OKC Thunder: Opponent lessons to help structure next era of the franchise
Northwest Division:
Of the six divisions in the NBA, the Northwest has been the least successful in claiming the big prize. To wit, only one team (Blazers) in the group has won a title and the five teams have a total of seven appearances in finals with Portland claiming three of those.
And yet, some of the most successful franchises are in this group. Only the Wolves have struggled to find an identity or sustain success and even they appear committed to turning over a new leaf with a youthful and talented group in place for this coming campaign.
Excluding the Wolves, the other four teams reached the postseason a total of 34 out of the 48 opportunities they had in these last 12 seasons.
Denver Nuggets: 53 years – no titles
In the initial seven years of this franchise, the team was called the Denver Rockets. Over the last 46 years, they have been known as the Denver Nuggets. The club made one trip to the Finals and lost while still in the ABA.
In their 53 seasons, Denver has been more successful than not missing out on the postseason 18 times with the longest absence being an eight-years between 1995 and 2003.
In the 12-year segment we’re analyzing, there was a five-year hiatus bookended by consecutive playoff appearances of five and two years. In the last two seasons, the Nuggets reached the semis and conference finals.
Minnesota Timberwolves: 31 seasons – no titles
There may not be a more maligned franchise than the Timberwolves when it comes to postseason success. In their 31 seasons, the club has nine postseason trips in total. Eight of those occurred between 1996 and 2004 when Kevin Garnett was leading the team.
During the 12-year segment, we’re looking at the Wolves made a signal playoff trip. The other notable is in eight of their nine trips the Wolves lost in the first round (the 2003-04 squad was the exception).
Suffice to say this is NOT the franchise the Thunder wants to emulate during their rebuilding phase.
Portland Trail Blazers: 50 seasons – 1 title
An impressive 21 consecutive playoff appearances can be cited by the Blazers and 25 in 26 years between 1976-77 and 2002-03. The only title came in the first year of that run (1977). A five-year rebuild began at the end of this run culminating with their return to the show at the beginning of this 12-year period we’re focusing on. Portland played in three NBA Finals.
Since then the Blazers have made 10 of 12 playoffs reaching the conference finals once, semis twice, and experienced seven first-round ousts. The year Portland reached the conference finals 2018-19) included dispensing of the favored OKCThunder in the first-round. The famous Damian Lillard wave goodbye rightly or not became synonymous with the end of the Westbrook era in OKC.
Utah Jazz: 46 seasons (6 as New Orleans Jazz) – no titles
Similar to the success of the San Antonio Spurs the Jazz had an impressive 20-year consecutive run of playoff appearances. Unfortunately, that’s where the comparisons end because the great Karl Malone and John Stockton had to compete against Michael Jordan and couldn’t get past him on the two occasions the Jazz reached the NBA Finals.
Rebuilding occurred at the end of that run with Utah getting back to the postseason after missing out for three years. They undertook a more radical rebuild in the middle of this 12-year span and missed four postseasons adding Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell en route to the new era.
In this 12-year period, the Jazz has seven playoff appearances making three semi-finals and exiting after the first-round the other four occasions. One of their semi-final appearances came courtesy of defeating the OKC Thunder in the 2017-18 season. This was Paul George’s first year with the Thunder and is arguably the worst playoff performance series by OKC.