Like it or not, the OKC Thunder are one of the true elite teams currently in the association.
Coming off a historic top-seeded 2023-24 campaign, Oklahoma City has hit the ground running during these early stages of their follow-up run.
From their third-best record in the entire league at 19-5 to the truly elite defensive efforts they've been putting forth on a nightly basis, coach Mark Daigneault has his club firing on all cylinders through 24 games played in 2024-25.
Yet, despite their tremendous successes, the Thunder still seem to be getting overlooked from a publicity standpoint.
Excluding NBA TV, thus far OKC has had just six of their games be nationally broadcast and, coming into the season, were found outside of the top-10 in such games on their schedule at a mere 15 in total.
To put just how peculiar this situation is into perspective, with this figure, they trail the 7-16 Philadelphia 76ers (19), the 13-11 Minnesota Timberwolves (18), and the 13-11 Milwaukee Bucks (17).
Fortunately, now roughly two full months into the season it appears the league is starting to realize their erroneous oversight, as they recently had two future games be flexed to a nationally televised broadcast.
While some may view this as positive and uplifting news break, as it shows the NBA is taking notice of the Thunder, for Isaiah Hartenstein this uptick in national attention has been long overdue.
Isaiah Hartenstein speaks out on recent nationally televised Thunder flex
During Oklahoma City's pre-NBA Cup Semifinal media session Friday, the Thunder big was asked to weigh in on the team's recently flexed broadcast schedule. In response, the big man was quite blunt while suggesting their play this season certainly warrants the increase in airplay.
"We're number one in the West, we should be on TV more. I think the NBA kind of saw it, giving us two more games. It's another opportunity to show ourselves, another opportunity to play in front of a different crowd, play in front of national TV," Hartenstein said.
Of course, despite the big man's "about dang time" type of reaction, overall he did admit that he was excited about the new games being moved to the national spotlight.
As the report currently stands, the Thunder will find their January 8 and January 16 matchups against the Cleveland Cavaliers being aired on ESPN and TNT, respectively, giving the two top seeds in the league the attention that is rightfully theirs for the taking.
Hopefully, as the season progresses Oklahoma City fans will see more games be flexed into these more enviable slots.
Until then, however, this recent reshuffling serves as a tiny yet significant win for surging small markets teams.