The Oklahoma City Thunder are on par with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the season’s most explosive and dominating basketball squad. They’re banshees on the defensive end, as JJ Redick recently coined to describe players who play tenaciously, suffocating, and aggressive basketball. They’re also high-flying on offense, primarily due to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander‘s MVP-esque season. But at the roots, OKC is a sound, well-balanced, put-together roster with depth, size, scoring threats, and defensive specialists. Not to mention, they’re a handful of games above the second-placed team in the West and the second-best team in the league if we’re going by overall record. Still, remarkably so, and as ESPN senior NBA writer Brian Windhorst will tell you, the Thunder’s championship chances garner the most disrespect of all the top-tier teams in the league. Windhorst can’t get past it and has solid reasoning for his bafflement.
Should the Thunder As Championship Contenders Be Taken More Seriously?
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst Remains Baffled By the Disrespect Shown to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Championship Chances
While guest-appearing on First Take this week alongside Stephen A. Smith and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, the Thunder were in the conversation about who the actual threats are to make it to the finals and win. Those on the show referenced the Cavaliers and Boston Celtics in the East and the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Thunder in the West. However, there appeared to be more confidence in the Celtics and Nuggets as opposed to the others, including the Thunder. To his amazement, Windhorst couldn’t believe this particular viewpoint, considering all that OKC has accomplished this season and the fashion in which they’re doing it. According to Windhorst (Twitter link), it isn’t just talk show personalities and NBA analysts who hold this view, but many within the league—execs and players alike.
“…There is an incredible amount of disrespect for this team…I hear it everyday. I hear it implicitly from other people I talk to in the league. I hear it implicitly from players out there who are like, ‘Yeah, yeah will be fine on the same side of the bracket as Oklahoma City.’ They just don’t respect them, and I go, why?”
“I hear it implicitly from other people I talk to in the league, I hear it implicitly from players out there who are like, ‘Yeah,yeah will be fine on the same side of the bracket as OKC.’ They just don’t respect them.”😬
– Windhorst
(h/t @ClutchPoints)
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 12, 2025
Two Things Can Be True
Windhorst’s plea to take OKC much more seriously is valid. Conversely, the reason why they are unconvincing is mainly due to their inexperience in the playoffs. Also, Gilgeous-Alexander, as phenomenal as he is, needs a second scorer. Last season in the postseason, Jalen Williams was off the mark and couldn’t back up SGA in the way OKC needed him to. That said, this year’s team looks so much better and different than last. They upgraded their defense with Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso, and they’re a defensive swarm as a team because of it. But are they still a year away from being a true contender? Or are they ready to ram-rod through the playoffs as they have the regular season?
The seemingly hesitated acceptance of the Thunder is baffling to a degree. From what Windhorst reports, most don’t believe. He does, and he’s not jumping off this ship anytime soon. So, is it time to jump on board with him? Or stick to another widely held notion that nobody will beat Boston in the finals again? They are the majority pick, after all.
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