The Oklahoma City Thunder are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2012. They finished with the best record in the regular season at 68-14, and are heavy betting favorites to beat the Indiana Pacers (-750 via FanDuel), but it wasn’t too long ago that this team struggled to win even 30 games.
For the short amount of time that the Thunder have existed, they’ve rarely experienced losing. Since the team relocated from Seattle in 2008, they’ve missed the playoffs just five times. They’ve made it past the first round of the postseason seven times and had some of the best players in league history suit up for them. We’ve seen several eras of Thunder basketball, but the current one really started when the 2018-19 season ended.
In preparation for the NBA Finals, which tips off on June 5, let’s take a look at how the Thunder got here and how this team was built.
- The pivotal summer of 2019
If we’re talking in scientific terms, the summer of 2019 was like The Big Bang for this Thunder team. Following several years of first-round playoff exits, OKC traded Paul George and Russell Westbrook, officially starting a new era of Thunder basketball. The return for George was a gold mine. It wasn’t just that they got a haul of future first-round picks from the Clippers, which they still haven’t finished paying off (2026 will mark the final first-round pick L.A. owes OKC from this trade), but they got a then-20-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who was just coming off a rookie season where he averaged 13 points in the playoffs.
No one could’ve predicted how well that single move paid off, because while SGA had a ton of upside at the time, the Clippers were trading for a guy who just finished third in MVP voting, and were about to pair him with Kawhi Leonard in hopes of winning championships, yes plural. But here we are six years later, with Gilgeous-Alexander as the newly named league MVP and the Thunder reaching the NBA Finals before the Clippers.
That George trade was beneficial in more ways than one, too. It gave the Thunder four unprotected first-round picks in 2021 (via Heat), 2022, 2024 and 2026 — a war chest of assets to use in the future.
The Westbrook trade to the Rockets wasn’t as fruitful, but it got them Chris Paul, two first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps. It was a bountiful reset, one that many bottom-dwelling teams wish they could pull off. The Thunder got an insane amount of future assets, a savvy veteran point guard in Paul and Gilgeous-Alexander, who while unproven at the time gave OKC a highly coveted young player to try and build around.
Also around this time, the Thunder signed an undrafted forward from Arizona State named Luguentz Dort to a two-way contract.
- Two draft night gems in 2022
The Thunder experienced brief success following the trades of Westbrook and George. Paul was the perfect mentor for SGA who took a massive leap in his second season and OKC made the playoffs. But the following two years weren’t as successful. They traded Paul following that season because of the team’s decision to further enter a rebuild, which then led to the parting of ways with coach Billy Donovan, who had been at the helm for five years.
OKC promoted from within with Mark Daigneault being named the new head coach after serving as Donovan’s assistant for a season. The rebuild got off to a rocky start. Gilgeous-Alexander suffered a torn plantar fascia during the 2020-21 season, limiting him to just 35 games. OKC finished the year with a 22-50 record as a result, but landed the No. 6 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, selecting Josh Giddey. The following year, Gilgeous-Alexander returned with a starting lineup whose age averaged out at 21 years old.
The summer of 2022 was where the Thunder saw their next big influx of talent. After winning just 24 games, OKC won the No. 2 overall pick and drafted Chet Holmgren. This is where that George trade from three years earlier was the gift that kept on giving. With the 12th pick in the 2022 draft, courtesy of the Clippers, they drafted Jalen Williams, the guy who just earned his first All-Star, All-NBA and All-Defensive selections this season.
The Thunder made out like bandits during the 2022 draft, also selecting Jaylin Williams in the second round, adding to a young nucleus that had a ton of upside. But the 2022-23 season started out with some sobering news after Holmgren sustained an injury in a summer pickup game that sidelined him for his entire rookie season. It handicapped OKC’s ceiling that year, though it wasn’t all bad as Jalen finished second in Rookie of the Year voting and the Thunder earned a play-in spot — but falling short of the playoffs — after finishing with a 40-42 record. Gilgeous-Alexander also finished fifth in MVP voting that year and earned his first All-Star and All-NBA selections.
That summer, OKC continued adding to its young core by acquiring Cason Wallace in a draft night trade with the Mavericks who received Dereck Lively II. Wallace has since earned All-Rookie honors, and this season has elevated his game to being one of, if not the Thunder’s best on-ball defenders. So for those keeping track at home, at this point in the timeline, the Thunder already have SGA, Jalen Williams, Holmgren, Dort and Aaron Wiggins who OKC drafted with a second round pick via the Warriors from a Kelly Oubre Jr. trade that often goes unmentioned. That’s basically most of the Thunder’s rotation players.
- The veteran additions of 2024
The Thunder entered the 2023-24 season with heightened expectations, but no one could’ve predicted they’d finish atop the West, which is what they did with a 57-25 record. Holmgren finally made his debut, and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting. Gilgeous-Alexander finished second in MVP voting, and we watched in real time as OKC’s timeline was sped up due to the rapid development of these young players.
But the Thunder weren’t fully realized yet, and had flaws that were exposed in the second round of the playoffs against a Mavericks team that knew how to exploit them.
After the postseason exit, OKC wasted no time in addressing needs. The Thunder traded Giddey for Alex Caruso last June, which now looks like perhaps the best transaction off the summer. Giddey was continuously targeted defensively against the Mavericks, and was a black hole offensively, making it easier to defend the Thunder when he was on the floor. Caruso was a career 37% shooter from 3-point range, and even more importantly was a two-time All-Defensive player who immediately upgrades a team’s defense just by being on the court. The most standout thing about this trade is the fact that the Thunder were able to pull this off without surrendering any of their never-ending draft capital, which is still a horrendous move on Chicago’s part.
OKC could’ve stopped there, but the team then signed Isaiah Hartenstein to shore up a frontcourt in need of size and strength. He was coming off a career year with the Knicks, and was the ideal rim protecting big man to pair with Holmgren. Dallas’ size very easily overwhelmed OKC, so the Thunder signed Hartenstein to ensure that wouldn’t happen again.
With the addition of Caruso and Hartenstein the Thunder not only strengthened their weak spots, they improved in every other category across the board. They won 68 games this season, Gilgeous-Alexander won MVP, Williams earned All-Star status. Dort and Williams were All-Defensive selections. For much of the regular season the Thunder coasted, especially against Eastern Conference teams (they went an absurd 29-1 against the East). They finished the season with the fifth-best offense in NBA history.
So now here we are, the Thunder coasted through most of the postseason and are on the doorstep of winning the franchise’s first championship — sorry we’re not counting the Seattle history here. Oklahoma City may feel like an inevitable force right now, but it took several years and many calculated moves to get here. This wasn’t luck, the Thunder got here because of excellent asset management, top-tier scouting and talent recognition and a front office led by Sam Presti that continuously makes the right roster moves at every turn.
Now all those years of playing the long game are finally paying off. What should be most terrifying for the rest of the league is that regardless of how this season ends, the Thunder still have a bunch of draft capital from all those trades to continuously get better.