As the blue and orange streamers rained down from the Paycom Center rafters on Wednesday, the celebration ensued. The Oklahoma City Thunder won its second-ever Western Conference Championship, sending the Thunder to its first NBA Finals since 2012.
On June 5, the Finals begin inside the Paycom Center, marking the best chance in franchise history for the Thunder to win its first NBA Championship. That isn’t saying much, this is just the second time for the Bricktown Ballers to take this stage. This time, the Heat, featuring a desperate LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, will not be waiting for them. Instead, either the No. 4-seeded Indiana Pacers or the No. 3-seeded New York Knicks stand in its way.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were dominant this season, winning 68 games in the regular season before sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies, knocking off the Denver Nuggets in seven games and making quick work of the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games en route to the Finals.
This has been a continuation of the Thunder’s historic season. With the best defense the league has ever seen, a top-three player in the world and a top-to-bottom roster that is deeper than what the NBA has to offer.
The Thunder are not supposed to be here this fast. OKC is the youngest team in the playoff field and the second youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history, only ahead of last year’s Thunder squad.
All season long, Oklahoma City had to deal with doubts and questions surrounding this roster. Were they ready for the moment? Could a 24-year-old be a second option on a title team? What happens when the big bad West takes games seriously, as the Thunder did all year long? The Thunder passed these quizzes with flying colors, with just one final exam remaining.
This puts the ahead-of-schedule Thunder in a unique position. Of course, Oklahoma City is only going to get better as the rest of its roster hits its prime. However, it is never guaranteed to break this right for the Thunder again, given its postseason injury luck and talent gap in the Finals. That puts plenty of pressure on this best-of-7 set starting on June 5.
However, the OKC Thunder are not going anywhere. While the same dismissive pundits who spent the 2024-25 campaign doubting the Thunder’s attempt to fearmonger about the impending doom of the CBA, they miss the forest for the trees.
Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren are not even on their second NBA contracts yet, key contributor Cason Wallace can barely buy himself a beer legally and Sam Presti worked intimately with the powers that be crafting this new CBA. Oklahoma City owns the currency of basketball put in place by these new rules: Draft picks and plenty of them.
No team is better equipped than Oklahoma City to handle the raft of the League’s new landscape. Not to mention, questioning the Thunder’s willingness to pay the tax is rooted in ridiculous falsehoods rather than reality. Not only has OKC paid top dollar for teams of yesteryear (Including ones that were ousted in the first round) but they have also been planning on the bill coming due on this core for years. On top of built-in revenue of a new stadium –– paid for by the fans –– and the NBA’s upcoming expansion.
It is too soon for dynastic talks, that has to wait for at least a couple of weeks, but with the entire roster under contract for the 2025-26 season, these Thunder are no flash in the pan.
Oklahoma City will be a force for years to come. Not only is this young roster still coming of age in the NBA, but they have the resources to continue to retool their top-notch group.
No one knows how the NBA Finals will play out –– at the moment, no one knows who is flying into Oklahoma City for Game 1 –– but this is an arrival for the Thunder, not a curtain call.
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