Rarely seen Hollywood legend celebrates Father’s Day with family in LA – can you guess who he is?

```html

Is This Fun For You? The Rise of the Oklahoma City Thunder Dynasty

Do you miss dynasties?

The Association — really, all the sports leagues — have been pushing for greater parity in the last few decades. More teams having a chance to win it all leads to more engaged fanbases, the logic goes. Maybe that’s true! It makes sense to me. I like watching games without a feeling of predestination; at least, I think I do. I say I do.

But the NBA’s history, when viewed in all its peaks and valleys, certainly seems most mountainous during dynastic periods. The Russell era of the 1960s, the Bird-Magic diarchy of the 80s, the Jordan dictatorship of the 90s, and the Shaq/Kobe dominance at the turn of the millennium. Those periods of competitive armageddon are also the most revered epochs, the times when the league was ostensibly at its most popular.

It’s not a coincidence that Russell, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe are some of the greatest and most popular basketball players of all time. Rightly or wrongly, winning championships carries more weight in basketball than anywhere else. When it matters that much, generational greatness and parity become polar opposites. Basketball fans have typically responded better to the latter than the former.

There is another pseudo-dynastic period of a more recent vintage, when the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors met in four straight Finals. If you’re old enough to remember that, was it fun for you? Genuine question.

Let’s jog down memory lane. The East was LeBron James’ punching bag for those four years. There was no drama. At one point, the Cavs, tied 2-2 with Toronto in the Eastern Conference Finals, woke up and exploded for a 38-point win in Game 5. “I’ve been a part of some really adverse situations,” said James, “and I just didn’t believe that this was one of them.” He was using the past tense for a series that was still in the present! Naturally, Cleveland blew out Toronto in Game 6, too.

The other side wasn’t quite the same thing. Golden State didn’t exactly cakewalk through the West every year (I’ll forever believe Houston was one Chris Paul hammy away from taking the Western Conference Finals in 2018, and the Warriors were pushed to seven by the Thunder in 2016, too, in the series that famously led to Kevin Durant leaving to join Golden State). But the end result was always the same: Another Warriors conference championship.

To many people during that era, the regular season felt pointless, a slog to get to the good stuff — and those Finals were good, at least in 2015 and 2016. After Durant joined forces with Steph Curry and Co., the Western Conference Finals felt like the real climax to the season.

My question, again. Was that fun for you?

Let’s explore why the rise of the Oklahoma City Thunder might signal a return to a more dominant era in the NBA. The league has actively worked to prevent dynasties, but OKC’s unique setup challenges that paradigm.

The Oklahoma City Thunder: A New Era of Dominance?

Adam Silver, for one, didn’t like the Warriors/Durant era despite relatively strong TV ratings. The league has increasingly tried to level the playing field to prevent another situation again. The implementation of the recent CBA, with its Aprons of Death, is merely the latest in a string of adjustments to ensure the best and richest teams can’t dominate year after year.

And yet, despite all that, the Oklahoma City Thunder are here.

Let’s get the obvious caveats out of the way. The Thunder have won just one championship so far, and even that may not have happened without Tyrese Haliburton’s devastating injury in the opening moments of Game 7. Their best players are young and haven’t yet become expensive. The aprons ensure that the team will have to make some hard choices in the coming years. We haven’t had a repeat champion in seven years, despite the fact that at least two other teams (the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics) felt like they were set up at the time of their chips for a mini-dynasty. Increasingly, it’s the healthiest team that wins the title. According to ESPN, it’s never been tougher to build a dynasty.

And yet, it sure feels like we’ll be looking back at the 2020s in the same way we look back at the 60s and 90s.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: The New Face of NBA Dominance

It starts at the top. In basketball, it always starts at the top.

This will sound like heresy, but stick with me. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander doesn’t have the overall body of work to compare careers, but he has matched (and maybe even surpassed) Michael Jordan’s peak level as a regular-season scorer. Jordan’s best pure bucket-getting year might’ve been his first MVP season, in 1988, when he averaged 43.6 points per 100 possessions on true shooting that was 12% higher (relatively) than league average.

SGA right now? A whopping 46.5 points per 100 possessions on true shooting that is 13% higher than league average. And it was 45.9 points per 100 on 11% higher relative true shooting last season, his first MVP campaign.

To clarify, I’m not putting SGA in the GOAT conversation; he might not even be my MVP so far this season! And Jordan’s postseason scoring binges elevate him above the young Thunder superstar as a scorer overall. But I say all that to prove that putting Gilgeous-Alexander on the court results in points, lots of them. And given that he’s at worst a solid defender (and a few smart people have made the case he should be an All-Defensive Team candidate), all those points tend to lead to a whole lot of wins.

Zooming out, the Thunder have the fourth-best offense and top-ranked defense in the league. That’s on the back of last year’s second-ranked offense and number-one defense.

They’ve done all that without much injury luck. SGA has been healthy, but they were missing Chet Holmgren and/or Isaiah Hartenstein for most of last season. Jalen Williams, their second-best player, has yet to play this season. Alex Caruso, Lu Dort, and a bevy of role players have missed plenty of time, too.

Regardless of who suits up, OKC is Death dual-wielding scythes. With an efficient, uber-high-volume scorer like SGA, a wealth of secondary playmaking and shooting, and a top-to-bottom defense like we haven’t seen since perhaps the Ben Wallace-era Pistons, the Thunder leave no room for error. Unfortunately for everybody else, they force people into more errors than anyone!

If you can encapsulate the Oklahoma City experience into one stat, it would be this: Last year, OKC simultaneously turned it over less than anyone and turned others over more than anyone. This year, they’re nearly doing the same.

The Thunder's Sustainable Dynasty Model

This team is too freaking good. And unlike the Celtics and Nuggets, they aren’t set up just for the present.

Sure, SGA, Holmgren, and Williams will combine for 75% of the salary cap in 2026-27, and 85% in 2027-28. Today’s league values depth more than ever, and that’s a whole lot of dinero wrapped up into three players.

But all three are young. SGA is just 27; Holmgren and Williams are 23 and 24. The latter two haven’t even sniffed their prime years yet! An army of flexible, talented, and cheap supporting actors surrounds them. OKC can afford to spend on the top end of its roster because it’s done such a good job managing the bottom.

An example: Aaron Wiggins averages the seventh-most minutes on the roster. Aaron Wiggins is making less than $10 million per year through 2029 (on a declining contract, naturally). Aaron Wiggins does cool s*** like this:

It’s unfair!

Even Williams’ injury is almost certainly a good thing in the long term for the Thunder. It virtually guarantees he won’t reach All-NBA this season, which would have raised his salary by another few million each year. It’s also given the offense enough room for players like Ajay Mitchell to spread their wings.

Mitchell perhaps has been the Thunder’s third-best player. He will naturally have a smaller role on Williams’ return, but it can only be a positive for him to have shouldered such a burden so successfully in just his second year.

That’s part and parcel of why the Thunder are so set up for dominance. It’s a sustainable model for success.

Share

Subscribe now

FAQ: Oklahoma City Thunder Dynasty

What makes the Oklahoma City Thunder different from other contenders?

The Thunder's unique combination of a superstar scorer (SGA), talented supporting players, a strong defense, and exceptional front-office management creates a sustainable model for long-term success, unlike many teams reliant on short-term acquisitions.

Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander truly a top-tier NBA player?

SGA's scoring efficiency and overall impact rival that of legendary players like Michael Jordan, demonstrating his elite status in the league.

How does the Thunder's roster construction contribute to their potential for a dynasty?

Their ability to develop young talent, manage salaries effectively, and maintain depth allows them to navigate the challenges of the modern NBA and sustain success over time.

Will the Thunder's current success translate into championships?

While health remains a factor, the Thunder's talent, coaching, and organizational structure position them as strong contenders for multiple championships in the coming years.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are poised to redefine the NBA landscape. Will their reign be fun to watch?

Basketball Poetry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

```