A Thunderous date with history: with or without the MVP, OKC approach NBA generational debate
Oklahoma City keeps rolling without its MVP as a historically dominant start stirs debate over whether this team can chase basketball’s greatest season.
In the altitude of Salt Lake City, one of the NBA’s toughest road environments, the champion Oklahoma City Thunder had to play without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, for the first time this season. A trap game? Hardly: by the end of the third quarter they were up 106–71, and neither Jalen Williams nor Chet Holmgren – the team’s other two stars – had to log a single minute in the fourth of a 131–101 win that perfectly summed up the dominance of a machine built to shred the league. In their previous 23 games, Shai had only needed to play the final quarter in 11. The best team in the world is now 23–1 through 24 games.
Their next game comes tomorrow against the Suns, and it counts twice – for the NBA Cup quarterfinals and the regular season. A win would move them to 24–1, tying the 2015–16 Warriors, who posted the best record ever at 73–9 under the leadership of Stephen Curry. For many, that’s when the real debate begins: can this Thunder group put together the greatest season ever? Those Warriors opened 24–0 before losing for the first time in Milwaukee on Dec. 12. They hit the 30-game mark at 29–1 and reached midseason at 37–4, though they fell short of the title when LeBron James and the Cavaliers erased a 3–1 deficit in the Finals. The 1995–96 Bulls with Michael Jordan, who finished 72–10 and won the championship, are the only other team to reach 70 wins; 30 years ago at this point, they were 22–2 and 38–3 at the halfway point.
The Thunder are just the third team ever to win 23 of their first 24 games – the Knicks did it in 1969 – and they matched the fourth-best regular season last year at 68–14. Since the start of the 2023–24 campaign, they’re 91–15 in regular-season play. They led the league last year with a +12.9 average point differential; now they’re at +16.1, with what would be the best net rating ever at +15.9 (the ’95–96 Bulls posted +13.4). The engine is a ferocious defense: a 104.1 defensive rating, 6.6 points better than the second-best unit, Houston. Offensively, that same margin separates the top team from the eighth.
Williams and injury challenges ignored
Shai, in his prime at 27, is averaging 32.8 points in just over 33 minutes per game. And, to the terror of everyone else, the full version of the defending champions hasn’t really appeared. Their second-best player, Jalen Williams, has played only four games because of a wrist injury. With 130 combined games lost to injury, the Thunder under head coach Mark Daigneault – still just 40 and in charge since 2020 – have had the second-worst luck in the league so far. Beyond Williams’ 20 absences, Lu Dort has missed 10 games, Alex Caruso 10, Isaiah Hartenstein five, Holmgren another five…
They now have 15 straight wins, tying the franchise record (set in January) since its move to Oklahoma City in 2008. Their only loss came on Nov. 5 in Portland by just two points in a game where they let a 22-point lead slip. And as if that weren’t enough, one of the best prospects in years could join them in the next draft, where they hold up to four first-round picks – including one from a crumbling Clippers team with a very real chance of landing at No. 1. Just what everyone needed.
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