Though it will take another two months of action for the OKC Thunder to potentially become just the 14 team to win back-to-back NBA Championships, as of this writing, there are only three wins that separate them from another truly historic feat.
As things currently stand, Oklahoma City finds itself sporting an NBA-best record of 62-16 with four games remaining on the regular season docket.
With this, should they be able to collect three more wins, NBC Sports' lead NBA writer Kurt Helin has revealed that it would make them only the third franchise in league history to have registered 65 or more wins in back-to-back seasons.
The only other clubs to have done so are the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls (1995-96 & 1996-97) and the Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors (2015-16 & 2016-17), two dynastic squads that this Thunder team constantly finds itself being grouped into conversations with when discussing all-time statuses.
Potential 65-win season has Thunder star in driver's seat for MVP
To Helin, this factoid alone has him convinced that superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is deserving of taking home his second-straight league MVP honor.
In the same piece where he unearthed the 65-win benchmark, Helin, along with three other sports writers and analysts, pegged the point guard as their unanimous choice to take home the illustrious Michael Jordan Trophy, with a common theme behind why being the fact that he has guided OKC to north of 60 wins despite playing without co-star Jalen Williams for the vast majority of the campaign.
Though the race for MVP has tightened up over the last few months, this piece pushed by NBC serves as the latest example that public opinion seems to be shifting back toward the Thunder cornerstone as the favorite to win the award.
ESPN's final straw poll even has Gilgeous-Alexander ultimately pulling ahead, with a projected 958 total points coming his way.
From his historically elite scoring season that finds him averaging 31.4 points per game (second-highest mark in the association) while sporting a true shooting percentage of 66.5 percent, to the fact that he's simultaneously putting forth perhaps the best defensive efforts of his career (11-best defensive rating in the NBA at 105.5), the arguments for his MVP candidacy are quite extensive.
Pairing all of his individual accomplishments on the year with Oklahoma City's ridiculous win percentage (.795) only seems to strengthen his case even more.