“They gonna be favorites for the next three or four years” – Charles Barkley explains why OKC will be a leading title contender for the next few years originally appeared on Basketball Network.
This is the Oklahoma City Thunder world, and we’re just living in it. What else can we say after a historic season from a team architected by Sam Presti, culminating in their first-ever championship?
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These guys won the title with 68 regular-season wins, the fifth-best record of all time, becoming the second-youngest team to win a championship after the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers. They also posted the second-best point differential in the league’s history, +12.8, only behind the 1996 Chicago Bulls team.
Charles Barkley told Yahoo! Sports his opinion on OKC’s reign after impressive offseasons by both the Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets.
“They’re (OKC) gonna be the favorites the next three or four years,” he said. “They’re young, they’re talented, they’re very well coached. Now the Rockets have had a great summer. So have the Nuggets. But those are the top three teams in the West right now.”
The man without whom none of this would’ve been possible is undoubtedly SGA
What continues to amaze is that they’ve finished first in the brutal Western Conference two years in a row with the youngest roster in the league and didn’t lose back-to-back games a single time this season. The man without whom none of this would’ve been possible is undoubtedly Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
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He became just the fourth player ever to lead the league in scoring, win MVP, and win Finals MVP in the same season: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, and Shai. Add to that the Western Conference Finals MVP, All-NBA First Team honors, and another All-Star selection. Also, this was his third straight season averaging 30+ points on 50+ percent shooting.
Paul Pierce also shares Barkley’s opinion, acknowledging that the Thunder have the infrastructure to remain dominant.
“They got the infrastructure for a dynasty. They got draft picks. They [have] right now cap space. But they going to sign their players. What they going to have to do is, once you get the nucleus, they going to have to continue to remake their bench,” Pierce pointed out.
Presti’s masterclass in team management
Presti has clearly made sure not to repeat the same mistake he did with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. Just over a decade ago, he broke up three future MVPs after they made the Finals as a young team, only to be easily defeated by the Miami Heat super team led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
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Alongside Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren – the three foundational faces of this team – signed contract extensions worth a combined $822 million over the next five seasons just after winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Some may think that’s too much because, for now, only SGA is an MVP caliber type of player, but the same was said about James Harden when he left OKC, only to become one of the all-time greats.
With the new second apron rules, one might assume Presti boxed himself in with massive contracts for the coming years – similar to the Denver Nuggets with Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Michael Porter Jr. – but Presti is once again ahead of the curve.
Although at some point the championship roster will have to break up due to the big three’s contracts, Presti has secured OKC an incredible 13 first-round picks and 17 second-round picks over the next seven seasons. That gives the Thunder the flexibility to stay competitive for at least the next five years – if they can stay healthy – and that’s precisely what Barkley sees, too.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 14, 2025, where it first appeared.