Jayson Tatum slights Thunder with 2025 NBA Finals prediction

Last season, the OKC Thunder established themselves as a legitimate threat in the NBA what with their 57-win, top-seeded finish on the year and by clinching their first semifinal berth in nearly a decade.

Now, heading into 2024-25, many are projecting this young and promising ball club will take a drastic leap forward in their trajectory, with oddsmakers anointing them with the second-best odds of winning this year's NBA Finals.

Of course, not everyone is unanimously high on Oklahoma City's title chances.

In fact, Celtics star and recently established NBA Champion, Jayson Tatum doesn't even believe Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and company will make their way out of the Western Conference this coming campaign, as he went about and shared his prediction for how next year's championship round will shape up during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show.

Jayson Tatum predicts Thunder will fall short of NBA Finals in 2024-25

Pressed by host Jimmy Fallon to say which two teams will be in the NBA Finals this coming season, Tatum revealed that he believes recent history will end up repeating itself.

"It's going to be a rematch. [The Celtics are] going to play Dallas again," Tatum said.

As fans are almost certainly already aware, the Mavericks were the team that ultimately sent Oklahoma City home in the second round of the playoffs last season, as they knocked out the top seeds in six games, the final of which turned into an absolute action-packed, down-to-the-wire classic.

Though it may be easy for someone like Tatum to believe his Celtics will end up running it back against Dallas in 2025, when looking at how much this Thunder team has improved during the offseason it's hard not to see them as the frontrunners to take home the Western Conference crown.

During these last few months, GM Sam Presti has been one of the most active executives in the entire association, as he's worked tirelessly to keep the vast majority of last year's core intact while addressing glaring rotational sore spots along the way.

Easily the two biggest weaknesses for the 2023-24 OKC squad were their lack of size and backcourt shooting.

Thanks to the front office's wheeling and dealing ways this offseason, they seemingly managed to find solutions to both of these issues what with the signing of 7-foot, 249-pound big Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency and acquiring elite 3-and-D veteran Alex Caruso via trade with the Chicago Bulls back in June.

With these talented ballers being incorporated into a rotation already consisting of a top-tier superstar in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two budding stars in Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, and a bevy of already established, high-end role players like Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, Jaylin Williams, and Cason Wallace, it seems as though the Thunder are as close to a perfectly assembled roster as a team can be.

At the very least, they're in the conversation for being the deepest team in the association and are without question going to be a serious threat to win the Western Conference Finals and, in turn, have Tatum's rematch projection blow right up in his face.