The OKC Thunder took down Rick Carlisle's Pacers 132-111 on March 29th. Following their beat down, Indiana's headman had nothing but praise for his opponents, saying: "This is the best team on the planet right now. The numbers say it, the record says it, the whole thing."
Carlisle couldn't be more correct.
The Thunder are currently on a league-best 10-game winning streak and have won 17 of their last 18 matchups. This firmly puts them at the top of the league's standings, three games ahead of the next Cleveland Cavaliers (60-15), and 14.5 games ahead of the Western Conference's second-seeded Rockets (49-27).
In the wake of their history-setting month of March, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Mark Daigneault were selected as the Western Conference Player and Coach of the Month, respectively. This was the third time this season each has earned such an award and the second time the pair have done it in the same month.
This also marks the first time a player-coach duo has won the award simultaneously in multiple months during the same season since Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid did it back in 2022-2023.
Rick Carlisle's OKC Thunder take only further backed by the numbers
The Thunder currently hold claim to the all-time highest point differential with 13.36, surpassing four championship-winning teams within the top five spots.
They also own the second-highest net rating in league history, trailing only the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls.
Rounding out the remaining eight spots are six championship-winning teams, as well as the 2015-2016 Warriors and Spurs.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this success, however, is that the Thunder have been plagued with injuries for the majority of the season. Former second-overall pick Chet Holmgren suffered a right iliac wing fracture in their Nov. 7 matchup against the Warriors and was sidelined for roughly three months thereafter as a result.
The list doesn't stop there, though, as premiere offseason additions Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, and Isaiah Hartenstein have all missed large portions of the season with health-related ailments of their own.
Leading the pack in missed games, however, is OKC's 12th overall pick from the 2024 draft, Nikola Topic, who has been sidelined for the entire season with a torn ACL.
This team may have only played at full strength in short spurts this year, but they've proven themselves to be nearly unstoppable in such instances.
When the quartet of Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren, Hartenstein, and Jalen Williams are healthy for an entire game, the team is 9-0. In the 319 possessions this lineup has shared the court together, the team's effective field goal percentage shoots up to a whopping 60.8 percent, in the 99 percentile of all lineups across the association.
Given the team's historic regular season success, along with an extra year of experience, this is not the same Thunder team from the 2024 playoffs. While Gilgeous-Alexander closes in on his first MVP, the team will look to the playoffs, where they've put themselves in prime position to capture Oklahoma City's first finals victory.
So, Carlisle nailed it. This Thunder squad, as currently assembled, is the best team on the planet.
Of course, what's even scarier to think about is the fact that a fully healthy Thunder squad has the potential to be the best team of all time.