An earthquake that rattled Las Vegas on July 5, 2019 suspended play for the night at NBA Summer League. Hours later, another seismic event altered the direction of the NBA in ways that were not immediately recognized.
The Oklahoma City Thunder traded Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the focus of the deal was George joining Kawhi Leonard on the Clippers.
Gilgeous-Alexander had just finished an encouraging rookie season and, as part of the deal, the Thunder acquired multiple first-round picks, including the Clippers’ 2022 first-round pick that turned into Thunder All-Star Jalen Williams.
Six years after the Thunder acquired Gilgeous-Alexander and three years after they selected Williams with the No. 12 overall pick in the 2022 draft, the Thunder are NBA champions with Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams excelling throughout the regular season, playoffs and NBA Finals.
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The Thunder defeated the Indiana Pacers 103-91 in Game 7 on Sunday, June 22, putting their historical mark on a season that included 68 regular-season victories, 16 playoff victories and the Thunder’s first NBA title since moving to Oklahoma City from Seattle in 2008.
Williams, who in each Finals game gained more confidence in his ability to score from where he wanted, averaged 23.6 points against the Pacers and scored 40 in Game 5 and 20 in Game 7.
The team was meticulously assembled by Thunder executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti. The Thunder feature two All-Stars, talented young players, savvy veterans – they’re a team that has offensive and defensive versatility. Presti brought in a then-early-30s-something and open-minded assistant head coach named Mark Daigneault from the Florida Gators men’s basketball team to coach Oklahoma City’s G League team in 2014. He became the Thunder’s head coach in 2020.
‘I’m just so happy for the guys,’ Daigneault said. ‘This is an uncommon team. This is a great team. All the boxes that this team checked this season, it’s an historic team. But there’s no guarantee you end it the way that we did. … I was just so thrilled that we were able to get that done and they get to experience this because they deserve it.
‘The way they approach it, the professionalism, competitiveness, team-first nature, I wanted it so bad for them.’
Oklahoma City is the second-youngest team to win a championship in the past 70 seasons, with an average age of 25.6 years old. The Thunder were No. 1 defensively and No. 3 defensively during the regular season and that carried over to the playoffs.
‘We prioritize winning,’ Gilgeous-Alexander said. ‘We don’t prioritize anything else in this game. We want to win and we want to win on the highest level. That looks like something new every night, every opponent, every arena. That’s all we focused on this whole season, no matter if it was Game 1, Game 45, Game 105. We prioritized winning. Because we did so, we won on the highest level. …
‘The most impressive part is the group that did it. Our togetherness on and off the court (and) how much fun we have, it made it so much easier. It made it feel like we were just kids playing basketball. It was so fun.’
This is the vision Presti had when he started a rebuild. Already one of the game’s premier executives – he was named 2024-25 NBA Executive of the Year – Presti wanted a team that can compete for a championship season after season. The Thunder have been building toward this moment for years.
In Daigneault’s first season in 2020-21, the Thunder went 22-50, then 24-58, 40-42, 57-25, and 68-14 this season.
‘There were very early flickers,’ Daigneault said. ‘Even in those early years, those were challenging years at different times. Certainly they looked like challenging years on paper. How it felt every day was not a reflection of our record or where our standing was in the league. You could feel that something was starting to simmer. You could feel that some of the seeds we were planting were going to be flowering at some point. There were very early indications of that even in those seasons.
‘We were confident, even back then, not necessarily that we’d be in the Finals right now. You never know the timing of when things come together. But we were confident that we were building something special and something that had the ability to sustain.’
It came together this season. For a group that had not advanced beyond the second round, the Thunder earned their title. They trailed the Denver Nuggets 1-0 in the Western Conference semifinals and needed to win Game 7 to reach the conference finals, where they handled the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games.
Oklahoma City dropped Game 1 to the Pacers and Game 3. It trailed 2-1 in the series and won the next two games. It fell in Game 6 but won another winner-take-all contest at home.
‘We’ve gone through a lot of new experiences together. Haven’t pretended that we’re more experienced than we are,’ Daigneault said. ‘We’ve tried to lean on the things that we know have made us successful and put us in this position.’
It helps to lean on Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams, two of the league’s best young players. Gilgeous-Alexander’s 72 points through the first two games against the Pacers were the most ever by a player in his first two career Finals games. In Game 4, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 of his 35 points in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter – the most points in the final five minutes of regulation of an NBA Finals game since 1971. In Game 5, he became the first player to have at least 30 points, 10 assists and four blocks in a Finals game since blocks became an official stat in 1973-74.
‘It comes down to the moments and who is willing to make winning plays on both ends of the floor,’ the 26-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander said. ‘I relish those moments, love the moments, good or bad. When I was a kid shooting at my driveway, I’d count down the clock for those moments. Now I get to live it. It’s a blessing, it’s fun, and I relish it.’
Williams, 24, was an All-Star and All-NBA selection for the first time in his three-year career. He improved and became more difficult to defend as the series progressed. He had 40 points, six rebounds and four assists in Game 5 – the fifth-youngest player to score 40 or more in a Finals game behind Magic Johnson, Rick Barry, Russell Westbrook and Jerry West.
‘My biggest thing is just stepping into the moment, success or fail, just kind of living with the results,’ Williams said. ‘I put a lot of work into my game, so I just go out there and play. I just don’t want to ever play a game and look back where I wasn’t aggressive, afraid to do a move.’
The Thunder are not a two-man show and that was by design. Chet Holmgren, Lu Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, Kenrich Williams and Isaiah Joe provided the Thunder with what Daigneault called ‘optionality.’
In Game 2, Gilgeous-Alexander, Caruso, Williams, Wiggins and Holmgren became the first set of five teammates since the 2019 Raptors to score at least 15 points each in a Finals game. Caruso, in Game 4, was the first player to record at least 20 points and five steals in a Finals game since steals became an official stat in 1973-74. Time and time again, the Thunder had a player deliver when necessary.
Wiggins’ five 3-pointers in Game 2, Holmgren’s 14 points and 15 rebounds in Game 4, Wallace’s three 3s in Game 5 and Dort’s relentless defense for the entire series. Holmgren added 18 points, eight rebounds and five blocks in the series finale.
‘If you followed our team throughout the season, I think you know that flexibility and adaptability is the only constant,’ Daigneault said. ‘We’re never staying the same. … Our rotation night to night in these series has been incredibly variant. We think that’s a strength of our team.’
And the Thunder should be championship contenders for the next several seasons. Yes, the league changes quickly, and there hasn’t been a repeat champion since Golden State in 2017-18. That’s seven different champions in seven seasons in this new era of competitive balance in the NBA.
But the Thunder can have the same roster back next season, and with savvy financial planning, they can keep Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, Holmgren, Caruso, Wiggins and Wallace through at least 2027-28 and possibly for a few seasons after that. Plus, they have a stockpile of first-round draft picks available for roster improvements.
It is difficult to build a dynasty in today’s NBA. The roster restrictions and financial penalties limit what teams can do. Surveying the NBA landscape, the Thunder are in position to make it happen.
‘I haven’t even thought that far ahead,’ Gilgeous-Alexander said. ‘But yeah, we definitely still have room to grow. That’s the fun part of this. So many of us can still get better. There’s not very many of us on the team that are in our prime or even close to it.
‘We have a lot to grow, individually and as a group. I’m excited for the future of this team. This is a great start, for sure. … Couldn’t have imagined it any other way.’
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