OKC Thunder: B/R believes ‘the hard work is finished’ with team’s tank

Coming into the season, the idea was that the OKC Thunder would be vying for the worst record in the league and, by year’s end, would be in strong contention for the top pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.

Through the first half of the campaign, this seemed to be quite a challenge as the team was exceeding expectations what with finding themselves in the running for the play-in tournament and were rolling out a lineup consisting of an arguable All-Star snub in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

However, this second half has gone more according to plan for, since the March 25th trade deadline, the Thunder have dropped eight of their nine outings and are currently in the midst of a six-game losing streak.

Now, coinciding with their delightful downfall, based on the various decisions made by the coaching staff and front office, it’s evident that the team is fully committing itself to the tank and have their eyes set on the future.

We’ve been saying for quite some time now that, in comparison to other examples of tanking teams — both past and present — Oklahoma City is seemingly ahead of schedule.

In fact, in Bleacher Report’s mind, ‘the hard work is finished’ already seems to be finished.

B/R believes the OKC Thunder are ahead of the traditional tank trajectory

For teams boasting a “tank mentality”, their main goal is to try and acquire a potential franchise cornerstone via the draft to build around for the future.

The OKC Thunder, however, already seem to have this piece in place in Gilgeous-Alexander, which is why writer Grant Hughes believes they now have the luxury of simply finding quality complementary pieces to better fill out the roster around the third-year guard:

"OKC is in the enviable position of having multiple shots to add another such player while already having one on board. With a good break or two, the Thunder’s rebuild shouldn’t take long at all.SGA is out with plantar fasciitis at the moment, and Oklahoma City won’t rush him back to play in meaningless stretch-run games. Prior to hitting the shelf, the slithery ball-handler put together an absolutely dynamite third season. With Chris Paul gone, Gilgeous-Alexander became a full-time on-ball weapon.The results speak for themselves: 23.7 points, 5.9 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game on a 50.8/41.8/80.8 shooting split. He’s one of eight players to post a true shooting percentage above 62.0 percent with a usage rate of at least 28.0 percent this season. The other seven are All-Stars and former MVPs.Gilgeous-Alexander leads the league in drives and points scored on drives per game, which simplifies OKC’s needs. It already has a devastatingly effective creator. Now it’s about filling in supporting pieces."

If you weren’t already aware, the future is blindingly bright for the OKC Thunder.

Not only do they have a 22-year-old budding star in tow who’s under his rookie contract through 2022, but they currently find themselves in possession of 34 draft picks through the year 2027, 17 of which fall within the first round.

Throughout their 13 year existence, the Thunder have found an unbelievable amount of success with their winning ways.

Now, even during losing years, they’re still finding themselves racking up victories along the way.