Heading into the 2024-25 campaign, the OKC Thunder are seen as a legitimate threat to the Boston Celtics in their quest to be back-to-back NBA Champions, as they sport the second-best odds of taking home the Larry O'Brien Trophy for themselves at +700.
Frankly, such a standing is far from a surprise.
Oklahoma City is coming off a historic, top-seeded finish last season where they won 57 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in nearly a decade, and managed to make themselves even more menacing this offseason with GM Sam Presti's efforts that better bolstered their roster and overall collection of talent.
When looking at the slew of exciting predictions that have been made concerning this Thunder team, with specific forecasts ranging from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander being crowned MVP to the club winning the 2025 NBA Finals, none have come as all that great of a shock.
That said, the folks at Bleacher Report recently revealed a scorching hot take for OKC coming into this new season that is generally not usually associated with legitimate championship threats.
Thunder predicted to receive a high-value lottery pick in 2025 NBA Draft
In a recent piece by the publication, seasoned writer Eric Pincus divvied out noteworthy predictions for all 30 teams in the league in 2024-25, and, interesting enough, the Thunder are being pegged as a lottery-bound squad... but not due to reasonings that are generally attached to teams with such draft stock.
Over the years, Oklahoma City has collected a substantial amount of draft capital thanks to the legendary wheeling and dealing ways of Presti and co.
In 2025 alone, the franchise is attached to five separate first-round draft rights as a result of their trading over the past several season, one of which being a pick swap with the LA Clippers.
Despite the fact that Los Angeles rosters two of the game's most storied talents in Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, and is spearheaded by perennial Coach of the Year candidate, Tyronn Lue, Pincus is far from optimistic about the club's potential, as he is predicting that they will end up missing out on playoff contention all together come year's end.
While he did note that this team would probably qualify for postseason contention if they were "at full strength," the unfortunate reality about this Clippers core is that health has rarely been on their side, especially when it relates to their primary centerpiece in Leonard who has played in over 60 games just once since 2017-18 and his availability during the early stages of this upcoming season is already being brought into question as he continues rehabbing from knee surgery.
On top of this, this summer they lost their second-best player in Paul George to free agency, as he signed with the Philadelphia 76ers for a whopping $212 million. Ironically, Oklahoma City acquired the rights to swap draft picks with the Clippers back in 2019 via the exchange that originally sent George to the City of Angels.
Now, not only did LA's all-in championship chase never come to fruition, but they could very well find their lone bright spot in a high-end draft pick stolen away from them during the first year of what very well could be the end of this particular era of Clipper basketball.