It’s hard to improve on winning 68 games during the regular season and an NBA championship, but the 2025-26 Oklahoma City Thunder look significantly better now than they did last season.

After a 131-89 win over the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Cup quarterfinals on Wednesday extended their winning streak to 16 games, head coach Mark Daigneault told reporters he’s “not focusing” on the streak and potentially challenging the single-season wins record:

“Not focusing on the win streak. You just got to play the next possession, get better the next day, win the next quarter and compete in the next game. And then if you do that and you’re present in that process, sometimes you look up and you win a certain amount of games in a row. But we certainly need to understand, we still have a lot of improvement to make. We have a lot of things to sustain and a lot of competitive challenges ahead.”

Oklahoma City’s 24-1 record is tied with the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors for the best 25-game start in NBA history. The Warriors team went on to set a league record with 73 wins during the regular season, but memorably came up short in the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Given how things played out for the Warriors a decade ago, it’s understandable why Daigneault would want to dismiss any notion of his team possibly setting a new record with 74 wins.

But it’s hard not to feel like even if the Thunder take their foot of the gas pedal, they’re still so talented that they can get there. Their stats so far are mind-boggling, including more minutes leading by at least 20 points than they have trailed

Their plus-17.2 net rating is on pace to shatter the full-season record currently held by the 72-win Chicago Bulls from the 1995-96 season (plus-13.4). Their plus-8.2 net rating without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams on the floor would rank fifth among all teams this season.

Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging nearly one point per minute. The reigning NBA MVP has scored 782 points in 794 minutes. He’s doing that while averaging his few minutes per game (33.1) since his rookie season with the Los Angeles Clippers, in part because he has only had to play in the fourth quarter 11 times in his 24 starts.

One thing that makes the Thunder even more dangerous going forward is Williams hasn’t really played up to his standard while working his way back into peak condition after missing the first 19 games of the season coming off wrist surgery. The 24-year-old is only shooting 28.6 percent from three, down from his career mark of 38.0 percent.

When the Warriors were going through their historic run, they openly talked about wanting to set the wins record. Head coach Steve Kerr admitted it probably took a toll on how they approached things later in the season and into the playoffs.

The Thunder don’t even seem to be exerting that much effort so far and they are 24-1. Things can happen over the course of a season that derail a team, even for a short period, but right now it would feel like an upset if they don’t at least get to 70 wins.