The top ten biggest villains in OKC Thunder history
If you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies, you don’t become a Western Conference powerhouse without encountering a few villains.
The Oklahoma City Thunder has only been in existence since the 2009 season. But in that short time, the franchise has maintained tremendous success. They’ve reached the playoffs in eight of the past nine years, reached the Western Conference Finals four times, and the NBA Finals once. Of course, during this run, the Thunder have come across their fair share of villains. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to list the top ten villains in OKC Thunder history. Before we get to the list, I have a few personal rules.
Rule 1:
This list is only contains players. There will be no media members, owners, fans, or anyone else like that. Sorry, Mark Cuban haters.
Rule 2:
This isn’t a “Who were the best superstars that beat the Thunder” list. If that were the case, LeBron James would be number one. If it weren’t for LeBron feeling the need to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the Thunder win the title in 2012.
A more controversial omission based on this rule is Klay Thompson. Yes, his berserk game six performance in the 2016 West Finals arguably changed not only the Thunder’s trajectory, but also the entire league. But he isn’t on the list for a couple of reasons. First, Thompson is arguably the most likable of the Warriors stars. It’s basically between him and Steph Curry.
The only difference is Klay isn’t nearly the showoff Curry is. He just goes about his business with the same facial expression no matter what the situation is. Second, there can only be so many villains from one team. SPOILER ALERT! This list contains two current/former Warriors. This isn’t a Warriors hate post. There’s plenty of other content on this site for that.
Rule 3:
This list does not contain any former Thunder players. Now this rule does have one exception. ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT! It’s not Kevin Durant. Why not? Here’s how I look at it. Ask yourself this. Let’s say KD never existed. Do you think the Thunder would be in the same place they are today with Al Horford, Mike Conley, or whoever else they would have drafted?
Or even worse, what if the Blazers selected Durant first overall and the Thunder ended up with Greg Oden? Would you like that? Would you want to erase all the incredible memories just to prevent the hurt of him leaving? Yeah, didn’t think so.
So that’s basically it. The list goes in ascending order, from 10-1, meaning the first person is the least villainous while the last person on the list is the most. Let’s get started.