Sunday Bulletin: The (Good) Things We're Learning About the Thunder
Is it just me, or does 22-5 not feel as good as it should? OKC is the #1 seed without one its superstars. The Thunder are holding the other team, in the year 2024, under 100 points every other game. They're annoying Draymond by having fun. This has been–with one very large iliac wing-shaped asterisk–a very, very good year so far.
The most obvious thief of relaxed fandom: expectations. Despite Sam Presti doing his best to expectations-proof this team heading into the season, with a stream of polished coach- and player-speak alike characterizing the preseason, expectations quickly arrived and are now here to stay. And the Thunder are done pretending otherwise. OKC's players are routinely framing their regular season takeaways in the light of the playoffs and–typically from Shai–the team's championship aspirations. They're taking everyone's best shot, and making the league look silly for keeping them out of primetime showcases yet another year.
As we know, there is an inverse relationship between fans having fun and their teams having expectations. Welcome to the curve.
Surprises, changes, questions
But there's another buzzkill when watching this 22-5 buzzsaw: while rooting, we're still learning. The team's seamless offseason tweaks–a tidy Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey frontcourt swap and the addition of Isaiah Hartenstein to the frontcourt–were accompanied by on-court tweaks that weren't projected in the press releases or in the preseason preview world of analysis and takes.
Though they've recently ascended to eighth in league ORTG, we didn't expect the team to drop outside of the top-10 in offense for its first 20 games. And this isn't how we expected last year's drive-and-kick spam squad to play on offense. They've shifted to an iso-heavy attack with fewer pump fakes and more quicker triggers, sacrificing some efficiency for a more turnover-averse approach that complements Shai's lethal package and the team's dominance in the nightly possession battle (more on that battle in the bolts below).
While OKC's halfcourt offense has been a colder, calmer sandbox balancing precision and accuracy outcomes on the graph, the defense has created utter chaos for the opponent's first-, second-, third-, and God-help-them-fourth-line of playmakers. A hurricane of swipes and steals from OKC's handsy Legion of Boomtown puts more pressure on those ball handlers and decision makers (and the ref's whistle) than most teams have in league history.
Daily Thunder Staff
"We get to simulate a lot of what's going on during the playoffs, during those stretches, to where we can kind of flex that muscle now and be better later in the season." - Jalen Williams
And the biggest thing we're learning, painfully slowly, is the answer to the Chet Holmgren question. Not how the team survives (19-3! without him) his absence, but how he recovers. None of us were curious about how another lost chunk of season for Chet might go. There have been no alarm bells ringing for his 2025 return, but two major lower-body blows (freak injuries or not) in a big's first three seasons is not not concerning.
Embracing the unknown
Not knowing things is stressful. Usually, the fan base for a multi-year title contender of the Thunder's stature is occupied with smaller questions at this point in this kind of a season: What hopefully-not-washed veteran can they get on the buyout market, or which of the two draft picks remaining in the cupboards should their GM use to overpay with one more all-in deadline deal? The Thunder, for better or worse, are still asking bigger questions. Mark Daigneault is still developing rookies. And the front office is still investing in those developmental pieces, leveraging its bank of asset sweeteners in various move-up pick maneuvers to get their favorite wherever-rounders like Dillon Jones in the draft.
There is very little instant gratification when watching Jones and Ajay Mitchell double-fumble a regular season possession next to established, quality players. But treading the unknown can be more fruitful over time. Contrast the questions we are asking about Jalen Williams as a second-unit scoring shoulderer with those we once had about Victor Oladipo. Because of a dogged commitment to what worked (one of Billy Donovan's underrated strengths as a coach), OKC ended up spending postseason games learning whether Oladipo could supplant Semaj Christon running back-up point against elevated competition. Would you rather see whether JDub and the SGA-Team can push through their limitations now, or in the next playoff series?
What they do about these lessons learned, as the trade season bolts start warming up below, is anyone's guess. We'll file our own guesses in upcoming trade season content like everyone else. While I think the Thunder will remain open and aggressive with its ongoing roster construction, I wouldn't place bets on any predictable, conventional moves.
Keep your thinking caps on.
SUNDAY BULLETIN: SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER IS NOT A FREE THROW MERCHANT
On our latest podcast, Brandon says the team's joyful vibe is genuine behind the scenes.
There's been another round of Thunder Fisching. Here are the Jeff Fischer bolts from the week:
