After the Oklahoma City Thunder won the first championship in the franchise’s history, the question around the NBA has been how will the rest of the league prevent this young OKC squad from becoming the next dynasty.
The Thunder are one of the youngest teams in the league, have a clear pathway to keeping this roster together for years to come and have the kind of draft assets and young players to make aggressive moves to upgrade the roster at any time. That question came up in a recent conversation between two of the league’s greatest active players, as Kevin Durant joined LeBron James and Steve Nash for the latest episode of the Mind the Game podcast. The topic shifted to this year’s OKC team and how Sam Presti and the organization learned from the mistakes of the past with how they handled the KD-Russell Westbrook-James Harden trio to build this current iteration of the Thunder.
In discussing whether the Thunder can keep this group together in a way they did not with Durant’s OKC team, KD explained that he thinks they’ll pay what it takes this time around. The real question for the Thunder is whether their secondary stars take the necessary steps forward alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
“Shai, he gon’ be that guy for the rest of his career. What is Jalen Williams and Chet [Holmgren] gonna be? Of course they’re playing great right now, but those two guys gotta keep getting better. That’s just the facts of it,” Durant said. “Just be more consistent, and I think they will. That’s really what it is for them. The salary cap, I think they’ll pay for anything. They know they got a great team and something special ahead of them, but more than anything those two guys gotta keep stepping up and become perennial All-Stars. No doubt All-Stars every year without the benefit of having a good team. You just gotta be an All-Star flat out because you’re better than anybody.”
Durant has full faith in Gilgeous-Alexander as one of the league’s new dominant forces, but states Williams and Holmgren must continue leveling up to that All-Star level for the Thunder to truly become a dynastic force. He and Nash were quick to point out there are levels to the All-Star designation, noting they can’t just be All-Stars because the team is a 60-plus win squad, but need to be “no doubt” All-Stars, producing at a level that would get them that selection no matter what the team is doing.
LeBron’s question is more about how they handle being hunted next year rather than being the hunters, wondering if they can avoid the allure of complacency that comes with winning a championship — as well as being more skeptical they’ll be willing to pay the tax and risk the threat of the second apron when everyone is due to get paid.
This was recorded before OKC even won the title and prior to Durant joining the Rockets, who are now considered the top challenger to the Thunder in the West. His job next year will be figuring out ways to defeat his old team and based on this conversation, he’ll be looking to ask the question of Williams and Holmgren and see if they’ve continued to take strides forward to raise their level in support of SGA.
