Stiles Points: Sam Presti Proven Right Regarding OKC Thunder Defense

The Oklahoma City Thunder are playing defense at a historic clip, something Sam Presti saw coming a mile away.

Dec 7, 2024; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) and guard Alex Caruso (9) battle New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum (3) for the ball during the first half at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images / Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images

At the start of every NBA season, Sam Presti takes to the podium to address the members of the OKC Thunder media. This is a sign that the offseason is over and basketball is set to begin. Each year, Presti rambles longer than any other executive is willing to, he is more forthcoming than his peers, also.

Presti is peppered with questions about everything under the sun from offseason signings to what books he read over the summer. To his credit, he answers them as transparently as possible within the rules of the league.

Each season that pasts, something - or things - he says during these sessions end up being a theme of the year. The early favorite in the club house for the 2024-25 season? The Oklahoma City Thunder general manager opining about the team's potential on the defensive end.

“I think that's the thing about teams, it's not just the individual players that you see in isolation, but how do their abilities compound with one another to be able to get not just the additive thing, but the spillover from these other things it allows you to do, and I think defensively we have the opportunity to have a lot of compounding talent that can make it very hard for us to play against," Presti said in the preseason.

A year ago, Oklahoma City had a top-five defense in the NBA. It makes sense why Presti was bullish on his squad that lost its worst defender, and added two of the league's best in Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein.

The Thunder have the best defense in the NBA with a defensive rating of 103.3, they average 12.1 steals per game with the next closest team only swiping 10.3 steals (Hawks). Oklahoma City is the masters of disruption, forcing teams into 19.2 turnovers a game thanks to its 6.4 blocks with 16.2 deflections per game. The Thunder also contests more shots than anyone in the league, 47.4 contests per tilt.

These numbers are jaw-dropping and allows Oklahoma City to get out and run in transition with 15.6% of its points in the fast break and top-ten in the league pace.

It all ties back to Presti's prediction in the preseason. The Thunder not only have elite defenders across the board from Lu Dort to Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and even Jalen Williams upping his level on that end, but they all compliment each other.

With a back-line anchor at the rim, the Thunder perimeter defenders communicate off screens, jump in the passing lanes and create controlled chaos. Combined with their versitaility is its archetypes. Caruso is one of the best defenders at scaling up to bigger assignments, Dort is a physical force playing underneath scorers, Wallace has the fast-twitch and swiping hands to fluster guards and Williams can defend anyone on the floor. Each pouring into one another.

With each passing screen, which is typically used to hunt a mismatch, life gets no easier for opposing ball handlers. To the point that Oklahoma City can just squeeze the life out of matchups and suffocate them down the stretch.

Stiles Points

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander reacted to Chris Paul's record-setting night on Instagram.
• Isaiah Hartenstein's skillset is that of a Thunder player, he just so happens to fix its size concerns.
• The Thunder embodied its 0-0 mindset against the New Orleans Pelicans in an impressive win.
• According to Basketball Reference, the Thunder have the best odds to make the NBA Playoffs.

Song of the Day: Kool Aid and Frozen Pizza by Mac Miller

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