Entering the season, it feels like the Oklahoma City Thunder have become one of the national media’s darlings.
Building one of the best young cores over the last few drafts and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s graduation to superstardom have made the Thunder a popular pick as a breakout candidate this season.
According to Bill Simmons, he believes the Thunder could be a top-four seed, which would be a major jump from last season’s No. 10 finish with a 40-42 record.
Simmons spoke about his thoughts on the Thunder in his latest podcast episode.
“I have them fourth in the West right now. …
They were 40-42 last year. So last year, no Chet at all. SGA missed 14 games and Jalen Williams came on second half of the year. And once that started happening, he just immediately moved in with Giddey, with SGA, where you’re like, ‘Oh, these three pieces all make sense next to each other (and) now add Chet.’
They have this team where SGA is 25. Josh Giddey turned 21 this week. Dort is somehow 23, which I don’t fully understand, I think he turns 24 this season. JDub is 22. Chet’s 21. Wallace, who they just drafted, he’s 19 or 20. The other Jaylin Williams is 21 and Tre Mann is 22.
So this is like a crazy young team and that’s why you would ding them.
2010 OKC — KD was 21, Russ was 21, Harden was 20, Ibaka was 20 and Green was 25. That team jumped from 23 wins in ’09 to 50 in 2010. If you’re making the case for, ‘OKC is gonna be a lot better than people realize.’ Could you get to 50-51 (wins) this year and then a year from now, you’re 55-56? That’s what I have in my head. … I don’t think it’s unrealistic.”
How good can the Oklahoma City Thunder be in 2023-24?@BillSimmons explains to @KevinOConnorNBA why he’s slamming the over on OKC’s win total this season.
Presented by @FDSportsbook. pic.twitter.com/Ko09ZJLgvC
— The Ringer (@ringer) October 11, 2023
These are pretty high remarks from Simmons, who Thunder fans are notoriously not the biggest fan of. Nonetheless, the message here is more important than the messenger. The argument made is pretty sound in terms of OKC’s young core ceiling but expecting 50-plus wins this season might be too tall of a task.
