lights out from mid-range. JDub of course can be quite the self creator. Now you have AJ Mitchell doing that. Uh Aaron Wiggins can do it a little bit. It’s just they have everything and there isn’t a weak link on the defensive end. Their worst rotational piece defensively is Isaiah Joe and I wouldn’t say he’s a bad defender. He’s probably just still fine on that end. They are the number one team in steals while being at the bottom of the league in turnovers. They’re 29th, so technically one team is better, but they do not turn the ball over, and their opponents turn the ball over a lot. They’re also one of the best rebounding teams in the league as well, which I guess only makes sense with how many damn misses they force, but they also do not allow a lot of second opportunities. They are one of the best inside the arc scoring teams in the league, both in volume and percentage. Their three-point shooting is nowhere near the best in the league, but it is still good. Their percentages are good. Their volume is about average. And again, I have to remind you that JDub has not suited up for this team yet. All of this [ __ ] I am saying is without their second best player. A guy who many were arguing had a case for being a top 15 NBA player last year has not even suited up for a team that is winning by nearly 17 points a game on average. But that’s not all. If we expand the scope beyond this year, they are loaded with draft capital, including this year. Currently, OKC has four first round draft picks in this upcoming draft, which honestly, that’s so much that they are going to likely package them together and move up in the draft or trade those picks for future first round picks when they actually need them later on. And currently three out of those four first round picks are in the lottery. Do you hear that? A team that might win 75 godamn games this year could very well also have three lottery picks after that. I do think that the Philadelphia 76ers will ultimately be a playoff team and, you know, think they’re going to actually get all three as lottery picks, but they also have the Clippers pick and Utah’s pick goes to them if they land top eight in the lottery, which is very plausible. And that is in a stacked draft class. A stacked draft class. There are three guys at the top of this draft who have been touted as superstar prospects. A draft that is so good that I’ve heard a lot of people suggest that Cooper Flag might not have gone in that top three if he was in this year’s draft. And OKC has a real shot of adding one of those guys to this team. A common reason people have dismissed a team repeating in the modern NBA because it has not happened since 2018 is the new CBA. It’s just so hard to keep teams together because the finances just get to a point where it’s not even worth it for a repeating championship team to bring back a lot of their core players. To be fair, yes, the Thunder will have to shuffle things up a bit as time goes on, but they couldn’t be in a more advantageous position to make said shuffle. Let’s say they land two lottery picks. They now have those guys for 4 years on rookie contracts, making like 10 to 12 million, depending on how high they actually land on those picks. one of their higher paid guys and Isaiah Hartinstein could easily be replaced by a rookie big man as this draft class besides for the top three picks is loaded with center prospects. Whenever I’ve gone and looked at different mock drafts, it’s like the top three guys and then center center. If anyone anyone and on this team ends up proving to be overpaid, they have the draft picks required to pull off a salary dump while still having plenty of picks left over. Let’s say just for the sake of argument that Lou Dort and Isaiah Joe just suddenly start sucking now. They’re washed. They don’t have it the way they used to. Lou Dort’s defense isn’t as good. He’s not hitting his threes anymore. Isaiah Joe isn’t hitting his threes and his defense is getting worse. All of that. Let’s just say they [ __ ] their buns, booty cheeks. Or let’s just say that you just have to ship them off in order to free up salary. Well, OKC can do that without breaking a sweat and then they can just add rookie contract players to replace them. Now, you might think, well, rookies take time to develop. Who knows if they’ll be ready to make an impact right out of the gate? But this Thunder team has proven that they do that plenty fine. They develop these players phenomenally. Like JDub and Cadet are still on the last year of their rookie deals. They have a lot of money coming their way cuz they’ve signed extensions, but OKC turned them into starlevel playoff contributors before their payday ever came. AJ Mitchell is a huge piece on this team. now on a rookie contract for this year and the next two years and he was a later pick in the draft. So he will be making $2.8 million in the 202728 season which is damn near a minimum contract. They will have one of the best backup guards in the league for the next three years for virtually no money in terms of NBA salary cap. And having seen how the Thunder management operates, I have faith that they can keep finding guys like this to round out their bench. The NBA might genuinely be doomed. We haven’t seen a repeat champion in a while, but I’m at the point with this Thunder team that I’m starting to think they will repeat, which has only happened three times in the modern era. Both times being of course the 90s Chicago Bulls and Kobe and Shaq in the early 2000s. I could see them doing that. Hell, I could see them for peing which has literally never happened besides for the 1960s Celtics. Like I just can’t wrap my head around this master class by Sam Pressie dude. Like he might be the greatest GM in NBA history. You can scale stuff to eras like Red Hourback was completely fleecing people back in the day. So like there’s different factors at play here. But at least in my lifetime, at least since I’ve been covering the NBA, Sam Pressie washes every other GM. It’s not even close. He is by far the best. It’s It’s absolutely wild. I see a lot of people whenever Wemi just does some crazy [ __ ] and they’re like, “Oh man, the NBA’s cooked. Oh boy, we have a couple of years left before this guy is winning all the championships.” Uh, what I would say to that is Webby is probably the anecdote or the anecdote, the antidote to the NBA being cooked. Like the rest of the league is doomed to just be owned by the Thunder for the next five, six years at a minimum. Wemb is probably the only solution here. Like one way or the other, I think we are going to be entering an era where parody is in decline. And I don’t know, I have mixed feelings about that because I have enjoyed this parody era in recent years, but also uh the NBA has historically done its best both in terms of viewership and storylines when there are dominant dynasty caliber teams. The only real dynasty that I have personally witnessed is the Spurs at the very end of it and the Golden State Warriors. And it’s been a minute since we have uh really had any clearcut, oh, this is the future dynasty of the NBA. I I think it’s the Thunder, dude. I think it has to be the Thunder. And I I I’ve put off making a video about them just because, yeah, duh, the Thunder are phenomenal. But as high of expectations as I had for them, they still exceed them. It’s It’s really insane. I I just can’t wrap my head around it even still. But yeah, uh that is it. Thank you so much for watching and goodbye.

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