For a long time, as Oklahoma City developed into more and more of a blank canvas in the aftermath of trading away Paul George, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and Al Horford, among others, the running joke was that the rebuilding Thunder were concerned only with stockpiling and owning as many future first-round picks as possible. That the club tucked away its eventual draft-lottery envelopes at night under a blanket in a queen-sized bed. And so on and so on.
But the reality now, as we near the end of the 2022 calendar year, is that those one-time inanimate mystery boxes are beginning to sprout and bear real, tangible fruit in the form of drives, floaters and spacing.
On Monday, the Thunder knocked off Atlanta on the road to win their third-straight contest. Aside from the victory pushing OKC to a relatively impressive 11–13 mark nearly 30% of the way through the campaign, it also marked franchise star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s seventh consecutive 30-point game. (Reminder: He’s still just 24 years of age.) The Thunder came back from 14 down to beat the Hawks, making the win the seventh time already that OKC has won a game trailing by double digits at some point in the contest—a pretty cool stat for the youngest roster in the NBA, one that signals that these youngsters simply keep playing, and show composure and resilience, after falling behind their more experienced counterparts most nights.
