{"id":301919,"date":"2025-09-25T00:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/301919\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T00:51:09","slug":"rachel-nichols-questions-thunders-hype-in-espn-survey-says-theyre-not-at-steph-curry-kevin-durant-warriors-level-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/301919\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Nichols Questions Thunder\u2019s Hype in ESPN Survey, Says They\u2019re Not at Steph Curry-Kevin Durant Warriors Level Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oklahoma City Thunder might be the defending NBA champions, but what are the odds that they will defend it successfully in the upcoming season? The prevailing sentiment in the league, at least among the cross-section of scouts, coaches, and executives that ESPN recently polled in an anonymous survey, is that nobody is going to stop OKC.<\/p>\n

Eighteen of the 20 people polled had the Thunder<\/a> defending their title. And this survey was done before the Houston Rockets got the devastating news that Fred Van Vleet would be out for the year with a torn ACL.<\/p>\n

Rachel Nichols and Chris Mannix discussed the poll results on the latest episode of Sports Illustrated\u2019s Open Floor. While they agreed that the Thunder have earned the right to be the favorites, they questioned whether OKC is getting too much respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey think that the Thunder are so high, on the highest pedestal, that it doesn\u2019t matter what the rest of the West does, it doesn\u2019t matter who the best player is, that they are still going to win,\u201d Nichols said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last team that kind of had that juice was the Kevin Durant-Steph Curry<\/a> Warriors teams,\u201d\u00a0she added.<\/p>\n

Those Warriors definitely had an invincible aura, to the point that the rest of the league and fans around the world were angry at Durant for leaving the Thunder for Golden State and tipping the scales of power so dramatically.<\/p>\n

This OKC team is great, as they proved by winning the title with such a young roster. But Nichols has a point. All that matters is winning, but it should be noted that both the Nuggets and Pacers took the Thunder to a seventh game. So it\u2019s not like they coasted through the playoffs unscathed.<\/p>\n

Nichols pointed out that in the poll<\/a>, 19 out of the 20 people surveyed named Nikola Jokic as the best player in the league. None had picked reigning MVP Shai-Gilgeous Alexander. The Nuggets also finished second behind the Atlanta Hawks when the question was, \u2018Which team had the best offseason?\u2019<\/p>\n

Theoretically, that means the Nuggets have closed the gap with the Thunder. Yet, they\u2019re getting no love in this poll, even though they were just a game away from eliminating the Thunder with a lesser team last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that the Thunder should get that level of designation,\u201d\u00a0Nichols said.\u00a0\u201cThey\u2019ve earned the right to be the favorite this year, but I don\u2019t know if they are \u2018Golden State Warriors in their prime\u2019 level of a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mannix took it a step further by saying,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m with you. I hesitate to say that Denver should be the favorite going in, because Oklahoma City is the defending champ, and they are so good, but I keep going back to the second-round series. And yeah, the Nuggets got annihilated in Game 7, but that has as much to do with fatigue and lack of depth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nuggets have added Cam Johnson, Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Jonas Valanciunas to take the pressure off of Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon. So they will be better equipped to be the one left standing if they meet the OKC again.<\/p>\n

With Van Vleet\u2019s injury in some ways negating the Rockets\u2019 trade for Kevin Durant, the Thunder and Nuggets are the clear favorites in the West. The regular season is still nearly a month away, but it\u2019s going to be can\u2019t-miss TV to see which team reigns supreme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder might be the defending NBA champions, but what are the odds that they will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,12632,479,164,4025,4024,6,253,179,49123,6638,209,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-301919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chris-mannix","10":"tag-golden-state","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-goldenstate","13":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nikola-jokic","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-open-floor-podcast","18":"tag-rachel-nichols","19":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","20":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115262199362437582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301919","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=301919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}