{"id":1964810,"date":"2026-05-31T11:21:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T08:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1964810"},"modified":"2026-05-31T11:21:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T08:21:42","slug":"thunder-chase-of-history-fell-short-because-repeating-is-hard-just-ask-steve-kerr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1964810","title":{"rendered":"Thunder chase of history fell short because repeating is \u2018hard.\u2019 Just ask Steve Kerr"},"content":{"rendered":"
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OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 No one is more audible than the victor in the loser\u2019s building. The raucous fills the 24-year-old halls of the Paycom Center and reverberates through its creaky corners. Doors of hushed rooms swing open, and the celebration permeates deafening silence. Their hoots and hollers drown Shai Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s explanation of how a title defense fell short.<\/p>\n

This is what dethronement sounds like.<\/p>\n

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When the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs first met in December, 74 wins technically remained on the table for the defending champions. Three losses in 10 days derailed a record-chasing season, but the chase to repeat remained a realistic goal. All things considered, the Thunder still radiated with the glow of a recently minted champion. They buoyed between visiting locker rooms and shootarounds, lengthy road trips and opponent\u2019s best shots.<\/p>\n

The difficulty of sustaining greatness hadn\u2019t seeped in. They didn\u2019t yet wear the toll that dominance demands. The challenge of winning, over and over, as rival teams curate counters.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Thunder lost their crown, dropping Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, 111-103, to the same Spurs that first stained their once-historic-appearing repeat campaign. A 62-win team with an ever-mutating superstar center and a flytrap defense built to contain MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. OKC succumbed to the losses of Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. The machine stalled at the hands of a worthy adversary.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt always takes a little bit of luck,\u201d veteran guard Alex Caruso said Saturday night. \u201cWe were lucky last year, our team was healthy the whole time outside of (Jalen Williams\u2019) wrist, but he was able to play still. This year, losing those two guys, it changes the dynamic of the team. Obviously, you\u2019re playing a good opponent. You\u2019re playing a 62-win team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing about the Thunder\u2019s infrastructure suggests their reign will run short. Repeating, in today\u2019s NBA climate, is onerous and pressurized. The few who have accomplished it know. Just ask Steve Kerr, owner of nine rings, a guard for the \u201890s Chicago Bulls before he was head coach of the 73-9 Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that they\u2019re coming to see your team,\u201d Kerr told The Athletic<\/em> in January. \u201cYou want to put on a good show. I know Michael Jordan used to talk about that, and he took a lot of pride in that, and I see the exact same thing in Steph (Curry). Steph knows that people are coming to see him play from far and wide, and they\u2019ve spent a lot of money on tickets. It\u2019s very important for him to give the people a good show, but also to keep winning and competing. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe whole league, by the way, is spending all their time trying to figure out how to beat you, building their teams to beat you, building new schemes to beat you. That\u2019s a lot to face year in and year out. And at the same time, it\u2019s like, what an honor that is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City\u2019s momentum, after a 24-1 start, summoned critics. Their villanization came quickly.<\/p>\n

During the Western Conference semifinals, the Los Angeles Lakers were so disenchanted with the way the Thunder were officiated that they circled the crew at half court. New York\u2019s Mike Brown and Detroit\u2019s J.B. Bickerstaff vocalized their gripes about the governance of the Thunder\u2019s draining defense and the legislation of Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s drive-heavy play style. They represented league-wide criticism in OKC\u2019s aesthetic.<\/p>\n

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The Thunder, and SGA, reveled in it like their juggernaut predecessors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went from the darlings to the villains in a span of a year and a half,\u201d Kerr said of the Warriors. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of the nature of sports. When people see something new and fresh, they love it. But, if the same team keeps winning, then everyone wants to see that team knocked off. You feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n

OKC felt that at every turn. Disdain felt apparent in their many meetings with San Antonio. Inconspicuous blows against Denver escalated to skirmishes. Their physicality wore on teams.<\/p>\n

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Injuries proved to be the thorn. OKC incurred the third-most injuries of any team in the NBA during the regular season. More importantly, All-NBAer Jalen Williams was never able to sustain long enough to feel whole.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 misfortune began last summer, when he trudged through the Thunder\u2019s first title chase despite torn ligaments in his shooting wrist. He knew the risk.\u00a0Upon returning, he recognized his wrist didn\u2019t feel the way it should. Then on Jan. 17 in Miami, he suffered a right hamstring strain \u2014 his first hamstring injury in a series of them. It began a season-long cycle in which he missed weeks then returned, looking the part of an All-Star before being sidelined again.<\/p>\n

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Two games into this playoff run, a left hamstring strain paused his postseason. He mouthed to the bench, signaling which leg.<\/p>\n

After his timely return for Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, Williams half-jokingly told reporters he felt fresh because he hadn\u2019t played all year, just 33 games. After returning for the first couple games of the series, he aggravated the injury. He fought his way to return to the Western Conference finals in Game 6, forgoing his typical return-to-play procedure before realizing he was a shell of himself.<\/p>\n

The Thunder, fixated on by rival teams with increasing ammunition, battled the overwhelming feeling that they\u2019d need to get back to the promised land without the versatile forward that dropped 40 points in a finals game.<\/p>\n

For much of the season, it wasn\u2019t just Williams. Their injury struggles surpassed the title season, when they endured a weeks-long stretch without any true big man. This season\u2019s ravaging reached further, for guards and wings and virtually anyone of relevance.<\/p>\n

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Role players rose to the occasion. Mitchell emerged as a standout of a ballhandler; Jaylin Williams solidified his place as a viable backup big; Jared McCain, acquired at the trade deadline, played a remarkable role in the West finals<\/a> for his quick trigger and fluid handle. Depth couldn\u2019t save them from the myriad of answers the Spurs found.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"Ajay<\/p>\n
\n
\n Ajay Mitchell, Thunder\u2019s breakout player, carries the dreams of his late father\n <\/div>\n
\n After losing his father in December, this season took on more meaning for Oklahoma City’s Ajay Mitchell: “I don’t want to let him down.”\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Kerr, perhaps more than anyone, lived through the turbulence that longtime winning invited. The monotony you must fight, the luck you need to conjure, the adversaries that surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur third year here was very similar. We had plenty of drama and just the fatigue,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cThe mental fatigue, emotional, spiritual fatigue, along with the physical aspect of playing 125 games three years in a row. It\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dynasty can\u2019t live without a foil. A threat to the window of contention, a team that can test these title aspirations. As early as the fall, it became clear that San Antonio was ahead of schedule and prepared to push the Thunder in ways previously unseen.<\/p>\n

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They rostered an uncommon number of capable ball-handlers in De\u2019Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper. Guards poised to run offense, unfazed by a defense built on stirring chaos. Behind them, a floor-warping, extra terrestrial center in Victor Wembanyama.<\/p>\n

The regular season series was no fluke. OKC felt the table shake in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they beat us the first time,\u201d tenured forward Kenrich Williams recalled of San Antonio\u2019s emergence as a rival. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much it. They beat us, and it\u2019s a team that you know is going to be very good for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs defense is uniquely built to cast a shadow on a ballhandler as hypnotizing as Gilgeous-Alexander. With Jalen Williams and Mitchell missing, along with Castle in his grill and Wembanyama in his peripheral, SGA played much of the West finals under an umbrella.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re young, talented, well-coached, play the right way, seems like they like each other,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cThey have the makeup. You don\u2019t beat us without the makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This clash also brought out perhaps the worst of 7-foot-1 Chet Holmgren. He\u2019s competed against Wembanyama since a teenager, on the triumphant end of their U-19 World Cup bout. In the only matchup that matters for this iteration of the Thunder, Holmgren \u2014 thinner, shorter, worse at nearly every attribute, less forceful, less personally invested in their collision than his French counterpart \u2014 saw his impact diminished, from All-Star to afterthought.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say they\u2019re a unique team in terms of personnel, what their personnel do,\u201d Holmgren said Saturday. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s another team that has the same kind of play style. It\u2019s just different than the normal rhythm of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"Can<\/p>\n
\n
\n Can Chet Holmgren push back, help Thunder solve their Spurs problem?\n <\/div>\n
\n It took one season for the Spurs to surpass the Thunder. OKC’s big man might be the key to pushing the Thunder back in front.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Kerr, from his Western Conference perch, watched the Spurs prematurely become peers with the Thunder.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe whole league now is trying to beat (OKC). That means they\u2019re building their teams that way,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cSan Antonio, they got young talent, they got Wemby, and they have really good and strong defensive guards. It was like, \u2018Oh, s\u2014.\u2019 All of a sudden, they got a rival. I don\u2019t know who the next young team who\u2019s going to be doing that is, but you better believe when all these teams are building their rosters, they got the Thunder in mind, because they know for the next six, eight years the Thunder are going to be at the top of the heap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the Thunder will move with the Spurs, who boast a core trio aged 22 and younger, in mind. OKC\u2019s summer comes with decisions. Holmgren and Jalen Williams\u2019 extensions activate next season. With the second apron looming \u2014 the Thunder are currently projected to be about $39 million above that mark next season \u2014 they hold team options on Isaiah Hartenstein ($28.5 million) and Lu Dort ($18.2 million).<\/p>\n

Hartenstein helped limit Wembanyama in several games of the West finals, a sturdy center with a necessary presence on the glass and a revered push shot. He\u2019s also SGA\u2019s best screener to date. Dort shot 5 of 25 from deep in the West finals, and his reputation as a defenders doesn\u2019t hide the redundancy on a roster in which Alex Caruso still offers major contributions, and Cason Wallace continuously proves disruptive.<\/p>\n

In a summer that\u2019ll nudge the Thunder to practice frugality, they hold picks Nos. 12 and 17 in June\u2019s NBA Draft. Should they need to further shuffle things, tradable contracts are at their disposal: guard Aaron Wiggins, effectively pushed out of the rotation, holds three more years on a deal worth $9 million in annual value and ends in a team option. Isaiah Joe, who saw his minutes chewed into by McCain, has two years left on a deal worth $12 million annually and also holds a team option.<\/p>\n

The Thunder will inevitably face change. Their superstar claims he\u2019ll have little sway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will give zero input,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said Saturday night. \u201cI will let Sam Presti, the greatest GM ever, do his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

OKC\u2019s mettle, built on brutal rebuilding seasons and groomed across these past couple postseasons, did not suffice.<\/p>\n

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As long as Wembanyama continues to mutate, San Antonio will stick. Experience no longer separates these youthful heavyweights. The Spurs tagged them first, but others will attempt to follow. The Thunder, as powerful as they remain, won\u2019t be the target to chase this summer \u2014 even if they feel they\u2019re deserving of this trip to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"Knicks-Spurs<\/p>\n
\n
\n Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals mega-preview: Predictions, odds, must-reads and more\n <\/div>\n
\n Here is everything you need to know about this 1999 finals rematch between the NBA’s largest market and its fifth-smallest.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that needs to be solved,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cWe could have won the game tonight, and you would have been asking them the same thing. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s this narrative that this is a bugaboo. We should have played better and won the game and been in the NBA Finals. They\u2019re a good team, they\u2019re young. We\u2019re a good team, we\u2019re young. Both will probably be around for a while, so we gotta get better and try to win next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The threshold for superiority has shape-shifted throughout NBA history. Bill Russell set an unreasonable bar. Michael Jordan, after Magic Johnson and Larry Bird combined for eight titles, received his coronation for winning six in six tries. Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan settled on five each. LeBron James and Curry recalibrated expectations at four. No superstar born from this era claims more than one.<\/p>\n

Adam Silver\u2019s parity era prides itself on equal opportunity. The Thunder sniffed their shot as the first team to return to consecutive finals since Kerr\u2019s Warriors.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s rulebook for winning leaves little room for runners-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to win multiple times. Winning is the ultimate form of (dominance),\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander told The Athletic<\/em> on May 11. \u201cYou have to do it multiple times. The more you win, the more dominant you become. I guess that\u2019s how I see it. Eras do differentiate, so it\u2019s hard to compare eras. That\u2019s where it gets tricky, rankings and stuff like that. But winning makes you dominant, and there\u2019s no middle ground with that. Whatever era it is, whoever won the most in that era was the most dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the night his Thunder completed the sweep, a second-straight, against James\u2019 Lakers, the follow-up felt obvious. Are the Thunder dominant?<\/p>\n

\u201cNah,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only won one.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, it\u2019ll stay that way. It\u2019ll be at least a year before Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s next chance to weigh in on this era\u2019s definition of dominance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 No one is more audible than the victor in the loser\u2019s building. The raucous fills the 24-year-old halls of the Paycom Center and reverberates through its creaky corners. Doors of hushed rooms swing open, and the celebration permeates deafening silence. Their hoots and hollers drown Shai Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s explanation of how a title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1964810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1964810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1964810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1964810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1964810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}