36% of OKC’s losses this season were to the Spurs
The Thunder went 4-8 against the Spurs and 71-14 against everyone else including back to back playoff sweeps. Looks like the Thunder have a clear goal this summer to build a team that can stop Wemby
Hey op I’ll contribute too
100% of OKC’s loses this postseason were to the Spurs.
well if you count our moral victories we actually beat them twice
But what about analytically though?
Analytically, the nuggets were the best team in the post season, right guys?
I like to think so.
The Nuggets vs Cavs NBA Analytics Finals
Analytically get ready to play the Cavs in the finals
I want to thank this post season for the memes
LA did the blue print SAS built the wall against SGA.
100% of spurs wins in the 2026 wcf were against the thunder
Well, when you put it that way….damn
are the Spurs just OKC beating merchants??
It’s a reverse of 2012. In 2012, 100% of the Spurs losses in the postseason were to the Thunder.
I still don’t know if we will ever see that happen again. Spurs go:
4-0 in round 1 4-0 in round 2 2-0 to start round 3 then goes 0-4 to lose the series without a major injury
That damn Ibaka….
I know logically it makes no sense but I hated that we won the last 10 regular season games and then swept the first two rounds. I felt like all the luck would swing against us and it did in games 3-6.
yeah, we were as hot as hot could get, but i guess playing against a team with 3 (future) MVPs can do that.
Fade me
And their losses too
The Knicks was the matchup I was most worried about in getting to the finals, after the nba cup game you can see that it’s a war
I was more worried about the cavs with their size but they ended up being frauds
I understand that. Analytically, they’re impossible to beat
I’m still highly concerned w/ the cavs. (Analytically).
I’m concerned with Cleveland analytics too. Apparently they say they have a good chance in the finals, but they won’t be playing. How are we supposed to beat that?
Wemby’s VORP is no match for Harden’s DARKO
Seriously.
It they don’t play, they’ll never lose. Never losing gives you a good chance.
I’m concerned about Knicks fans (anally)
Dude I really needed a laugh rn thank you for your service
I’m not saying this is going to happen, but if the Knicks 4-0 you guys in the finals, everyone’s going to look at the cavs and 6ers very differently in retrospect.
its good that you’re not saying that’s going to happen
Analytically, the Spurs visit Cleveland for game 3 on June 8th.
Nah harden was always going to quit.
The Knicks look like world beaters but you question how they can maintain that dominance and a long break is one way to kill the momentum. This 7 game series could be the spark to maintain the intensity going into the Finals for the Spurs.
Hard to judge because the Knicks have had a cakewalk to the Finals, especially compared to the Spurs
The Spurs’ only tough competition these playoffs was the Thunder (who, tbf, are really tough competition lol). For the first two rounds the Spurs had just as much of a cakewalk as the Knicks did, and yet they weren’t dominating their competition nearly as much as the Knicks have been
You are out of your damn mind if you think anyone besides the Knicks were better than the Wolves in the East.
Wolves were missing DDV and both Ant and Ayo were hurt lmao
Even before all these injuries they were only 10th in the league in net rating
We made the East playoffs look so easy that all of a sudden Minnesota would’ve been the best team in the conference?? Cause nobody was calling us the best in the conference before the playoffs started.
Cleveland would’ve been the 3rd best team in the west, Atlanta got off to a terrible start and then for months played better than anyone in the west not named the Thunder or Spurs
That same injured wolves team beat the nuggets. Do you also think cavs and hawks are better than the nuggets?
They could both beat the Nuggets with Gordon injured
Does not change what I said you aren’t taken anyone in the east (outside of the Knicks) over them even including those injuries. They literally beat the Nuggets without Ant.
Minnesota loses to Denver if Gordon doesn’t get hurt.
The entire West was an injury riddled mess this year, not some impossible gauntlet. Even OKC was missing two of their four most important players by the end of the WCF.
East has been a “cakewalk” for generations at this point, why hasn’t anyone else killed the conference playoffs like we have this year?
Stop coping, knicks had easier competition.
Gordon? They didn’t have their fucking superstar for two of the wins.
Because you guys are a good team. I think the Knicks have a shot in the finals but you guys played bums. You just did, this isn’t something that is up for debate.
Portland split their season series with both Boston and Cleveland..
Regular season series in any pro sport means absolutely nothing in postseason.
Using that logic, they also lost twice to the Hornets within the span of a week late into the regular season heading into the playoffs
The hornets were good. They’re on the uptick finally.
Hornets are good though. Had a poor shooting night otherwise might’ve won a series
Wolves were 7-9 against East playoff teams this year - Nuggets and Lakers were .500. (In contrast, OKC, SAS & HOU dog-walked the East).
people said this about the cavs, and we ended up smoking them so hard they were banished from the eastern confrence.
Not saying spurs are anything like the cavs but yeah I think they learned their lesson on how to not get rusty
NBA isnt baseball, so Knicks have found a groove, and that typically carries well to next round.
If this was baseball, it would be an issue for the team who sat for week to ten days after playing everyday for 6 months.
Nope. Believe spurs will go down 0-4
If the Knicks win game 1, the series is completely over IMO. They are 100% going to be rusty and the Spurs really have no excuse for not taking advantage of that, especially at home. If the Knicks lose then I won’t start sweating until they hit the garden
Our team has gotten so much better since then tho.
They barely came up short, and had injuries. I don’t think you change much. Maybe draft the 7’3 guy and then run it back. No need to panic, thunder are a slow and deliberate planning team.
I don’t understand the overreactions.
This series was 7 games. The really obvious conclusion is that OKC needs a #2 guy. We can debate if that should be JDub or some other player, but it’s wild to act like OKC hit a ceiling or something and has no hope in the future.
if any other team lost in 7 games in the semis after their second best player being injured, nobody would be asking questions. the Thunder looked so bulletproof it seemed like losing anybody but Shai was still doable. it’s just the Spurs were almost as good and not dealing with the same problems
Fox was out the first two games too and not really playing well until Game 7.
that’s true! just that Williams was out for longer and is a bigger part of the machine. the Thunder have a lot of awesome role players but their roster isn’t built to work with a solitary star. the Spurs definitely missed Fox’s handling but it’s not apples to apples
fox is like their fourth best player.
Also OKC have the 12th and 17th pick in this upcoming draft. They are only getting better lol.
How well they can draft the replacements to the role players they can no longer afford to pay will be more important to OKC’s future dominance than whatever happens next with their starting lineup imo.
J Dub, Chet, and SGA will account for $150 million in cap space net year. They have been so dominant because they have elite players damn near 1-12. If they can replace everyone with the 12th and 17th in this draft, the Clippers swap in the next, and the Mavs swap in the draft after that they’ll be fine.
But their team will look increasingly different in the coming years and everything is predicated on having elite role players and the deepest bench in the league.
I was gonna say they have quite a few role players still locked up on cheap contracts but then I looked at salary cap and was like damn they have 6 players on the books in 2 years at 200m. Cason Wallace gonna get paid next offseason, and Ajay Mitchell in 2 offseasons. Probably 2nd apron for next two years then evaluate resetting the apron.
It’s why all the dynasty talks were hilarious premature to me.
Like yeah let’s wait a second and see what these guys look like when Chet and J Dub aren’t on rookie extensions and they don’t have like $100 million plus to spend on role players.
Again, they will have the opportunity to keep things rolling with the 12th and 17th in this draft. And again in 2027 with the Clippers swap and 2028 with the Mavs swap. But it’s gonna be really important that they get those right, after that all their picks are late lottery unless the Nugs flame out in 2029.
And it’s going to be a tall order for rookies to step in and be ready to contribute to a finals team.
Not everyone is Harper lmfao
the problem is that they’re replacing vets with rookie contract guys, you have to really hit on them to see an immediate impact and that’s tough with the picks they’re getting. OKC needs a stud 2nd option. J-Dub is a great 3rd, Chet is a good 2nd in the right matchups. Presti can be perfect but luck may have screwed him. Castle, Wemby, Harper all are on a meteoric ascent, it’s not like this team is even close to its ceiling. Get them a real PF and they’ll likely unlock another gear. At the end of the day, Wemby is a game breaker and Shai while really good isn’t on that level of holy shit he’s unstoppable. It’s like prime Giannis, Lebron, Jokic, Embiid when healthy and on his game. Some guys just cannot be guarded by anyone. The Spurs heel will be Wemby’s health. The dude has to be willing not to hit is ultimate peak at the sacrifice of his legs. He does stuff he absolutely won’t be able to do for years on end without suffering major injuries. OKC should just maximize Shai and understand that they’re going to get another 5-6 years of him being one of the best in the league, and that they’ll likely get lucky with health one or two of those years. The 2nd apron fucked them just like the Celts, Nuggs, and a few other teams. No-one is taking the Chet, JDub contracts without sending back absolute garbage or needing to add in picks. The new CBA basically means that there’s like 15 guys in the league worthy of a max, not 2-3 per team.
Lol delusional
I think there is a genuine concern about Chet and His inability to even be a net positive when playing a team that could very well be their biggest hurdle to win it all again.
They gave Chet a massive contract that hasn’t kicked in yet and when it does, it’ll take up a massive chunk of their cap. He needs to be a reliable number two for them and he absolutely was not
This is one of those situations in history where it’s like ‘if not for Wemby, they’d have X rings’. It’s like the saying ‘if not for Michael, he’d have X rings’.
In the 2000s, teams built their rosters specifically to contain Shaq. He was unlike any other threat in basketball and required a type player many teams didn’t have (multiple big lumbering big men that could foul Shaq). They knew that beating him was going to be necessity of they wanted to win a championship. That’s why the kings had Webber, divac, pollard and funderburke.
It seems very possible that Wemby could start to shape rosters like Shaq did. And the Thunder have a problem if their championship window has to go through a player that they’re second best player crumbles while facing
Literally if OKC had 1 more player step up they could have won. Losing by 8 with 2 key injuries and a missing all nba player is not the end of the world.
i mean everyone was acting like OKC was a dynasty for winning ONE ring after getting injury luck in two separate game 7s.
it’s only fair to overreact the opposite way after a game 7 loss
What we know is EVERY year injury is the looming storm in the distance as the playoffs are about to start. Somebody is getting struck by lightning. Somebody is getting hit by a tornado or a hurricane… It takes it’s pound of flesh in the form of superstars, and it really feels like the healthiest top team wins this tournament every year. Hopefully, no one major goes down in these finals but I wouldn’t bet on it.
If we’d hit one more shot or the Spurs had missed one more in game 1 it would’ve been a 5 game series and nobody would be talking about any of this. Crazy to overreact right now
Real trouble for them is if Adam Silver takes the flopping chatter seriously and institutes changes next year.
100% serious
“Every possession is a negotiation with the refs”
One silver lining for OKC is they could change that philosophy to “every possession is focused on playing basketball.”
Could be revolutionary
SGA was pretty impressive last game when he was actually trying to make shots. He doesn’t even need bail out flops, so I really don’t get why that’s such a big part of his game.
because he gets rewarded for it. SGA is a stupidly good player. His MVP award is well earned. That’s why people hate his flopping so damn much. He doesn’t need it.
On the other hand, if you want to have a long career with today’s pace in the NBA, maybe you ought to embellish contact a bit. You don’t want to be tanking every single hit.
yeah haters claiming he would be mid without the flopping don’t know shit. He would still be a star player. I just hope that the league does something against the flopping, so I can actually enjoy watching him play again.
The irony of a Lakers fan saying this
He won’t. He’s only motivated by money.
If we can somehow tie flopping and gambling…
Why would he care? More FT = more ads = more money.
You could have said the same thing about baseball before the pitch clock. But they went for it and now ratings are up. Quality of the product has improved
But this WCF topped ratings? I mean it’s crazy to think these people aren’t completely motivated by money, and the money must be good.
As Punishment for losing this series they should give us 3 First Round Picks so we can get a true 2nd Option for Ant🥰
Can the pistons get a true second option who can space the floor and score too?
If we can, then I have no problem with your offer haha.
Made you can give us Cade and I’ll give you a pat on a back and some twizzlers
Man I would like to see Ant fully healthy in a series with a true 2nd option. Ayo Donte are great but not as impactful as some other second options out there
Give us your Picks. You have Wemby, 5 Championships give us something lol
They just have so many draft picks that they literally don’t have roster space for them all. They need to consolidate.
I ain’t an OKC fan but Chet needs to beef up if he has any chance in stopping Wemby. What a sorry last game from him.
You have to give him time to respond. It’s happened to other stars. Dirk had a really bad series, so did Magic Johnson. Literally earned the nickname Tragic Johnson after such a bad performance and playoff end. However, if he never responds it’s a crazy ending and super unfortunate contract.
Magic rookie season ended with him winning a ring and finals mvp. The 1984 tragic Johnson label couldn’t undo all of that
Dirk is a better example
Paying Chet $40mill a year in the 2nd apron era, where you only get 2 max players, is…
It’s crazy because on paper Chet should probably be the best player in the league at stopping Wemby.
This postseason they really let the centers wrestle for position. In that rule set the strongest guy you can find that isn’t a total offensive black hole is best to deal with Wemby.
So KAT.
yeah. The spurs really need fox to be fully healthy for the finals. He’s the only spurs player that can beat every switch and drive.
Mitch (assuming his broken hand doesn’t bother him too much) is probably going to be much better at that role IMO. He will get minutes early into quarters before the bonus, and then come out once Wemby is more tired. This will allow KAT to take over
Yeah Mitch might actually be able to finish through Wemby’s contest/block especially if he gets the rebound over him.
*pinkie
The fifth metacarpal is a bone in your hand. I broke that bone, I would know. The FO calling it a broken pinky is just gamesmanship to downplay the injury. It is by all means a broken hand
It worked then cause people people were saying he should just tape his pinky and ring finger together, load up on painkillers, and play. LOL.
Well he is definitely gonna do that last part lol
Its the same vs denver also, kat/the other frenchie is insane at that role
On paper he is a great player who deserved the max. 2nd in DPOY this year & averaged 17 points and 9 rebounds a game. Good efficiency, 36% from 3. Defensive presence was understated as he was alway impacting shots and deterring plays in the paint.
His skill set is the exact same as wemby’s, but slightly worse. He doesn’t have a single advantage, which is actually worse than a traditional center who at least has size to play to their advantage. It also became a mental issue this series as well. Chet looks like a max level player against 28 teams.
Basically any team except Spurs, Nuggets, or Knicks would swap their center with Chet, it’s a no-brainer.
Yeah he has similar high center of gravity to Wemby and is weaker than him which is a rare combination in the league.
He just can’t shoot. Dude really needs to work on it because he just freezes up. He’s good at the rim, he’s good at rebounding but his shooting lets him down. I will say though Chet is getting a lot of shot and rightfully but he doesn’t really create and with only SGA to get the ball to him it was never gunna be a great showing. He needs SGA and JDub or AJay to get things going.
Bam erasure.
Funny how you put ‘Chet’ and ‘paper’ like they are not the same
Right. Wemby is 7’4 so there’s no reason that similarly tall, mobile, and lanky players such as Chet, Porzingis,Sarr shouldn’t be able to slow him down. These guys are only a couple inches shorter.
Chet is just Ayton with some college pedigree
It also sucks when their star mvp doesn’t show up
How many different ways can we calculate the fact that the spurs just completely outmatch the Thunder
Jarvis I need more Reddit karma
lol they weren’t completely outmatched, it went to 7 games
And they were trading off blow outs, this was very much a coin flip series which is what made it so dang fun.
absolutely, anyone who wants to argue that one team is much better than the other didn’t watch the series
Also the thunder were missing Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. The spurs will have to get better next season which I think is decently likely considering how young the team is.
Health and ability to stay healthy through the playoffs is part of the team and part of their strength.
JDub is often injured. That’s what having him on the roster as number two does to your playoff run.
I hate how stupid this hypothetical is: “if team X wasn’t injured then…”. Well but they were. And in case of OKC it is not because they had very hard bracket getting to the WCF.
And the thunder blew them out every win. These people just be saying the dumbest shit
How is a 9 point win in game 2 a blow out lmao? I wouldn’t consider a 13 point game 5 win to be a blowout either. Spurs 21 point and 27 point wins were more dominant.
With no Fox. And Castle being forced to play a role he obviously doesn’t have the skill set for yet. Castle had 9 turnovers that game lol
Won game one with 11 too lol
We blew OKC out so bad twice that SGA didn’t even see the court in the 4th quarter.
It doesn’t mean the spurs completely outmatched the thunder
I didn’t say that, did I? You said OKC blew the Spurs out when they won, which they did, so I said SAS did the same.
Your defending the argument of the guy that did lmao
I’m not defending anyone
And they were missing their 2nd and 3rd best scorers/ball handlers
Ajay played Game 1 and 2. He averaged 7 points and got hunted on defense, him playing the whole series wouldn’t have mattered.
A healthy JDub might have, but he also played Game 1 and they lost.
Yeah them losing game 1 at home to a Fox-less spurs with countless turnovers because of that while also having their full rotation in play kinda invalidates the narrative that they would’ve easily won if they stayed healthy. It definitely would’ve been close regardless.
Kinda frustrating how people were undervaluing fox’s ability to not panic.. he’s so cool, crispy and collected
He gets a lot of hate for his contract and his occasionally unimpressive stat lines. He’s definitely a very vital piece of the team and that really showed in game 1 and 2 when he was missing.
Thunder were playing 8 on 5 in those wins
And the spurs had their own blow outs, whats your point?
That they weren’t completely outmatched
I know, i originally said they weren’t outmatched
i just dont think blow outs are a useful measure
Bruh Reddit can be miserable sometimes. Like I know I’m not the only one who genuinely found this post intriguing
This sub and most subs run jokes into the ground like the analytically Atkinson joke already. By far the worst thing on Reddit is the recycling of jokes.
The analytics have exhibited aberrations in the matrix indicating that more Brothers officiating will yield further analytical wins for SGA.
Are we sure about that? Should they do a rematch to make sure it wasn’t a fluke?
Huh? Okc was one lucky wemby 3 away from being up 3-0
It took me literally just 1 scroll in this sub to see a post worded exactly the same as this one but just with a different title
Honestly people saying they should blow it up that’s very dumb I think if they weren’t injured they probably could’ve won the series. Then again injuries happen on like every single championship run so yeah
I don’t understand why so many posters cannot hold both of these ideas in their head at the same time. It takes nothing away from the spurs to note that the Thunder were short handed just as it takes nothing away from last years Thunder to say the same about the nuggets and the pacers. To win it all you need to have an awesome team and have injury luck go your way.
No one will remember any of this shit in 10 years anyways.
How many people remember that Cedric Ceballos got hurt before the 1993 finals?
Hell, half the commenters here probably would think I’m making that name up lol
Some of us never forget
Noted. Been noted. However.
Spurs are only going to get better. This is only their first playoffs and they already made the finals. They played a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year heavy minutes. They still are paying them peanuts compared to okc…
Which brings us to okc is 27m over the 2nd apron.
OKC is also only getting better, and we’re right there with that spurs team without their second and third best offensive creators. Acting like OKC is done after losing this game 7 is just as foolish as acting like they had the next 2 rings locked up after last years run. Would not be shocked if this same basic team has more injury luck than the spurs next year and gets past them.
Yea we aren’t trading Jdub or Chet for Giannis that would be really dumb. Just gotta keep doing small retoolings like replacing Dort with a lotto pick this year
i would trade jdub for giannis(not 1;1 obv), i dont really like his game and hes injured ALL the time
Who is injured all the time, Giannis?
Jdub has been perpetually injured for like a season and a half now. He plays through it when he can (which was a ton last year) and is a good player but they have a worse record with him playing hobbled than they do without him. Giannis has played pretty much the same amount of games as Jdub the last two seasons and is definitely the better player. I still think the thunder should just keep him they had an amazing season that makes rocking the boat silly imo but I think there is an argument for a Giannis trade.
Thank god you’re not the GM then.
thank god i dont have williams and chet on my team tbh
your dumb idea is to trade potentially injure prone 25 year old Jalen Williams for definitely injury prone 31 year old Giannis notbothering who will leave at the end of the year anyway. Great!
Whoever trades for Giannis will only throw a ton in the trade if he agrees to an extension before they trade for him
its not my idea, im just saying i would do it is 1.
2 is yeah I would because giannis would be top 5 this season like he has been, and ill be for a few years, OKC can definitely lod manage him like toronto didi with kawhi
Can you guys us some draft Picks plz🙏🏿
Like we need 4 of yours to balance everything out
They’re on the books for 250 million next year. “Blow it up” for losing to one team in seven is obviously an overreaction, but how do they realistically afford this team next year?
Dort’s definitely gone, that alone gets them under the second apron. They don’t really have to do much to keep their team together next season.
They have enough draft capital to recycle their depth.
But yeah unless they both take a leap, jdub and Chet contracts will hamper them quite a bit.
How do they pay all these people that’s the real thing. They’ve got 250M under contract for next season, the highest tax in the league. Something’s gotta give.
They easily could have won game 1 and would have won the series in 5 if they had. Trading their core would be a shortsighted error that could lose their window.
“If the outcome of the games was different the outcome of the series would be different” is a great point
“I intentionally misunderstood the comment” is another great point.
You’re right they definitely shouldn’t blow it up but it’s also stupid to say ‘if they weren’t injured they would’ve been fine’. If the pacers weren’t injured would they even have won? If fox and Harper weren’t injured would this series have gone to 7?
The fact that they’re injured shouldn’t let them be complacent is all
nobody blowing anything up. given the youth on both these teams, get ready for watching these 2 rosters go against each other for 5 years!
i think the bigger issue is that they have 250 millon in contracts for next season, well over second apron, so they are expected to have to make some moves in order to sort that out.
Even with the injuries, this was a seven game series, meaning ng we were matched up pretty well. They’re going to be scary for a long time. I just wish they played ball and not wrestling (same can be said about the Spurs, but I honestly believe we got dragged into this. Yeah Wemby was deservedly ejected for an elbow against Minny, but it wasn’t a dirty ref-ball series like this felt)
The Thunder only lost multiple games to three teams this season: the Spurs, Wolves, and Suns.
These three teams must be pretty good!
No need to look into box scores btw
The first win was pretty legit, though they didn’t have McCain at the time.
My team only lost one game against the Thunder this year and had a 83pt by Bam. Somehow I’m happier with a season we didn’t make the playoffs than the previous one we did.
The Spurs are basically OKC’s optional side quest that somehow keeps dropping legendary loot and ruining 100% completion runs.
More like the spurs are the protagonist to whatever evil thing okc is, stopping it’s onslaught among the lands
I thought the spurs beat them 9 times total on the year?
4-1 in the regular season, 4-3 in post season.
I think they included the IST win as well
As did I… 5 games during regular season (Spurs 4-1), 7 in post season (Spurs 4-3)
Yeah that’s why I don’t think the Thunder doomers are being realistic. Is there a good chance the Spurs/Thunder playoff matchup is going to happen again multiple times over the next few years? Sure. But if the Spurs get knocked out before playing OKC I’m taking the Thunder against anyone else.
Some teams are just the kryptonite of others. The Thunder will absolutely have to have an adjustment for Wemby but they don’t need to change their whole identity.
Major problem but at least they know it. Literally just one team in the way. East is butt cheeks and Nuggets and wolves regressed.
The Wemby effect.
Not that I want this to happen, lol. But they’re going to push for Giannis this summer. That’s going to be there best chance against Wemby.
That’s pretty crazy actually
Aday Mara
Lol. Unless they draft another 7’6 dude with an 8 foot wingspan you literally CAN’T stop Wemby. He’s just actually too damn tall and long.
Best post-season winning percentage ever by a team which didn’t make the finals.
Maybe taco fall can get another chance lol
Yall act like 1st and 2nd round sweeps are so fucking rare. Since 2003 there have been 45 sweeps in 1st & 2nd round series.
Those dont make the Thunder special. If thats what you hang your hat on your watching the wrong game.
Just having JW for a full series and adding Sorber goes a long ways. Yes, Spurs won games with JW active, but it still drug OKC way down not having him. Mitchell and McCain will keep developing.
On the flip side, the Spurs will obviously get better as well since they are so young. Gonna be an interesting 5+ years.
How many of their wins was with Tony Brothers?
Honestly it’s not just Wemby. They’ve got to get more dangerous and physical on the perimeter.