There are some great young teams around the NBA. San Antonio will be a problem for a long time, Detroit is building something thrilling around Cade Cunningham, Atlanta has been scorching hot for a while, Charlotte has been one of the best teams in the league since Christmas.
When the Oklahoma City Thunder are fully healthy — like they are now, for essentially the first time all year — they still tower over every other team in the league, young or old. Yes, the Spurs are looming (and we all know the Thunder have had some problems against Wemby and Co. this season) but the Thunder won 68 games, then a ring, then were still the best team in the league all of this season despite missing their second-best player for over 50% of their games.
When people talk about a "championship hangover," I don't think they mean the defending champs' net rating drops from 12.7 to... 11.1. Sure, it's worse, but it really couldn't get any better than last year. This year's team is still more than three points per 100 possessions better than anyone else. That's not small potatoes. It's big potatoes.
You can believe that a team playing Harrison Barnes and Luke Kornet every night can topple the Thunder in the playoffs if you want. I'm not there quite yet, no matter how good the Spurs' starting lineup is.
A healthy Thunder team is likely still unbeatable in 2026
And fans have known this all along. The slog of an 82-game season has ups and downs, but there have been so many more ups than downs for this Thunder team — even with a bevy of injuries to massively important players — that it's not irrational to say the league runs through OKC until someone does something to prove otherwise.
Along with Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein has missed almost half the season, and Thunder fans know how crucial he is to everything this team does. Ajay Mitchell started breaking out, got hurt, came back, and continues his breakout.
You can trust me, Thunder nation, as I am but a fan of the league! I have no biases!
Fans of most NBA teams say just wait until we're fully healthy, then we'll show you how good we are. But the Thunder are so much better than every one else that it causes folks to think a fully healthy version of the team will somehow be worse. I don't think that. At all. I think that getting an All-NBA player back in time for the playoffs is a good thing!