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Yes, it’s early in the 2025-26 NBA season. Yes, several teams could put it all together to win the championship. And there will come a point when we wonder whether the Oklahoma City Thunder are even the best team in the Western Conference, as many heavy-hitters are looking to ride the wave of competitive balance (seven different champions in the last seven years) to take down what OKC is trying to accomplish.
However, the Thunder are looking to demolish the concept of parity and everything in their path before the boogeyman second apron comes calling for key portions of their nearly flawless roster. After posting one of the most dominant seasons in NBA history last year (greatest margin of victory, tied for the fourth-most regular-season wins at 68), they’re off to an even more destructive start this season. The Thunder sit at 12-1, and their 15.54 margin of victory, just 13 games into the season, is outpacing what they did a year ago (12.87).
The Thunder have accomplished this early dominance by somehow being better on defense than last season. In their championship run, the Thunder’s defense made so many teams virtually tap out at certain points in the game. They swarmed, they bumped, they swatted and swiped, and we saw OKC hold opponents to 106.6 points per 100 possessions. It was the best defensive rating in the NBA — 2.5 points per 100 possessions better than the second-ranked Orlando Magic. OKC allowed the lowest effective field goal percentage. It forced the highest turnover rate. It ranked first in points off turnovers per game. It ranked ninth in defensive rebounding percentage. Not to mention how young this Thunder team was last season.
They’re still young, but they’ve improved their defense to an absurd degree through the first 13 games. They’re still first in eFG percentage allowed. They’re fourth in opponent turnover rate. They’re still first in points off turnovers. And they’ve improved to the fifth-best defensive rebounding team. It all adds up to the Thunder only allowing 103.0 points per 100 possessions. That’s 6.4 points better than the second-ranked Denver Nuggets defense.
The Thunder are doing all of this while missing their second-best player, Jalen Williams. He has yet to make his season debut as he recovers from a wrist injury. Lu Dort has missed six games. Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso have both missed four games. Williams, Dort and Caruso (twice) have each made All-Defense teams in the last three years. And Holmgren is a great shot-blocking presence all over the floor. This defense will get better, and so will their sixth-ranked offense.
Granted, we’re not even a quarter of the way through the season, but I can’t help but wonder if OKC can end up having the best title defense ever. While a lot can happen, it’s not like we’ve yet seen the best of this Thunder team. It’s worth reviewing what their contemporaries are in terms of dominance when it comes to title defenses, not just in how they perform in the postseason, but wire-to-wire.
(For argument’s sake and trying to modernize the conversation, we’re only going back with post-merger champions, so the 1976-77 season and beyond. No offense to the pre-merger days.)
2015-16 Golden State Warriors
This team was nearly the standard:
- They went from 67 regular-season wins to an NBA record 73.
- At the time, they had the sixth-best margin of victory (10.76) in league history.
- They started the season 24-0.
- They had the league’s best offense and were tied for the 10th-best offense in league history.
- They were fifth in defensive rating that season.
- Most of their wins (44) were double-digit victories (tied for the ninth-best mark in a season at the time).
Everything pointed toward these Warriors being the best title defense ever. And then … the Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 deficit to pull off the greatest comeback ever. Title defense nullified.
1996-97 Chicago Bulls
You may remember the 1995-96 Bulls winning 72 games (an NBA record at the time) and marching to Michael Jordan’s fourth title in six years. Well, in 1996-97, the Bulls won 69 games.
- The 1996 Bulls had the third-highest margin of victory (12.24) ever at the time. The 1997 Bulls had the fifth-highest MOV (10.80) ever.
- The 1996 Bulls had the fourth-best offense ever (at the time). The 1997 Bulls had the 10th-best offense ever.
- The 1996 Bulls had the third-most (at the time) double-digit wins ever with 45. The 1997 Bulls had 44.
Most importantly, the Bulls won the championship in 1997. After going 15-3 in the playoffs during the 1996 title run, the Bulls went 15-4 in the 1997 title run. They were incredibly close to being as dominant as the most historic champion we’d ever seen in the following year.
Funny enough, back before Google existed and we were looking things up in sports almanacs, if we were looking things up at all. There were a couple of years when I thought the Bulls won 70 games in back-to-back seasons. My friend had a bootleg shirt stating as such, presumably made to sell with the assumption they’d win 70 games in the 1996-97 season. The Bulls were 69-11 with two games left to play but lost both. The final game was at home against the Knicks, and Scottie Pippen missed a 3-pointer that would have won the game. My friend’s shirt was a lie, and I probably didn’t know it was a lie for about two years.
Yes, we traveled by horse and buggy then.
2012-13 Miami Heat
This one is a little different because the Heat were coming off a 46-20 season because of the lockout. Not that the championship counts any less, but comparing numbers and seasons from a lockout to a full season is really tough.
They were on pace for a 57-win season but weren’t the most dominant team in the league that season. They were really good, obviously, but the Heat were eighth in offense, fourth in defense and fourth in net rating. And they infamously needed LeBron James to go nuclear in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals before they broke through and won the title.
The 2012-13 Heat? This team was wrecking everybody. They jumped to 66 wins, fueled by a historic 27-game win streak. It was the second-longest single-season win streak in league history (33 for the 1971-72 Lakers). The 2013 Heat were the second most dominant team in the league that season but still “struggled” to win the title. It took them seven games to beat the Indiana Pacers in the conference finals and a legendary seven games with maybe the most clutch shot in NBA history to save their season and eventually win the championship.
The historic win streak puts the Heat in the conversation here, but they’re not even close to what the 1997 Bulls did from a point of dominance.
1991-92 Chicago Bulls
The Bulls were on a mission following their first title. Michael Jordan and company now had a taste for championships, and guess what? They liked it. They said championships taste good. Let’s go get some more championships. The Bulls were now unleashed on the NBA with championship understanding and a tenacity Jordan could justify demanding out of his teammates. They ascended into a different stratosphere of dominance.
- They went from 61 wins in 1991 to 67 wins in 1992.
- The 1991 Bulls have the ninth-best margin of victory (9.10) in NBA history. The 1992 Bulls had the fourth-best ever MOV (10.44) at the time.
- Their offensive rating (114.6) went from the fourth-best ever to the second-best ever (115.5) at the time.
- Their defensive rating improved from 105.2 to 104.5.
They did run into a great Knicks team in the second round of the playoffs, and it took them seven games to win, but the Bulls didn’t really get pushed in the rest of the playoffs. The conference finals against Cleveland and the NBA Finals against Portland both went six games, but the Bulls mostly controlled both series.
Those are the biggest contenders in the conversation to challenge what the Thunder are doing. OKC is on pace to win 75 games right now, and it’s worth reminding you a few hundred words later that the Thunder still haven’t had their second-best player on the court, outside of postgame TV interviews when he’s trolling in the background.
There will be challengers to ruin the title defense. The Denver Nuggets have had their depth replenished. Nikola Jokić’s team is off to a 9-2 start and on pace for the second-best margin of victory ever (13.36). They have the best player in the world, who cannot be stopped. And the Thunder, as great as they are, don’t have the personnel to stop him. But they do have the defense and personnel to stop everybody else, as we saw in their seven-game series last postseason. That Nuggets team was a mess, not very good around Jokić and in shambles with an interim coach put in place in the last week of the season. Now they have a much-improved roster and are healthy, not to mention whatever challengers emerge in the West.
It’s going to be a great march to whoever wins this championship. As of right now, though, the Thunder are defending the title in a way we’ve never seen.
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Zach Harper is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the NBA. Zach joined The Athletic after covering the NBA for ESPN.com, CBS Sports and FRS Sports since 2009. He also hosts radio for SiriusXM NBA and SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. Follow Zach on Twitter @talkhoops
