{"id":151104,"date":"2025-07-19T13:35:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=151104"},"modified":"2025-07-19T13:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:49:11","slug":"okc-thunder-chance-trifecta-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/19\/okc-thunder-chance-trifecta-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thunder Have The Chance at a Trifecta This Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Thunder went 4-0 in the Vegas Summer League<\/a> and are now in the playoffs. If they win tonight, they will have a chance to win the entire Summer League on Sunday, July 18th. The Thunder have had quite a few standouts in the Summer League, both Nikola Topic<\/a> and Ajay Mitchell<\/a> have made highlight plays. The same can be said for second-round pick<\/a> Brooks Barnhizer<\/a> and the undrafted\u00a0Chris Youngblood<\/a>. These four players have helped the Thunder achieve a 4-0 start in the Vegas Summer League, with a chance to win it and complete the trifecta.<\/p>\n

What we mean by completing the trifecta is winning the Vegas Summer League, the G-League Championship, and the NBA Championship. If the Thunder win the Summer League Championship, they wouldn’t have won all three in the same year, but winning all three in a matter of two years. They would have won the NBA and Summer League championships this year and the G-League title last year in the 2023-2024 NBA season. Let’s dive into the Thunder having a chance at the trifecta and what it would mean for the organization.<\/p>\n

The Thunder Have the Chance at a Trifecta This Summer<\/h2>\n

What Needs To Be Done to Win the Summer League<\/h3>\n

After the Thunder went undefeated in the Vegas Summer League, they were one of four teams to make the Semifinals. The other three teams were the Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, and the Charlotte Hornets. The Thunder will be matched up with the Hornets tonight, and the winner of that game will advance to the championship game on Sunday. That means they have to win just two more games to win it all. This would be an astonishing feat when just about a month ago, they played the very last game in the NBA and earned the Larry O’Brien Trophy after a grueling season. Shifting their focus to the Summer League shortly after that, and having a chance to win it, has been fascinating to watch.<\/p>\n

In addition, the Thunder have done all of this without their top draft choice this year in Thomas Sober<\/a>. He has yet to play in the Summer League, and the Thunder have still been exceptional without him. Thanks in large part due to Mitchell, who got a ton of experience on the Thunder in the regular season as well as last year’s first-round pick, Topic, making his debut. It will be interesting to see how the Thunder manage these next two games: will they go for it and try to win it all, or rest players like Mitchell and Topic like they did in their last Summer League game?<\/p>\n

The Journey of The Thunder Winning the NBA Championship<\/h3>\n

The Thunder’s journey to a championship is a unique one. It all started in 2019 when Damian Lillard<\/a> hit a game-winning three in Game 5 to send the Thunder home in the playoffs, prompting them to start a full rebuild. They famously traded Paul George<\/a> to the Clippers for all those draft picks and a young Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>. There were serious question marks about whether the Thunder would ever get back to the same level of dominance they once had. After a brief stint in the bubble playoffs in 2020, the Thunder had two straight losing seasons.<\/p>\n

Then, people were wondering if the Thunder should trade Gilgeous-Alexander as his timeline might not be aligned with the Thunder’s anymore. However, in the 2022-2023 season, the Thunder improved drastically, winning 40 games, increasing their win total by 16, and making the play-in tournament. Unfortunately, they lost and didn’t make the playoffs. They improved even more over the next two years, earning 17 more wins and claiming the No. 1 seed in the West. This year, they increased their win total by 11 and had one of the best statistical seasons ever in NBA history, capping it off with a title<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Thunder completing one of the biggest rebuilds in NBA history doesn’t happen too often. It was worth the wait for the Thunder fans to cherish their dreams of winning a title they got a glimpse of back in 2012.<\/p>\n

What Winning All Three Would Mean for the Thunder<\/h3>\n

Winning all three would be an extremely huge feat for the organization. It will speak highly of how they handle their business. They handle everyone with care and respect. No one person is above the other, they have a team-first mindset, and they treat each team member the same. It will also show how well they develop each singular player and how well they are able to draft players that fit their system. All together, it would be a great accomplishment for the Thunder to win all three in a short span of just two years.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

The Thunder were already the winners of the NBA summer by winning their first-ever championship, one that this organization and fan base will cherish forever. However, they can keep dominating the offseason by taking home the Vegas Summer League crown as well.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Thunder went 4-0 in the Vegas Summer League and are now in the playoffs. If they win tonight, they will have a chance to win the entire Summer League on Sunday, July 18th. The Thunder have had quite a few standouts in the Summer League, both Nikola Topic and Ajay Mitchell have made highlight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5171,"featured_media":151122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,22],"tags":[49285,50186,187,49139,50,1489,49963],"class_list":["post-151104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-thunder","tag-ajay-mitchell","tag-brooks-barnhizer","tag-damian-lillard","tag-nikola-topic","tag-paul-george","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-thomas-sorber"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151104"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151127,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151104\/revisions\/151127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}