The OKC Thunder Are About To BLOW IT Again

The OKC Thunder Are About To BLOW IT Again

The Thunder have proven themselves to be the real deal this season they’re one of the youngest teams in the league fighting for first in the Western Conference amongst some serious competition such as the Nuggets or Clippers Chad hren has been amazing for his rookie campaign starting his career

Off as an absolute sniper from three shooting 39% on four attempts per game he’s also just generally fluid with his moves at 7′ 1 and has proven to be able to use that to score with ease you can’t complain about his defense either as he’s actually been a block Menace this

Year and once he gets a bit stronger should be able to pose a threat to anyone considering his length SGA has been playing at an MVP level leading his team in scoring currently putting up 31 points per game most importantly he’s grown as a team- centered creative guard

And if the offense ever breaks down he’s able to secure a good look all this being done on a team where the ball is a hot commodity considering the rest of the talent on the team with guys like Jaylen Williams Josh Giddy and now Hired Gun Gordon Hayward the Thunder are not

Only good right now with young players but have by far the most bright future in the league given their large cash of picks this includes three first rounders in the 2024 draft four first rounders in 2025 and three first rounders in 2027 OKC is in a great spot but this isn’t

The first time the team has been in a position like this and first time they kind of blew it in 2012 the Thunder were an elite team they were led by 23-year-old KD featured a 23-year-old energized Westbrook as well as a 22-year-old pre- breakout Harden and

They made it all the way to the finals well they ultimately got slammed by a prime LeBron James on the heat these three players looked incredible and everyone not only thought but knew that this team was going to be up there with the best teams for years to come

Unfortunately the team felt they had to get rid of Harden as salary cap issues would eventually arise when he broke out and deserved a starting role this led to harden soon being traded to the rockets for Kevin Martin and a few first rounders in a pretty controversial trade this is laughable in hindsight

Considering Harden instantly exploded when he went to Houston It ultimately deprived NBA fans of a Durant Harden and Westbrook Leed super team and the chance to see a chip in the Durant era as we all know KD and Russ just couldn’t win with these cats similarly the 2024

Rendition of OKC is looking to be two stacked for its own good yet again but in its own way the modern Thunder are going to have to learn from the past to prevent all of this Talent on the roster from evaporating around them and leaving to other teams there’s only so much of

The ball to go around and you can’t keep five Allstars on the team even if they smash every single draft out of the park due to the Thunder already having a core that’s looking to be made up of SGA and chat they just need to surround them

With a proper team this leaves two options they can try to trade a bunch of their required draft picks do draft a trades or flip younger players to try and upgrade pieces around the two stars or they can just keep swinging for the fences in the draft year after year and

Hope they truly strike gold with some young gems that can contribute deep in playoff runs with either Choice it may lead to a lot of talent being forced to walk there’s only so much money to go around on an NBA team with the cap even if money weren’t an issue there’s only

So much of the ball to go around and nobody wants to develop in the shadow of say Chad holgren who already has potential to be a perennial Allstar as young as he is one thing that should influence the Thunder decision-making over the next few years is the fact that

In large part this thunder Squad is a homegrown team and developed naturally Jaylen Williams Chad holgren and Josh gidy were all drafted by the Thunder and Shay was only in his second year when he arrived from the PG trade if these guys are able to win together this early and

Not clash with ego issues then it would be best to prioritize letting them develop together for a few years before making any hasty decisions the ceiling for this team is absolutely through the roof with their existing core and again that’s not even mentioning the draft picks that could one day lead to some

Great players down the line a huge strength of this team is the chemistry that’s been building amongst the top talent the team is not selfish and the players are elevating each other every single game one immediate concern that the Thunder could address through either the draft or trades is their lack of a

Real long-term Center Chad offensively seems like a natural power forward and there’s even an argument to be made about defense despite this Chad is forced to play center with 65 Jaylen Williams occupying the power forward slot most Knights especially pre Hayward trades trying to develop a real Center

Could be key for this team’s success long term even if they can’t hit in the draft they could always get another higher gun like they have with Hayward to be a real forward for the team this year a true Center will allow this team to switch into matchups that better suit

Their talent on offense and allows much more flexibility the Thunder really don’t have to rush anything and can definitely experiment for a few years but if they can really hone in on an identity early it would give them a definite Advantage something the Thunder tried to do by trading James Harden and

Focusing on their two bigger Stars at the time yet failed miserably the current OKC team has a lot of promise with many of their recent draft picks turning into highquality players but older fans of the franchise who have been there since the start know that this isn’t the first time the Thunder

Have successfully been able to build to the draft as a lot of the pieces on this 2024 Thunder team do look very reminiscent to the 2012 OKC Thunder team who were on the verge of greatness only a week after drafting future MVP Russell Westbrook and serge Baka in the 2008

Draft the Seattle SuperSonics led by the ownership decided to pack their bags and head to OKC in which they would struggle in their first season that led them to acquiring the third overall pick in the 2009 draft which landed them another future MVP and Sixth Man of the Year

James Harden as the Thunder went on that season to get 55 wins and their first taste of playoff experience as this team was being led by KD who had just won his second consecutive scoring title as he was quickly becoming one of the League’s Premier players as well as Russell

Westbrook breaking out an exceeding expectations a lot faster than many thought as by his third season he was already averaging 225 and8 will running point on a deadly starting lineup and despite the core of this team looking very young they dominated in the playoffs it all the way to the Western

Conference Finals where they would match up with and be beaten by the eventual 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks but that loss was nothing to hang their heads at this team still had a lot of potential and the fact that they were here this early on was an amazing sign

So when Ser Baka took another defensive Leap Forward and Harden truly broke out and took home the Sixth Man of the Year award the following year the league was put on notice the red hot Thunder finished that shortened lockout season of 2011 in 2012 as the second seed in

The west and went on in the playoffs to sweep the same Mavs team that they had lost to the year before in the first round going on to meet the Spurs in the Western Conference finals and getting them done in six to where they would meet LeBron’s Miami Heat now at the time

You got to remember that LeBron just had a very public meltdown in last year’s playoffs with many people questioning if he was really the so-called King so it seemed poised for the Thunder to take home to Larry O’Brien and start their reign as the NBA’s newest Dynasty but as

Everyone knows that’s not what happened LeBron and dwade went absolutely crazy in the finals and made little work of the thunder in five games no worries though right this core is still very young and they have lots of years to develop together especially when they’re proven to be successful well wrong the

2012 NBA off season was dominated by James Harden talk who many NBA GMS and exec believed was deserving of a Max extension however the Thunder were not prepared to do that as a small Market team the OKC Thunder don’t really have as many options when dipping into the

Luxury taxs as say the Golden State Warriors who this year for example are well past a salary cap with no playoff hopes well that isn’t really something the OKC Thunder can afford to do and with the new CBA that came out of the negotiations of that previously mentioned lockout having some pretty

Tough penalties for dipping past his salary cap the franchise needed to be certain before going all in on their roster and possibly Harden’s lackluster performance in the 2012 playoffs LED them away from ultimately deciding to give Harden the max contract so they were forced to send him off to the

Rockets completely changing the look and fate of that Thunder team so the question is who’s going to be the James Harden of this OKC Thunder team the circumstances are the exact same a new CBA that penalizes teams in a luxury tax as well as restricting mid-season moves for exceeding certain aprons of that

Salary cap we’ve done a video breaking down the new CBA that you can check out right up here but you just need to know know for this video that it almost hinders teams from building to the draft so it would appear that the Thunder are

Going to be forced to ship off some of their pieces to avoid going into the different salary cap aprons SGA seems pretty cemented with the team getting plenty of MVP nods this year so it would have to be some massive League shifting trade that would pry shave from OKC Chad

Holr also seems pretty secure just based off his size and skill set the Thunder are going to need him going forward so that leaves Josh Giddy and Jaylen Williams kidy started at his career looking very promising but this season it seems like he’s just giving a minor effort jayen Williams on the other

Hand is a player that everyone should get to know after falling to 12th in the same draft as chat Jay dub has quickly broken out on a team that as mentioned doesn’t have enough ball to go around Jaylen has been able to show off his skill set in slight burst but we could

Quite literally be watching the non robotic kawhai Leonard in the making so if this team does want to see success they should try and avoid fumbling the bag with Jaylen like they did with Harden however this team is in desperate need of rebounding and prey has been

Hoarding those first round picks with no noise of him wanting to make any move off of them so it could be possible if the Thunder team doesn’t make a serious push this year he could just use those picks and other players to go all in on

An elite second player to pair with SGA with all this being said the red hot Thunder team do look promising now but not everything is certain look at the Grizzlies this year or would happened to the hot since they’re run in the 2021 playoffs this year will be a good litmus

Test for this young core especially SGA who hasn’t had a lot of meaningful playoff experience either way this team is very exciting and definitely one that casual fans are going to need to start watching and keeping track of if you made it this far give the video a like

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