The Oklahoma City Thunder‘s loss on Saturday marks the fifth in their last six matchups against the Golden State Warriors. That being said, had it not been for an uncharacteristic display of ineptitude from Kevin Durant in the dying seconds of regulation, the Thunder would have come out with the W. The outcome of the game was symbolic of the Thunder’s shortcomings over the past several seasons; they played great basketball with the best of the best and their stars showed why they are considered among the league’s elite. Yet in the end they couldn’t get the job done. Close used to be acceptable in OKC; now it’s just getting old.
After making it to the Western Conference Finals in 2011, many pundits were raising the speculative dynasty questions that are being asked about the Warriors today. It wasn’t a matter of if the Thunder would win a championship, but rather how many. But alas, here the Thunder are in 2016 with the same core and no titles and relatively faint title hopes compared to seasons past.
Some might disagree with the notion that the Thunder’s title hopes are slim this season since they are 41-18 after all, but in order to make it to the promised land they will have to go through the San Antonio Spurs and the Warriors without home-court advantage. So it’s not necessarily so much that the Thunder have regressed, but rather it’s that the other contenders have gotten better while the Thunder have remained relatively stagnant.
The big question thus looms: What happens if the Thunder fall short again this postseason?
The historical rhetoric has been to tweak the supporting cast around KD and Russell Westbrook. But unfortunately there is no guarantee KD sticks around this offseason. Now just think about that for a second… OKC without KD. What does that really mean? Well, probably two things. One, they would no longer be true contenders (they didn’t even make the playoffs last year when KD went down). And two, Westbrook would probably become the No. 1 overall pick in just about every fantasy basketball draft next season. Now we all know Westbrook loves to put up his fair share of shots, but how happy would he truly be knowing that he’s alone in OKC? Would he really be satisfied just putting up glorious stats without really contending (a la Tracy McGrady)? This is an important question to consider, because Westbrook is a free agent in 2017.
If KD and/or Westbrook both left OKC, the true viability of this small market Midwest franchise would be put to the test. Realistically, there would be little hope of attracting any franchise caliber talent on the free agent market without the lure of playing with KD/Westbrook. We already saw Pau Gasol scoff at the idea of living in the Midwest when he was being recruited as a free agent two years ago. It wouldn’t be shocking to see other stars share a similar sentiment going forward. And with oil prices being where they are right now, OKC residents may choose to allocate any discretionary income they have towards other entertainment worth watching if their stars left.
Needless to say, times are tense in OKC.
