Are the OKC Thunder old enough to win in the playoffs?
It might be tiring to see this information again, but the Thunder are still just the third-youngest team in the league.
Being young, at least in the post-season, has some great caveats. Maturity will be questioned for the Thunder when pushes come to shoves in the playoff stage.
The Thunder’s most veteran player, Gordon Hayward, has not played a game for the team yet. Three of the Thunder’s regular starters have not even played in the playoffs. Those two remaining starters have only played in the playoff stage in a peculiar, pandemic-induced crowdless setting.
The star in forefront of the Thunder, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has only been to a playoff game 13 times in his career.
At about an average age of 24, the young Thunder are an anomaly among championship-contending teams. The last time a team this young won a title was in 1976 when the youthful Portland Trail Blazers defied the odds.
As good as they look today, the Thunder are not the type of team that wins titles in the NBA.
But expecting them to win the title is dismissive of the fact that they have sown seeds for something great for the OKC franchise. Perhaps time will tell if the title will ever come to fruition.