Oklahoma City Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the reigning NBA champions, and the most impressive thing about their title is how inevitable it felt by the end — a franchise that executed a rebuilding masterclass so thoroughly that the championship was less a surprise than a formality. Originally founded in 1967 as the Seattle SuperSonics before the controversial relocation to Oklahoma City in 2008, the Thunder play at Paycom Center, an 18,203-seat arena in a city that had no professional basketball history and now has a championship banner. That is the power of doing things properly.

Under Mark Daigneault, the Thunder posted a 68-14 regular season record — outscoring opponents by 12.9 points per game, the largest margin in NBA history — before defeating Indiana in seven games to claim the 2025 title. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the centrepiece, and calling him merely the best player in the NBA feels insufficient. The Canadian superstar won the regular season MVP, the scoring title at 32.7 points per game, and the Finals MVP in the same season, becoming the first player since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 to achieve that triple crown. He is not playing basketball at a higher level than everyone else. He is playing a different sport entirely.

The Thunder’s championship is the culmination of a patience that most modern franchises lack the discipline to exercise. They accumulated draft picks when the league mocked them for tanking, developed young talent when instant gratification was the fashion, and built a culture of accountability that turned Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, and Lu Dort into championship contributors. The front office, the coaching, the player development — every level of the organisation operates at an elite standard. This is not a team that got lucky. This is a team that got everything right.

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Club Profile

The Thunder enter 2025-26 as reigning champions, overwhelming favourites to repeat, and the most compelling argument in modern sport that patience and competence are more valuable than star-chasing and shortcuts. Gilgeous-Alexander is 26 years old. Holmgren is 23. Williams is 24. This is not a championship window — it is a championship decade, and the rest of the NBA knows it. Australian fans watching via ESPN and Kayo Sports are witnessing the early stages of what could become the next great dynasty. The Thunder did everything right. Now they get to enjoy the reward, and the league gets to figure out how to stop them. Good luck with that.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com