{"id":120943,"date":"2025-06-24T12:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/120943\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:48:11","slug":"nba-early-2025-26-contenders-before-free-agency-draft-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/120943\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA early 2025-26 contenders before free agency, draft madness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a decade of rebuilding, the Thunder won their first NBA championship Sunday night, and given their youth and roster stability, there isn\u2019t any reason to think they won\u2019t be <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/06\/23\/sports\/thunder-dynasty-would-be-a-nightmare-for-nba-interest\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of the toughest teams in the years to come<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder were No. 2 in points per game this season (114.7) with the best defensive rating in the league (105.7). They stood at the top of the league with the franchise\u2019s best regular season record (68-14), setting a high standard for what it will take to chase them down starting this fall.<\/p>\n<p>But with several big trades already made and the first round of the draft just a day away, it\u2019s worth wondering who are the most realistic contenders to challenge Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s doesn\u2019t look as if it will be the Pacers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a decade of rebuilding, the Thunder won their first NBA championship Sunday night, and given their youth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,4517,193,194,938,6,12,191,310,475,179,3966,3965,3823,66,196,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-120943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-beyond-the-back-page","10":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-kevin-durant","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-draft","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-oklahoma","17":"tag-oklahoma-city","18":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","19":"tag-oklahomacity","20":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","21":"tag-post-sports-newsletters","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-plus","24":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114738423745680129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}