Last season was a historic one for the Oklahoma City Thunder, with the team finally winning their first NBA Championship behind a deep core and MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. With most of that core (Williams, Holmgren, Dort, Caruso, Wallace, Gilgeous-Alexander) locked up for the foreseeable future, the expectation around the league is that this team could turn into a dynasty.
That is the belief in Oklahoma City too, with Shai seemingly taking his game to a new level early in 2025/26, and even in a brutal Western Conference, they're optimistic of another title run. When addressing last season's run however, SGA states he wasn't happy with how they won, and believed that they weren't playing their best basketball despite the results.
“Honestly speaking, I didn’t like the way we won, if that makes sense… I didn’t think we won an NBA championship playing our best basketball… We were definitely more dominant in the regular season than the postseason… And for me, as well — as a player, I don’t think I was as good in the postseason as I was in the regular season.”
That comes despite the Thunder defeating Memphis, Denver, Minnesota and ultimately Indiana, all teams that were loaded with star power and fantastic depth.
Ultimately, it's unclear how the Thunder are going to take their game to the next level, but if they won the NBA Championship last year without being at their best, if they can find that best, there's no reason why they can't go back-to-back in 2026.
