The Oklahoma City Thunder are chasing a regular-season level of greatness we’ve never seen, but what does it mean for their future in June?
Here’s the resume:
- OKC is currently on pace for 67 wins, which would tie for the seventh-best all-time.
- Their point differential is currently the best in NBA history at +12.93. They are literally beating teams by more than any team in history.
- SRS is a metric that gauges point differential vs. strength of schedule. Or, in simpler terms, how much did you beat your opponents by, and how strong were the opponents you beat? The Thunder are on pace for the best in that category as well, by a lot.
So, how did those teams do? Here are the all-time teams in Margin of Victory:
You’ll notice that the top five teams in Margin of Victory all won the title. Those same teams were also all top-five in SRS.
The Thunder have the best defensive rating in the league by a huge margin, and era-adjusted, the fifth-best of all time.
They’re also fifth in offensive rating this season (though sixth, schedule-adjusted). If this holds, the Thunder would have the worst offensive rating of any top-10 SRS or Margin of Victory team, all-time.
But there’s little question that if the Thunder maintain their pace, they’ll finish as one of the best regular-season teams we’ve ever seen.
So what about those other teams? Let’s take a brief look at them and compare OKC.
1971 Milwaukee Bucks
Record: 66-16
SRS: +11.9
Offensive rank: 1st
Defensive rank: 1st
Kareem and Oscar. Kareem’s second season and first MVP season. The league only had 17 teams that season, with the 52-win Knicks the Eastern Conference No. 1 seed who were upset by the 42-40 Baltimore Bullets before the Bucks downed Baltimore in the Finals.
Kareem was the scoring leader and fourth in rebounds per game that season, while Oscar averaged 19-6-8 and finished fifth in MVP.
The Bucks won 20 in a row to secure the No. 1 seed, and the only reason their record was lower was that at 65-11, they pulled back and coasted, finishing 1-5, though Kareem was still averaging 45 minutes per game in that stretch.
Is Oklahoma City better? Probably, based on the strength of the schedule and the small league structure. Plus, while I think you can acknowledge the strength of past eras, this was the 70s when the league was in a WILD place.
1996 Chicago Bulls
Record: 72-10
SRS: +11.8
Offensive rank: 1st
Defensive rank: 1st
The best team of all time. They are the only team to win 70 games and the title. Truly dominant on both sides of the floor, led by the Greatest Of All Time (arguably).
Chicago went 15-3 in the playoffs, beating Ewing’s Knicks, Shaq and Penny’s Magic, and Payton and Kemp’s Sonics.
Is Oklahoma City better? Nope. Can’t get there. You just would not stack up this Thunder team as good as it is against that squad.
1972 Los Angeles Lakers
Record: 69-13
SRS: +11.65
Offensive rank: 1st
Defensive rank: 2nd
Jerry West’s absolution. The lone title for West as a player and Wilt Chamberlain won Finals MVP. Elgin Baylor retired nine games into this season for the Lakers, and all that happened was LA won 33 games in a row, a record that stands to this day in American professional sports.
The Lakers set a record for most wins that season with 69, which held until the Bulls team above smashed it with 72 wins 24 years later.
Is Oklahoma City better? Man, this is a pretty good one. Most would argue Shai’s not in the range of West, but bear in mind how many times West went to the playoffs and failed. Wilt Chamberlain — that guy’s pretty good.
Jerry West and Wilt were the only All-NBA selections. I’ll give this team the nod because of their historical greatness, but with the same caveats as the 1971 Bucks above about the 70s, it’s awfully close.
2017 Golden State Warriors
Record: 67-15
SRS: +11.35
Offensive rank: 1st
Defensive rank: 2nd
When you factor in the era of competition, who this team trampled on their way to a 16-1 playoff record and the title, and the feeling that team held (which I know better having lived it as an adult vs. the other teams above), this squad has a real case for the best team of all time.
If it wasn’t for Jordan’s mystique and some rest management pulling on the Warriors’ statistical wings, they probably clear the bar. I’ll give it to the Bulls, but man, this team was a nightmare.
Let me put it this way: it’s pretty easy to argue that while Jordan was better than KD or Steph all time, both were better than Pippen. Klay Thompson was still Klay Thompson. Draymond Green was still Draymond Green.
Who was the fourth-best player on the 1996 Bulls, Toni Kukoc?
Is Oklahoma City better? No chance. Zero-shot. This is the greatest player in Thunder history in his prime, with a team that won 73 games the previous season.
2024 Boston Celtics
Record: 64-18
SRS: +10.75
Offensive rank: 1st
Defensive rank: 3rd
This team makes me wonder how history will remember them since the teams above them are so fondly regarded.
Did those teams go through three rounds where the team’s best player was out with injury? Did those teams whomp through easy conferences and history has just lost that bit of context? Did those teams have a cheat code (3-point math in this context) that neutralized most teams’ ability to keep up?
Boston still put together one of the most impressive seasons of all time, they won over half their games by double-digits. They stomped through the playoffs regardless of who they played.
Is OKC Better? I have two choices. I can make Boston fans very mad, or I can lie.
The Thunder defense is substantially better than the second-best team this season, by a wider gap than Boston’s offense was last year. The best unit between the two teams is OKC defensively. The second-best is last year’s Boston offense. The third-best is Boston’s defense last year, and the fourth is OKC’s offense this season.
Is Shai better than Tatum? Jaylen Brown is better than Holmgren or JDub (I think). What about Derrick White? Who feels more unstoppable?
This one’s tough, which is why it would be fascinating to see this year’s Thunder team meet this year’s Celtics in the Finals.
Can the Thunder reach 70 wins or the record for point differential?
They can, but it will take a minor miracle. There is essentially no room for error left if they want to get to 70 wins.
OKC has a middle-of-the-pack strength of schedule, with 15 road games and 13 home games. The Thunder have gone 9-2 against other top-six playoff teams in the West, but with likely absences on back-to-backs, three more losses is very likely.
The point differential is well within reach, though.
OKC has to reach a plus-minus total of plus-1008 this season. They’re currently at +698. That’s a 310-point difference. So, with 28 games remaining, they need to win on average by 11 points. The key will be avoiding blowouts, which they’ve been elite at this season; the Thunder have only lost two games by double-digits this entire season.
There’s no trophy for the best point differential, no matter how much closer it aligns with team strength than win-loss record. Oklahoma City has its eyes on winning its first title. But in the process, they can join an elite group of teams who have all had amazing regular seasons and raised the Larry O’Brien in June.