The Thunder Are Embarrassing The NBA

The Thunder Are Embarrassing The NBA

Last night in a matchup against the Jazz, the 15-1 OKC Thunder found themselves in a tough spot, facing a deficit halfway through the third quarter. One of just a few times they’ve trailed in the third all season, getting out rebounded, out hustled, back against the wall, and looking to take just their second loss of the season. With 7 minutes and 20 seconds left in the quarter, Keonte George hit these two free throws, giving the Jazz a seven-point lead. Now, remember that down seven with 7 minutes left in the third. It wasn’t until a minute and a half later when Lou Dort hit this jumper to give the Thunder their first lead of the quarter and opened up the floodgates on the Jazz. Five minutes just over five to play in the third. SGA step back three but this was 11 go. Williams across court to Caruso drives and kicks. Williams for three adjustments I was talking about at half and this is just going to be a quick run from Caruso. They go to the hot hand. Someone’s going to take a jump. And wow. By the end of the third, just 7 minutes later, the Thunder went from seven points down to a 22point lead, a 29point swing to finish out the quarter. The Jazz were out playing the Thunder for nearly three quarters and then got blown out in the blink of an eye. The Oklahoma City Thunder aren’t just a good team, they are one of the best teams in modern NBA history. Today’s video is sponsored by SeatGeek. With the NBA season here, check out SeatGeek to handle all of your ticketing needs. The number one rated ticketing app with over 28 million downloads. On SeatGeek, there are more than 70,000 listed events from sports to concerts to festivals and more. For years now, I’ve been exclusively using SeatGeek to find the best tickets for everything, including my Blazers, where I can browse seating, search for tickets, and get the best deals. And with every ticket backed by their buyer guarantee, once I buy my ticket, I know I’m good to go. And right now, you can get 10% off any tickets by downloading the SeatGeek app and using the promo code Jimmy 10. Just click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account to use at any time. That’s promo code jimmy 10 for 10% off any tickets only on Seedgeek. In Monday’s game against the Pelicans, the OKC Thunder completely blitzed a struggling New Orleans team, getting out to a 25point lead in the first quarter, 49 points in total, a new franchise record. The rest of the game wasn’t much different. The Thunder making quick work of the Pelicans in the same fashion they have just about every other team they faced this season. Dorton again. Give me a break. Typical setting the bit for the mid-range man. It’ll be Dorton instead. That’s wide open. You’re not covering him. And Dort again shares it. That’s the right way. That’s the shoot. They playing the right way. Isaiah Joe Gil’s out of 10 with Dort. Extra pass. Yeah, they move the basketball. There’s no question. Can’t typical timeout. Mitchell trying to get there. Derek Queen helped out. You help, they burn you. Isaiah Joe, clean look. What else is do? They’re going to get a last look. It’ll be Mitchell and he’s going to get it like everything else. By the end of the third quarter, the game was essentially wrapped up. The Thunder winning by 17 without Shay Gilis Alexander playing a single minute in the fourth. Sheay also didn’t play in the fourth quarter in the game before this. the Thunder up by so much they just didn’t need him. He also didn’t play in the fourth in their previous game against the Lakers or the game before that against the Warriors. He did play a handful of minutes in the fourth in the game before that one and then sat the entire fourth in the game before that. In fact, Shay Gildris Alexander, the reigning MVP, didn’t play a single fourth quarter minute in 10 of the Thunder’s last 15 games. OKC so dominant this season that they are eviscerating teams without the assistance of their MVP favorite to close out games and this has been the story of the Thunder so far in the early NBA season a 16-1 record through their first 17 games half of those games ending in a blowout their one loss of the season proudly coming at the hands of my Blazers but coming off of what proved to be one of the most dominant seasons in NBA history the Thunder have doubled back and found ways to get even better with a gap on the rest of the league about as big as any team has ever had. Through their first 17 games, OKC has beaten their opponents by an average of 16 1.5 points per game. A margin of victory that not only leads the NBA this season, it is the largest margin of victory through 17 games in the history of the NBA. It’s better than Jordan’s Bulls, better than the 73- win Warriors, better than they were last season. the way they achieved this mind-boggling margin just as impressive as the margin itself because a lot of these games are effectively over by the end of the third quarter against the Hornets. They were up by 17 going into the fourth, up by 36 against the Lakers going into the fourth. They had a 35point lead against the Warriors after three, 22-point lead on the Jazz, up 26 on the Pelicans after three, up 18 on the Mavericks, up 19 on the Hawks. In fact, the largest season average point differential in NBA history was set last season by none other than the Thunder, beating teams by an average of 12.8 points per game. So far this season, the Thunder’s average point differential is over 14 points after just three quarters. They are beating teams by a record- setting margin before the fourth quarter even begins. They’re not stat padding. They’re not running up the score. They’re actually taking their foot off the gas almost every night. And this is one of many reasons why their hot start to the season has been so convincing. It’s not just that they’re winning, it’s how early and decisively they’re winning. The foundation of their extraordinary start not just in the talent of their roster, but the depth of talent on their roster. Right now, even with their second option in all-star Jaylen Williams sidelined, the Thunder have about nine players who are legitimate starting caliber guys. Essentially, two starting units on the same team. While most teams may fall into a slump or struggle to keep their momentum when faced with injuries, the Thunder have a factory line of quality players who can fill the gaps at any moment’s notice. But their 16-1 record, as good as it is, doesn’t quite capture just how big the disparity is between them and their opponents. There’s a handful of teams around the league right now that are exceeding expectations as title contenders. The Spurs, Lakers, Rockets, Nuggets, and Pistons. Now, all of these contending teams have good records, but not all wins are built the same. Despite having the same record, the Celtics have outscored their opponents by far more than the Bucks have. The Lakers have the fourth best record in the NBA, but only the 14th best point differential. But it is the Rockets and the Nuggets who have outplayed their opponents more than any other team in the league this season. The Rockets with a point differential of plus 146 and the Nuggets with a plus 165. But of course, there’s the OKC Thunder, who have outscored their opponents by a record-breaking 277 points this season, a mile ahead of the next best team in the whole entire league. The Thunder are not just winning games, they are running teams off the court. Last season, OKC won 68 games. They beat teams by a larger margin than any team ever has before. They won a championship and they came back the next season measurably better at just about every facet of the game. They’re deeper, they’re smarter, they’re less reliant on free throws, and they’ve built on their chemistry that was established last season. But there’s one area in particular that give the Thunder a near insurmountable lead on every other team in the league. Their defense. The Thunder are suffocating teams with their size, their depth, and their athleticism. Their rotation is like a revolving door of active, tough, smart defenders. Teams are never given an opportunity to get on a run or capitalize on bad matchups. When one allNBA caliber defender goes to the bench, another one pops up in his place. According to estimated defensive plus minus, the Thunder have 1 2 3 4 five of the top 15 defenders in the entire league. Five. And they have seven players sitting in the top 20. And this isn’t even factoring in Jaylen Williams, their allNBA defensive star who has yet to suit up this season. If stopping the Thunder from scoring wasn’t hard enough, scoring enough points to even compete with them has become the hardest thing in basketball. There’s nowhere to hide. Every lineup is switchable. They’re active. They’re disciplined. They know their roles. This is not a young team winning on talent and pace and scoring. This is a young team that defends like a gritty veteran contender with a defensive profile that has become a recipe for walking its way through the regular season. And this is the part that should really worry the rest of the league. Hot shooting can come and go. Offensive explosions can be random. But a defense this good for this long is not a fluke. It’s a system. When the Thunder aren’t hitting their shots, they’ll just hold you to 42 and a half and make sure you aren’t either. When they are hitting their shots, well, then you get scores like this. And it’s not like it’s one or two elite stoppers rising the tides for the rest of the team. Last season, the Thunder put up defensive numbers that made them one of the greatest defensive units of the modern NBA. In fact, they were so good that despite their two best defenders, Alex Caruso and Chad Homegrren missing out on all defensive teams because of the minimum game requirement, the Thunder still had two players make all defensive teams. This team legitimately has at least four allNBA caliber defenders. But there’s one metric that pretty much sums up the historic nature of what the Oklahoma City Thunder are doing on defense right now. Relative defensive rating. How many points do the Thunder give up compared to the league average? It’s a metric we can use for comparing defenses across completely different eras without getting lost in pace, rules, and style of play. And the Thunder aren’t just good. They are putting together the single best defensive season in NBA history. League average defense this year sits at about 115.5 points allowed per 100 possessions. OKC is at 104.1. That’s a relative defensive rating of minus 11.4. By far the best defense in modern NBA history. For some context, the 2004 Pistons, who are widely regarded as the greatest defensive team the league has ever seen, had a relative defensive rating of minus 7.5. Duncan Spurs at their best hovered around minus 7 to minus 8. The ‘9s Knicks teams that practically tackled anyone that came near the paint were in that same neighborhood. What the Thunder are doing right now is beyond all of them. In an era designed to make defense harder than it’s ever been, OKC is lapping the best defenses of all time. Now, all of this stuff, the defense, the scoring, the depth, it’s all great indication that this Thunder team is on a crash course with history. However, we are looking at a 16 game sample size. Not quite enough games to assume how this team will fare over the course of an entire season. If that were the case, then a 15-1 record or a 93.8% win rate has them on pace for about 77 wins this season. Of course, we know that’s not how this works. Injuries can happen, bad streaks happen, schedules get tougher. But there is a metric by cleaning the glass called expected wins that attempts to factor all of this in and project how many games a team will win over the course of a season, not based on how many games they’ve won, but based on the quality of the team itself. When Golden State went on their historic 24-0 start to the season in 2015, this metric was spoton when it projected the Warriors would end the season with about 73 wins. The highest projected total for any team over the last two decades. The projected win total for the OKC Thunder this season, about 74 wins. Statistically on pace for the most dominant regular season of all time.

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