It goes without saying that the OKC Thunder are the deepest team the NBA currently has to offer.
While most ball clubs strive to have a rotation capable of dipping seven-to-nine men deep, head coach Mark Daigneault is coming off a 2024-25 campaign where he regularly rolled out rotations in the double-digit range.
Despite what casuals may believe, Oklahoma City is far more than just a three-man show of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren. Instead, they're one of the best examples of sharing the wealth and of a team excelling with the "next man up" mentality.
Without question, it's this elite level of depth that will be the legacy-defining element of their potential dynasty.
Thunder depth the defining trait of potential dynasty era
During a recent episode of The Kevin O'Connor Show, guest and former coach Steve Jones Jr. noted that, even above things like their top-shelf star power and elite defensive abilities, the "biggest strength" of this Thunder team has proven to be their ability to "shape-shift" lineup configurations thanks to their astounding depth.
"A lot of times we talk about individual matchups or versatility defensively. This was a team that had so many guys who could defend your top two perimeter players. They have all the comfort of being able to switch and have different lineups to take their bigs out of having to trap or having to be in a drop and getting poked at. I think that's what's really unique," Jones said.
Last season, the Thunder found themselves rolling out a total of 30 different starting lineups due, in large part, to widespread injury woes that lingered all the way through their eventual NBA Championship run.
Despite this constant reshuffling, they still managed to finish off the year with the best record in the entire league at 68-14 (tied for the fourth-most wins in league history) as well as the top defensive rating as a collective (106.6), while rostering two of the top-three, four of the top five, five of the top nine, and eight of the top 20 players in individual defensive rating among those who saw 50 or more games of action.
Now, interestingly enough, this kind of depth and potential to continuously tinker with lineups does not necessarily guarantee positive outcomes.
During the 2025 NBA Finals, fans saw the harm that could come with over-experimentation, as coach Daigneault surprisingly opted to swap out Isaiah Hartenstein from the starting five for the first three games in favor of a smaller-ball lineup with Cason Wallace accompanying Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort in three-guard sets.
The move ultimately resulted in the heavily favored Thunder going down 1-2 against the Pacers and, as Charles Barkley has regularly suggested, almost ended up costing them the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Fortunately, OKC came to their senses at the right time, as they switched back to the double-big lineup of I-Hart and Holmgren and, in turn, rattled off three wins in four games to secure their first championship.
Now, this is merely one example of this great luxury having hazardous, headache-inducing effects. For the most part, Oklahoma City's ability to shape-shift is overwhelmingly beneficial and, as Jones stated, "not something every team has and is hard to replicate."
At the end of the day, however, learning how to properly utilize it will wind up serving as the ultimate deciding factor as to whether the Thunder can become the game's next great dynasty, and to what level of difficulty.