OKC is back and looking to compete for championships with a strong young core and a devoted fan base. Remember the last time they were feeling this hopeful?
Wait, the Oklahoma City Thunder are back?! I didn’t think I’d ever see them be competitive again in my lifetime after what the Golden State Warriors did to their franchise years ago.
Recall that back in June of 2018, the Dubs had just romped through the NBA for their third championship and parade party in four years. Along the way there, they broke the will of multiple franchises, using their opponent’s shattered dreams as stained glass for the cathedral of the Golden Empire.
One of those destroyed teams happened to be the Oklahoma City Thunder, who went from an NBA Finals appearance to marooned in a sea of irrelevance after blowing a 3-1 lead in the 2016 Western Conference Finals to the Dubs and losing their best player Kevin Durant to those same goshdarned Warriors.
Recall that in that high memorable ‘16 season, the Warriors and Thunder would clash a total of ten times. The Warriors swept the regular season 3-0, including one of the greatest games in NBA history: an overtime thriller when Steph Curry tied the record for most threes in a game. Oh yeah, he also hit the game winner from 50 miles away and Crip-Walked on their court.
When the two teams met in the Western Conference Finals, the seething Thunder morphed into the toughest opponent the Warriors have faced to date. The Thunder bullied and out-executed the Warriors to seize a 3-1 lead in a series full of highlight reel plays and nut kicks. Westbrook also made sure to mock the Unanimous MVP Curry’s defense after Game 5.
The two-headed monster of Westbrook and Durant ran out of gas trying to close the casket on the Dubs, and the Warriors clawed out of the grave with all-time great performances.
The Warriors overcame the Thunder in an epic seven games bloodbath. Although the Warriors had seized the mantle as the future of the league, the Thunder were right on their heels. After the champs fell in seven games to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 Finals, Andre Iguodala emphatically said the Thunder were the best team the Warriors had faced that postseason. With both teams boasting a young core, the Thunder threatened to vie for the Western crown for the forseeable future.
Except, the Thunder ran out of time. Durant had witnessed the glory of the burgeoning Golden Empire, and was ready to start a new chapter. The “Slim Reaper” shocked Westbrook, the Thunder, and the world by joining the Golden State Warriors.
KD was baptized into the Splash and was assimilated to create the “Hamptons 5”: the “most diabolical five-man unit in basketball”.
The Warriors ended up with four championships over the last decade, with Kevin Durant winning two NBA Finals MVP’s. The Thunder claimed zero rings in that time span.
But kudos to the Thunder for stockpiling draft picks and cultivating young talent. They are the Western Conference’s #1 seed(!) this year, winning 57 games, their first time crossing the 50-win threshold since KD’s final season in OKC.
And now that they have a 2-0 lead in the first round over the New Orleans Pelicans, we may be witnessing the full rebirth of the Thunder as championship contenders from the ashes of what the Warriors did to them years ago.