Are the Oklahoma City Thunder Inevitable?

ESPN Daily

ESPN

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4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

The Oklahoma City Thunder are currently sitting at the top of the Western Conference, which is not bad for a team that’s also one of the youngest in the NBA. But how are they dominating the league the way that they are so quickly? ESPN Senior Writer Chris Herring recently wrote about how the Thunder’s on-court presence is starting to resemble a 2014 Golden State Warriors team preparing to make a dynastic, four-championship run. With an emerging big three featuring an MVP candidate in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a standout rookie in Chet Holmgren, and a fast rising second-year star in Jalen Williams. Oklahoma City is playing at a high level, despite barely having played together. But the results speak for themselves. So today, Herring breaks down the numbers and tells us how the Thunder’s rise just might be inevitable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Chris Herring, you recently wrote about the Oklahoma City Thunder and how they are slowly
0:04.8	becoming the Golden State Warriors of Old. So to start it off, what was the key part of the
0:09.6	blueprint that built that dynasty? Well I think we'd be, you know, kind of selling it short if we said anything other than
0:17.4	Steph Curry's otherworldly shooting ability, Clay Thompson's otherworldly shooting ability,
0:22.0	pairing them together,
0:23.2	and then adding on pieces and parts
0:25.4	that kind of boosted that even further.
0:28.2	Really good screening, Kevin Durant, over time,
0:31.8	great defense to put around those guys,
0:33.7	Dream on Green, the ability to play the five
0:35.8	and they have that death lineup.
0:37.2	And I think because they were so good at shooting,
0:39.9	there were some things that were overlooked.
0:41.6	In particular, the fact that even though they were really good at
0:44.4	running pick and roll Steve Kerr decided we can kind of throw a curveball at teams
0:49.3	and not rely solely on the pick and roll we can really make teams work and really keep them off balance.
0:54.9	So they ran a bunch of screens from different places, not just the big man coming up and setting
1:00.7	a pick for Steph, but Igidala setting picks for Steph.
1:03.9	Steph setting picks for Iguidala.
1:06.0	Steph setting picks for just about everybody
1:08.4	within their lineup.
1:09.4	Everybody defensively wants to chase Steph
	...

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