The Thunder’s Pieces Are Starting to Come Together

Oklahoma City’s mysterious rebuild is finally coming to form.

For a long time, as Oklahoma City developed into more and more of a blank canvas in the aftermath of trading away Paul George, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and Al Horford, among others, the running joke was that the rebuilding Thunder were concerned only with stockpiling and owning as many future first-round picks as possible. That the club tucked away its eventual draft-lottery envelopes at night under a blanket in a queen-sized bed. And so on and so on.

But the reality now, as we near the end of the 2022 calendar year, is that those one-time inanimate mystery boxes are beginning to sprout and bear real, tangible fruit in the form of drives, floaters and spacing.

On Monday, the Thunder knocked off Atlanta on the road to win their third-straight contest. Aside from the victory pushing OKC to a relatively impressive 11–13 mark nearly 30% of the way through the campaign, it also marked franchise star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s seventh consecutive 30-point game. (Reminder: He’s still just 24 years of age.) The Thunder came back from 14 down to beat the Hawks, making the win the seventh time already that OKC has won a game trailing by double digits at some point in the contest—a pretty cool stat for the youngest roster in the NBA, one that signals that these youngsters simply keep playing, and show composure and resilience, after falling behind their more experienced counterparts most nights.

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If there’s a masterpiece being painted here, the canvas is still far from complete. Loads and loads of more development are needed still for all the young talent currently on the roster. And tons more should be on the way, either in the form of draft picks—the Thunder have as many as four first-round picks in 2024, for instance—or possibly in the form of a player they can trade for by cashing in some of those draft assets. Yet we can make out a sketch of what OKC seems to be building around at the moment: an abundance of slithery athleticism and playmaking, a breakneck pace and some perimeter shooting from the Thunder’s abnormally tall humans to create more gaps and space for the guards to probe into.

Obviously Gilgeous-Alexander, at 31 points and six assists per game, is the straw that stirs this young team’s mocktail. He is primed to make his first All-Star Game and leads the NBA in clutch scoring to this point. But don’t get it twisted, either: While OKC is a whopping 10 points better per 100 possessions on offense when Gilgeous-Alexander is on the court, the club possesses enough talent to occasionally get things done without him, too. Take this three-game win streak, for instance. In road wins Saturday and Monday over the T-Wolves and Hawks, respectively, it’s worth noting the Thunder pulled ahead of their opponents in the fourth quarter, while their best player was on the bench. Against San Antonio last week—when OKC came back from a 20-point deficit to outscore the Spurs 31–15 in the fourth—Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t play at all.

The key to the team is its ballhandlers, who drive to the cup more than any other team and almost seem to replenish and regenerate like shark’s teeth when Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t there. By now you’ve heard of Josh Giddey, the 6'7" Aussie and second-year talent who’s already tallied five triple doubles in just 75 career showings. (He hit a pair of deep threes Monday, including one from the edge of the Hawks’ logo to beat the shot clock.) But you may not be familiar with rookie Jalen Williams, the 6'6" guard—with a 7'2" wingspan—who owns not only a silky, dependable floater but also the NBA’s best field goal percentage among first-year guards, at 53.4%. He filled the role of Gilgeous-Alexander in the Spurs game SGA missed, logging a career-best 27 points on 11-for-15 shooting while serving as the late-game closer. Based on his uncanny ability to change speeds already, Williams, the West’s Rookie of the Month, looks like he should have a long NBA career.

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The surrounding talent is interesting, too. Beyond Lu Dort, the now highly paid, stout, fire hydrant of a forward, there’s second-year big Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, who’s been a fantastic fit, both because of how he runs the floor in transition and because he’s been a solid spacer for the club when opponents send two defenders at someone like Gilgeous-Alexander. The Mullet Man, Kenrich Williams, is a bona fide hustler and leads the Thunder—who have taken more charges than any NBA club so far—in charges drawn, with 10. And perhaps most worth keeping an eye on: 7', 210-pound Aleksej Pokusevski, who for a couple of years was simultaneously seen as one of the league’s most intriguing young players while also being one of its least efficient, is looking more and more real this season. The NBA Twitter favorite is up to 1.5 blocks per game in less than 23 minutes a night, but perhaps most impressively, he’s hitting 37.1% of his threes and 45.9% from the field overall, even after a couple of less efficient showings. That, if sustained, is more than enough to escape the notion of being a fringe NBA player.

This isn’t to suggest the Thunder and their youngsters will be this productive all season, necessarily. OKC, currently in the midst of its longest road trip of the campaign, has the sixth-toughest remaining schedule in the league ahead. Gilgeous-Alexander is playing like a borderline MVP candidate, but after having missed 63 contests over the last two seasons, it wouldn’t be surprising if his aggressive style results in his getting banged up at some point. (He’s sat out only twice so far.) No team has less big, traditional bodies than the Thunder, who as a result grab just 68.6% of opponent misfires, which ranks right near the bottom of the NBA.

Still, give credit where it’s due. Coach Mark Daigneault has tried some unorthodox stuff this season—why not?—and it’s often paid off for a young team that works pretty hard. Yes, the Thunder surrender a ton of points in the paint, but some of that is a byproduct of the blistering pace at which they play and the increased number of possessions they have to defend each game. Defensively, they hold opponents under their normal shooting percentages around the rim. (One would think this could improve even more once injured rookie Chet Holmgren can join the club next season.) And of course that’s if opponents can even make it all the way to the rim in the first place: so far, Oklahoma City deflects a ton of passes and forces one of the league’s highest turnover percentages. And nothing about driving the basketball 60-plus times per game is easy when opposing clubs know that’s exactly what you’re trying to do. So it speaks volumes about the team’s development staff—and, yes, Sam Presti’s scouting—to have the improved shooting on this roster to create the driving lanes on most nights.

It’s not a perfect team, and likely not even one that will land in the postseason in 2023. But that’s not what this season was about, anyway. Identifying a style of play, and finding the exact players to carry it out on a nightly basis, is. The Thunder seem much closer to doing that than they have in a while now. And in the next season or two, it could finally be time for them to turn all those first-round draft picks into another run of sustained success in the Western Conference.

Meat and potatoes: Good reads from SI and elsewhere this past week

• Michael Rosenberg wrote a cover story on Stephen Curry, who was named SI’s Sportsperson of the Year.

• Rohan Nadkarni wrote a great feature on Heat star Bam Adebayo and how his year-to-year progression has become absolutely paramount for the Heat, who view him as a bellwether.

• Separately, my newsletter last week was about the Heat and how strange a season they’ve had. That trend continued Monday, when they lost to a Grizzlies team that was playing without four starters just days after taking down the Celtics, who have been lighting the league on fire.

• Nadkarni also wrote a solid story about the new pieces around Nikola Jokić in Denver, and how they’ve made the reigning two-time MVP’s life far easier.

• Chris Mannix wrote on the Kings and Pacers, and how, so far, both teams seem to have won the Tyrese Haliburton–Domantas Sabonis trade from last season.

• Mannix also had a piece on rookie Sam Hauser, who’s been a key role player with the Eastern Conference–leading Celtics.

• Our NBA draft analyst Jeremy Woo has a draft notebook that touches on Alabama’s Brandon Miller and Duke’s Kyle Filipowski.

• Kyle Wood compiled this week’s NBA power rankings for us.

• SB Nation’s Brady Klopfer wrote on something important: It’s been almost 300 days since WNBA star Brittney Griner was detained in Russia. She’s been taken to a Russian penal colony for the time being. President Biden signaled hope that talks between him and Vladimir Putin could take place following the midterm election, but it’s unclear whether that’s happening anytime soon.

• Thought it was worth highlighting two pieces by The Athletic’s Will Guillory, who covers the Pelicans. He had a good profile on the origins of guard Jose Alvarado, who notched a career-best 38 the other night, and one questioning whether the Pelicans had made the jump to contender status out West.

• Kawhi hit a game-winner Monday, pushing the Clippers to 5–1 when he’s played this season.

• Gina Mizell of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote on James Harden’s making his return to the Sixers, one in which he shot 4-for-19—with all four of the makes being threes—in a losing, double-overtime effort to Houston. He’d missed the team’s last 14 games.

• The Los Angeles Times’s Dan Woike covered Anthony Davis’s 55-point, 17-rebound performance Sunday, the latest showing in what’s been an absolute heater for Davis in recent weeks. Nadkarni recently wrote on him and how he’s saving the season in Los Angeles.

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