2018 Oklahoma City Thunder | Forgotten NBA Teams

2018 Oklahoma City Thunder | Forgotten NBA Teams

So when you think of the Oklahoma City Thunder you’re probably thinking of the young upand cominging core with Shay with Chad all the assets they have or maybe you’re thinking about that finals run they had in 2012 but people kind of forget the team sandwich in between with

Melo PG and Ross yeah it looks like at the time the Thunder did the best job possible to retool their roster after KD left but this team constantly underperformed and became another one of the most recent failed NBA super teams Before we start talking about the OKC big three poster rant please give the video a like subscribe to the channel and hit the notification Bell so you never miss out on any new videos so post Kevin Durant era the Thunder were in a tough spot after the 2016 Western

Conference confence finals they were one win away from the NBA Finals KD would dip to the Warriors Russ had his 2017 Revenge toour he won MVP but ultimately he had no help in the playoffs and he’d go down to the rockets in five that brings us to the 2017 off season Paul

George after seven years with the Pacers had finally requested a trade and we told the story a little bit in the Dame retrospective I believed wholeheartedly he was coming to the Blazers apparently reports were out that we offered three first round picks in anyone on our

Roster not named Dame CJ or nerk instead the Thunder got him they sent out Oladipo and sabonis and that was it for Paul George no picks nothing yeah at the time it looked like why didn’t they take our offer but in hindsight great deal for the Pacers so in the span of one

Year Sam pry turns Ser jab Baka in a protected first round pick into Paul George and Jeremy Grant how does he keep doing it why doesn’t he just turn water into wine while he’s at it he basically is doing that dude’s a miracle worker and the thing is he wasn’t even done

Because Carmelo Anthony won out of New York so he sent out Andis caner Doug mcder in a 2018 second for Carmelo another guy we were hoping the Blazers would get and another reason to hate this team because they got both the guys that we really wanted to come to the

Blazers they also locked up Russ to a long-term extension so just a perfect off season for the thunder so there was a ton of hype around this team going to the 2018 season Russ actually had a Supporting Cast this year they were dubb the okay3 nickname for their big three and Stephen

A said he thought they were the biggest threat to challenge the Warriors not just in the West in the entire league well Stephen A is full of nothing but good takes right oh absolutely so clearly this was going to age well and to be fair to him this actually wasn’t a

Terrible take no not it’s not a terrible take at the time it’s just with the benefit of hindsight right the league was pretty wide open but we’ll talk about what happened so before the season even kicked off of course Melo gave us a hilarious moment during media day where

He was asked just if he would be open to coming off the bench and he just responded with such a mellow response yeah the reporter is like well that basically answers that question and then he did the he P to come off the bench so you

Can tell kind of where melo’s ego was at the time and they would beat the Knicks their first game but after that they struggled Big Time won seven of their next 20 games they were tied for ninth in the west going December you had that game against the magic where Russ just

Looked defeated things were not looking great surprisingly enough in that stretch though they played the Warriors and they actually blew them out in Oklahoma City 10891 this is that very famous game where Russ and Katie were just going at it got nose to nose they were clapping in each other’s faces so I

It was clear they had Talent they just they needed some time to gel as a team you know yeah in December they really started to turn things around they went 12 and5 bringing the record up to 20 and 17 on the season and Russ was a especially great this month he was

Looking like that mvp Russ again but from there they kind of just plateaued like they’d win five games in a row then lose four of the next five and they’d end up winning 48 games only one win higher than the season prior where Russ had no help yeah and they got matched up

With the Utah Jazz in the first round a Utah team let’s me forget that was not supposed to be here at all because they had just lost Gordo in the off season who was their best player this season prior but it was rookie Donovan Mitchell

Who came out of nowhere by the way I feel like I need to bring it up Dame wanted the Blazers to draft Donovan Mitchell and we didn’t we drafted Zach Collins y classic just more trauma sprinkled in there game one in OKC the Jazz would take an early lead but Russ

And PG put an end to that they canbin for 65 points and gave the Thunder a 1 lead in the series but after that the thunder in particular their big three just fell apart yeah game two was back and forth at first but then the Jazz

Built up a small lead in the third the Thunder though spoted with a 170 run to take a five-point lead so you’re thinking all right they’re looking good they’re going to take a 20 lead and then in the fourth their big three vanished two points total on zero of 14 shooting

That’s crazy Paul George Ross and melow giving you two points in a fourth quarter and then game three and game four the Thunder would lose both games in Utah both games would start out close but then the Jazz would pull away and game four especially was getting chippy

As hell I will say as a proud of Oklahoma City Thunder hater game four was a tree to watch I had a great time watching game four and yeah it was just pull apart brawl after hard foul after pull aart brawl it even got to the point

Where the announcers were like what is going on in this game so now we’re back in OKC for game five at halftime it looked like their season was over they were down 15 going to halftime everything was looking bad but Paul George and Russ would combine for 54 in

The second half and they would keep the Thunder alive going back to Utah and Farah played Us in game six I mean the man did all he could 46 points 10 boards five assists basically single-handedly kept them alive but with the Thunder down three with 20 seconds left Paul

George Went for the foul instead of just trying to get a good shot off never do that in a playoff game regular season that’s one thing you might get the call in a playoff game they’re not giving you that call and it wasn’t a foul anyway no

It wasn’t not even close and how about Paul George in this closeout game playoff P named himself before the series Five Points on two of 16 shooting God damn that’s awful wow so overall season one with this new big three massive disappointment a preseason team that was hyped up as a

Possible like Western Conference Finals team goes down in six to a Utah Jazz team led by a rookie Donovan Mitchell Melo just regressed big time he was awful in this playoff series Paul George was getting locked up by Joe Les he was getting jingled yeah and outside of that

They really still had no depth so the 2018 offseason big question mark for the Thunder was could they resign Paul George of course for years even dating back to when he was on the Pacers there had been rumors you know he’s from Southern California played at Fresno State Lakers had money they could

Pursue multiple max players I mean it was an Open Secret they were getting LeBron but Paul George said no La I’m going to stay in Oklahoma 4 years $137 million contract of course he and Russ had that big party to celebrate I think put out pictures on Instagram of them

Like smoking cigars at the party and whatnot so you know what they got the big fish out the way but they also resigned Jeremy Grant and they resigned fat ass Raymond Fon so you know pretty successful offseason for them yeah they would also send out Carmelo Anthony to

The Hawks in a three- team deal and get back Dennis Schroeder obviously a downgrade in terms of talent but it had to be done at this stage of melo’s career his ego was still like oh I’m still a superstar level player when he really was and and schroer very annoying

In the playoffs we’ll talk about that but he was a solid player for them off the bench so they had a great off season right they basically did everything they needed to do and then they started the next season 0 and four I love that I I’d

Love it too to be fair to them Russ missed the first two games he was recovering from knee surgery no let’s not be fair to them they started 0 and four and they were terrible okay well you can be fair to them and say they completely turned things around because

They won 10 of their next 11 games and this was the season where the Thunder were not really led by Russ they were led by Paul George because he had a legit MVP type season 287 and4 in December he had a crazy game against the Nets where he scored 25 in the fourth

Quarter alone he had that game against the Jazz in February little Revenge game where he hit that floater to the Moon didn’t he have like 47 in that game too was just putting up crazy stats they swept the Blazers in the regular season but throughout that all again only

Improved their record by one win it’s a tough Western Conference out there it always is is and you just mentioned they swept the Blazers in the regular season which means they had to be confident as all hell going into the playoffs playing the Blazers who got the third seed for

His second straight year and we mentioned it again in the day retrospective but going into the series the consensus was firmly with the Oklahoma City Thunder everyone on TV everyone on Twitter I remember ESPN’s like expert predictions only one expert picked the Blazers to win only one out

Of like 20 I mean I thought the Thunder were going to win but of course you do you’re fan yeah but we were going to be at the games regardless game one of the series Blazers started out red hot OKC we able to chip away a little bit but

Clutch buckets from Dame and then Andis caner ofall players secured the win for the Blazers game two Thunder actually had a good start for this one they had a nine-point lead at one point in the second quarter this is the game where Dame and Russ were going at it on the

Sidelines but CJ hit a three at the buzzer at halftime to tie the game and then the third and fourth quarter Damon Seth Curry just started torching the Thunder hell even Myers Len got in on it a little bit in the fourth quarter yeah everyone was getting buckets at that

Point and we were hyped two lead against the Thunder a series basically everyone thought we were going to lose going into okca must win for the Thunder and Russ he did respond he had 33 and 11 he was rocking the baby on Dame pointing at him

After he hit that three hit that big three late where he was screaming at him Paul George on the other hand wasn’t great he put up 22 on awful shooting and what he did at the end of this game pissed us off he got the ball thrown up

To him and did that like double pump reverse dunk As Time expired why did he do it because he’s an I’m sure he’s not actually I’ve seen some episodes of Paul George’s podcast he seems like a lovely fellow but he was an on this day yeah

And that pissed us off and it must have pissed off the Blazers because they came out hungry in game four built up a 19point lead in the third thunder made it like a little bit interesting in the fourth but CJ would ice the game he’d

Block p George on one end and they would hit a pullup three on the other end and the Thunder once again we’re down 3-1 in the first round to a division rival to a team they were heavily favored to be yeah once again heavily favored once again they’re choking game five of

Course one of the best playoff games in recent memory especially For Us credit to the Thunder they came out playing like their season was on the line Paul George for the first time all playoffs actually looked like the MVP candidate he was all season was 7 and A2 minutes

Left in this game the Thunder had a 15-point Le lead and then like a house of cards they fell apart yeah just completely fell apart nerk showed up for us we were getting hyped the Blazers just slowly chipped away cut the lead all the way down to two CJ would respond

Tie the game with 113 with a minute left then PG and Dame would trade buckets to tie at 115 and what I don’t get is why did Russ get the final shot for them PG was cooking all game he was cooking late and Russ decided let me take just a

Heavily ass contested shot against am me you’ve been watching this guy play for what like like 15 years and you’re still asking why he’s taking dumbass shots in the clutch yeah I mean I knew why but Paul George just got to command that ball and not the other end we all know

What happens Dame tookes a step back 37 foot bomb in PG’s eye the bad shot he took to end this super team and hit the reset button for the Thunder completely you know the All-Star game was really terrible this year but the best part about it was when Dame hit basically the

Same shot on Paul George again love it and you have to wonder if Paul George had just like a brief little moment of PTSD from that oh you know he did amazing moment for us we were just estatic I don’t even know how to put it

In words but if you look back at this for the Thunder fans perspective best thing that could have possibly happened best thing that could have happened to them they flipped PG for that massive haul that included Shay they sent out Russ to the rockets and got back draft

Picks and nowadays they’re battling for the first seed in their future set and the Blazers are are stuck rebuilding getting embarrassed against the Hornets and they still have a war chest of first round picks to use yeah so it’s only been 5 years since the end of this team

When Dame ended them and they’re kind of already forgotten about imagine like 20 years down the line people are going to barely remember Paul George or really even Melo played for the Thunder yeah Russ is always going to be remembered by the OKC faithful but the Russ Paul

George Duo depending on what the Clippers do they could be more remembered as Clippers as members of the Thunder yeah for sure and Melo he played one season for the Thunder no one’s going to remember it especially because he wasn’t very good so yeah that’s going

To be like a trivia question 20 years down the line like who did Melo play for after the Knicks so what do you guys think is this one of the biggest failed super teams of the modern NBA let us know in the comments below if you enjoyed the video

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Nowadays when you think about the Oklahoma City Thunder you probably think about their young core of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holgren and Jalen Williams. Or maybe you think about their team that made the NBA finals in 2012, but the team that gets forgotten about is the one in between with their big three of Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. Today we look back at the failed OK3 super team.

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