The Oklahoma City Thunder are off to a historic start to the 2025-26 campaign after winning 68 games and an NBA title last year.
Despite dealing with a number of injury issues, OKC is still 21-1 to start the season, just a few wins away from reaching the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors’ historic start of 24-1 en route to a 73-win season.
While the Thunder likely aren’t aiming to break the single-season wins record, the team has a solid chance to approach 70 wins once again. The more important goal for Oklahoma City, though, is too repeat as NBA champions, something the 73-win Warriors were unable to accomplish.
Of course, Golden State would go on to win a few more titles, but even one of the greatest teams of all time couldn’t win another championship immediatly after the group’s first. OKC appears to be in a good position to go back-to-back, and a recent national podcast seems to agree that the Thunder are this year’s title favorites.
On the latest episode of the Group Chat podcast, part of The Ringer’s network of shows, Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney and J. Kyle Mann split up slices of what they call “title pie”.
Mahoney described that idea as, “the probability of who’s going to win the NBA title this season, how do you break it down among the entire field of teams.”
Verrier gave the Thunder 35% of his “title pie”, while Mahoney and Mann each allotted 40% to Oklahoma City.
“How can you not be bowled over by their prospects given everything that they’ve shown us so far?” Mahoney asked. “I just think that the way that the Thunder guard gives them the highest floor, even in the playoffs, of any team out there. So, their margin for error becomes so daunting when they have that level of defense. They have the MVP, they have the supporting stars, they have the deepest roster in the league.”
The trio of hosts allotted the Denver Nuggets the second largest slice of the pie with the Houston Rockets rounding out the top 3 teams.
The group noted a few concerns about Oklahoma City in a potential playoff rematch against the Nuggets, highlighting Aaron Gordon as a potential mismatch for OKC in addition to superstar MVP candidate Nikola Jokic.
The Nuggets were the Thunder’s toughest test in the Western Conference last season, and could be the team’s most difficult opponent throughout the playoffs again in 2026.
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