I was watching Notre Dame–Oklahoma when it happened. Sunk into the couch in my Chicago apartment, lording over a Hot-N-Ready, cursing Manti Te’o’s name when Woj dropped the bomb. I looked at my phone and took a faceful of shrapnel: “Oklahoma City has traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets, league sources tell Y! Sports.” It had been a little under four months since the Oklahoma City Thunder lost the 2012 NBA Finals to the Heat in five games, a bummer of an L but one that seemed necessary to spur future greatness. These things happen to young teams. Lumps must be taken. They would be back, said the idiot. Instead, those post-Harden teams were done in by a lack of shooting and a lot of injuries. Torn meniscus, Jones fracture, Serge Ibaka’s funky calf. The Thunder flirted with trips to Ringopolis on a couple of subsequent occasions, but they would never make it as far as they did that summer. Until now.
After suplexing the Wolves in five, the 2024-25 Thunder are your Western Conference champs. They punched their ticket nine years to the day after Klay Thompson’s immortal Game 6 performance in 2016, an evening that proved to be a fatal blow to the Kevin Durant in OKC era. But now a new era dawns. One of bad commercials and good basketball. Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals will be in Oklahoma City on June 5. Thunder fans will be in their seats 30 minutes before tip-off, wearing their matching shirts, losing their collective minds. The future is no longer theoretical. They are extremely here and headed back to the Land of the Larry. The Thunder are rolling.
OKC's ascent has been dizzying. Four years ago, I was writing Tank Diaries about the redeeming waters of Pokuland. Three years ago, the Thunder won 24 games. Two years ago, they lost in the play-in. Last year, they earned the 1-seed in the West but lost to Dallas in the second round. This year, they are going to the Finals with a chance to punctuate one of the most dominant seasons in NBA history with a championship.
The Thunder have been actively remodeling their powerhouse for several years now, but these playoffs have felt like a true arrival. So far, they’ve answered every question. Could they out-execute more experienced teams in the half court? Yes. Would they be tough enough to hold up under real postseason physicality? Yes. Would the moment be too big for Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren? No(t yet, there will be no jinxes here). Would their swarming defense have the same impact against offenses that had time to scout them? GOD, YES.
Pick your cliché. Growing up before our eyes, putting hair on their chest, maturing to the point that Trent’s standing on the table at the diner. You’re growns up and you’re growns up and you’re growns up. The Thunder are learning themselves, how frustrating they can be, how overwhelming. The Minnesota series was maybe the most complete performance of the season for OKC's new Big Three. SGA has cooked all comers, and J-Dub and Chet are becoming more fully realized every game—as scorers, defenders, teammates. The trifecta combined for 95 points in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals and 75 in the closeout Game 5. They’re leveling up. Their confidence is growing.
There’s an impatient section of my brain that wants to think about what this whole thing will look like when they achieve their true final form. Questions try to emerge. How high is the ceiling? Are they even close to it? How long can this go on? Will they ever film a good commercial? I’m doing too much. The cart has rocketed before the horse. The Thunder have answered every call and passed every checkpoint, save one. If they win the NBA Finals against either the Pacers or Knicks, it would be the first title in Thunder history. They’re playing for immortality, and there’s nowhere to hide. That can get to some people.
It's an NBA truism that there's nothing more fun than rooting for a young team on the rise. There’s zero pressure. Mistakes are expected, even funny. It seems like the runway goes on for miles. The only limiting factor is your own imagination. But as a young team starts to grow and improve and add to its core, that carefree enjoyment gives way to nerves. Stakes are introduced. So are expectations. The national TV games increase in number, the possibilities narrow, and success seems closer but more slippery than ever. At a certain point, the blemishes become clear. Likely, the knives come out and doubters crawl out of the woodwork.
OKC fans know this cycle well. When Durant, Westbrook, and Harden came up, they were the belles of the ball, fresh faces giving the old heads a run for their money. Then Harden got traded, Russ got hurt, Durant got hurt, and despite brushes with the mountaintop, they never found a way to get to the summit. As the Durant-Westbrook teams grew in age, so did the questions about whether or not the two actually fit together. Westbrook became one of the more polarizing players of the past 25 years, and after OKC dropped a 3-1 lead to the Warriors in the 2016 WCF, Durant heeded the Call of the Draymond, and that was that.
It’s remarkable that OKC is in this position less than a decade later. To have built two completely separate A-level contenders over this span is not normal, especially when the best player from the OG group leaves in free agency and you get nothing for him in return. There were periods of varying promise during the between years. The Paul George interlude, the one-season stints from Melo and Chris Paul. Then the really lean post-bubble years when you were trying to sustain yourself via Charlie Brown Jr. jumpers and Gabriel Deck drives. You have your tank goggles on and start saying silly things. Can Moses Brown be a quality backup 5? I would die for Hamidou Diallo. Darius Bazley’s figuring it out, a new cornerstone. Fandom is a disease.
There’s so much to love about this team. The defense, the consistency, the adaptability, the force, the disposition, the resolve, the shotmaking, the stealing, the application of merciless pressure. This Thunder squad’s a refreshing counter to many of the prevailing trends in the NBA. They all guard, don’t rely on a ton of 3s, eat in the midrange, and play full throttle every night. They built through the draft and smart trades, developed lotto picks and undrafted two-way guys. They didn’t skip steps or go out and buy some major whale to put them over the top. They relied on their continuity and found premium role players who play their brand of ball. They’ve rolled with the horses that brought them here.
In some ways, the rise of these Thunder has short-circuited the typical developmental cycle. They are NBA Finals favorites, but they’re also ridiculously young. Average age: 24.8. Their second- and third-best players have not even reached their prime yet. They have arguably the deepest roster in the NBA, and if you’ve read this far, you know about all the draft picks. There's a weird dissonance as a fan between rooting for what still feels like a young, up-and-coming team and having expectations for a 68-win juggernaut that set the record for net rating in the regular season, a group that’s now just four wins away from hoisting the only trophy in the sport that really matters.
That's not to say watching this playoff run has been carefree. Typically, at the end of even marginally close games, you can find me looking like some combo of post-bricks Marv and Bogosian locked in Sandler’s vestibule. Every Thunder fan knows too well how fragile contention can be, how quickly you can go from a team with a blinding future to an ultimate what-if. Past failures make you appreciate this run more. There are no guarantees that they’ll make it this far again. I’ll savor the moment while it’s here.
