This is just a first draft from me thinking of the Thunder’s time in Oklahoma City to date. I may revise this with more reflection. I put heavy emphasis on what players do in respect to their niche role on the team…and what they did individually to help the team win during the playoffs and against the better twelve or so teams in the regular season in meaningful seeding games.
Anotherwords…what did you as a player do during the goal acheiving portion of the season?
This isn’t just a reflection of me looking at stats as a generic whole. Generally…I don’t judge players by what they do against the bottom eighteen teams in the league during the marathon 82 game regular season.
And I do put a great deal of emphasis on the unique metric I created with my TSSPN metric which I share with ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins at times. BTW…my son’s Perk, the 13 year-old brown lab is still spry as a pup, and like Big Perk doing very well.
So here I go…
1 Shai (won a championship and Finals MVP)
2 KD ( didn’t win a championship in OKC or a Finals MVP here, but a very solid second for sure)
3 Russ
4 Harden
5 J-Dub
6 Nick
7 Lu Dort
8 Caruso
9 Serge
10 Chet (note to Chet…get tougher and show MJ more durability)
11 Paul George
12 Isaiah Hartenstein
Player I most hated to leave off this list? That was easy, and yet very hard for me at the same time. That player being Kenrich Williams. Every championship team needs a Kenrich Williams.
Two players I wanted to put on the list, but couldn’t because they can’t shoot a basketball…Steven Adams and Andre Roberson. Two awesome role players who just couldn’t shoot at the NBA standard. But…still had and are having nice NBA careers.
Chris Paul should probably be some kind of special category as well because if he hadn’t shined as a rookie with the New Orleans group this NBA thing in Oklahoma City may very well have never caught fire as it did. CP3 will eventually be in my Thunder Hall of Fame.
I’ll think about this first draft for a week, but probably stick very close to what I’ve done on July 12th, circa 2025.
Peace and love…here come the mid-July rains.
MJ
- I had Perk at No. 13, but in the end…. I had to go with Isaiah for three reasons: 1 Better hands, better free throw shooter, and 3 was a key missing piece on a team which won their first NBA championship.
- TSSPN = Toughness, Smarts, Snarl, Physicality, and Nasty. Pop only had TSN. So there’s that as well. MJ never remains static. Just sayin’. You gotta be fluid.