Since starting the season on a historic 24-1 pace, the Oklahoma City Thunder have gone just 13-9 over their last 22 games since then. As their struggles mount, this team is learning one very crucial thing: That the teams who truly contend for a championship often have health on their side, and the Thunder are lacking that advantage at the moment.
OKC went over a full month to start the season before Jalen Williams was cleared to return to the court (you can argue they've been better without him). Since then, they've had other important role players like Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso miss time as well. The fact of the matter is that the impact of guys being out of the lineup is often far from insignificant.
There's a relatively obvious comparison to be made here. The 2023-24 Thunder hadn't yet brought Hartenstein or Caruso into their locker room yet, and that team was a step below the squad that won a championship last season. They weren't even able to make a conference finals appearance.
It was obvious that adding those guys took Oklahoma City to a new level. So it also shouldn't be a surprise that the times this season where the Thunder have been without them, this has looked like a different team altogether.
It doesn’t surprise me that when OKC is without Hart and AC, they look more like a 23/24 team than the 24/25 championship team, and it shouldn’t surprise you either.
— All Things Thunder (@all_things_OKC) January 25, 2026
Those guys were brought in for a reason to address some very specific problems.
The Thunder have struggled with key role players injured
After their loss to the Mavericks in the playoffs in May 2024, the Thunder knew they had to address some real problems on their roster. Hartenstein and Caruso shored up the areas of rebounding and perimeter defense, among other things. So this team struggling when it's without them lines up very well with what we should expect.
And overall, this just points us back to the fact that teams who have injury trouble like this in the regular season simply have a tougher road ahead of them when it comes to actually winning a championship. Oklahoma City can still repeat as champions, but the margin for error at the top is truly razor-thin.
Championship-caliber teams are never defined by their talent alone. Intangibles matter so much. Availability of your entire roster, continuity, and synergy between players all play huge parts in determining how far a team will go regardless of how good their best players are.
When they're whole, this version of the Thunder is still extremely hard to stop. If they can regain health and stabilize their rotation before the postseason arrives, the version of OKC that dominated early in the season can still show up. The challenge will be making sure it shows up when it matters most.