Why the Thunder will roll for a while

The books are organized to let the Shai-era Thunder compete for multiple years -- maybe the rest of the decade.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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The Sailboat (Seascape); Gustave Courbet; 1869

The revelation in the NBA last season was the Oklahoma City Thunder. They:

• went from below .500 in 2022-23 to 57 wins

• won the No. 1 seed on the final day of the regular season in their first season back in the playoffs since the Bubble

• landed their first series win since Kevin Durant was in OKC blue.

After all that, in the offseason, they traded Josh Giddey (the weak point of the core) for Alex Caruso and signed Isaiah Hartenstein. They are being almost universally lauded by the NBA intelligentsia. It’s hard to find any voice skeptical of the Thunder’s continued excellence.

Trust me, I tried to find defects in the gears. The Thunder are just clearly a top-3 team in the West barring a major injury. And frankly, the only single injury that might knock them out of the mix is one to top-4 player alive and MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They are likely deep enough to survive injuries to anyone else.

What I wonder now is how long this era of Thunder basketball can last.