Last season, the OKC Thunder saw a large chunk of its core rotation get absolutely ravaged by injuries, with key figures like Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and Jaylin Williams all missing north of 20 contests during their 82-game regular season stretch as a result.
Here in 2025-26, it's essentially been more of the same, with a number of top-shelf contributors receiving long-lasting chomps from the injury bug.
Things have gotten so bad, in fact, that Dan Woike of The Athletic recently revealed that the league is now investigating Oklahoma City for the number of player absences they had during last week's nationally televised matchup against the San Antonio Spurs.
OKC Thunder under investigation for recent player absences
In the February 4 face-off against their budding rival, the Thunder rolled out just eight healthy players, three of whom are on two-way deals.
Notable participants missing from the affair: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (abdominal strain), Jalen Williams (hamstring strain), Chet Holmgren (back spasms), Ajay Mitchell (abdominal strain), Lu Dort (right patellofemoral joint inflammation), Isaiah Hartenstein (corneal
abrasion), and Alex Caruso (right adductor management).
Though the league is looking into this particular occasion, the truth of the matter is Oklahoma City has been dealing with unfortunate health-related absences since the beginning of the campaign.
J-Dub missed the first five weeks of action while rehabbing from offseason wrist surgery; Isaiah Joe missed the first five games with a knee contusion; Caruso and Dort have been revolving in and out of the lineup all year with varying ailments; and Gilgeous-Alexander was just recently diagnosed with an abdominal injury that's slated to keep him out through the All-Star break.
They've been decimated to the point that they literally have registered the second-most games lost to injury this year.
Frankly, even though seeing less than ten active players on the Thunder may have been a bit shocking at first, considering all of this context, coupled with the fact that they were playing their third game in four nights, and were in a third different city during this stretch when heading into the bout against San Antonio, it's not hard to see the legitimate reasonings behind their shallow bench.
Hopefully it won't be long for the NBA to realize this themselves.
Interestingly enough, this report comes out on the same day that Jalen Williams is slated to make his return to the hardwood for a nationally televised game against the Lakers after being shelved for the last 10.