Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder drives to the basket against Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors in the 4th quarter at Chase Center on January 29, 2025. (Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)

At the risk of this becoming an Oklahoma City Thunder newsletter that occasionally also writes about football, hockey, baseball and women’s skateboarding, we do have to cover OKC a lot because, well, they’re absolutely shredding through the NBA right now.

Just like last season, they lead the league in net rating, this time at +15.2 — or 2.4 points per 100 clear of a year ago, when OKC had the second-highest figure in post-merger history (trailing only the 1995-96 Bulls’ +13.4 mark). At 20-1 so far this year, they are just the fourth team ever to start out with 20+ wins in their first 21 games during a season:

And as part of that, they’ve currently won 12 consecutive games, with a visit to — who else? — the Golden State Warriors (No. 1 on our list above) coming up Tuesday, followed by a set of very winnable games against the Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns, the latter in the NBA Cup quarterfinals, before whatever happens after that in the Cup. (Remember, the Cup semifinals do count toward regular-season standings and streaks, while the Cup final doesn’t. Because that makes sense.)

The Athletic’s Zach Harper asked on Monday, When will the Thunder lose again? Luckily, that’s something my Elo forecast model can help estimate. Here’s a look at OKC’s probability of extending their regular-season win streak a certain number of additional games, including the NBA Cup semifinal against either the Lakers or Spurs, if they advance past the Suns:

Most likely, they will win another 2 games, maybe 3 or 4, before the streak comes to a close at 14-16 straight overall. There’s a 32 percent chance the streak survives the NBA Cup — again, not counting the championship — and a little less than a 10 percent chance they go into Christmas Day against the Spurs with the streak intact at 21 wins and counting. Of course, they do also have a 1-in-178 chance of tying the 1971-72 Lakers’ record of 33 consecutive wins, which would happen on January 15 against Houston. If that does happen, OKC would be an insane 41-1 on the season, which not even the ‘96 Bulls or ‘16 Warriors did.

That probably won’t happen, though you never know. Just as compelling as the Thunder’s current streak, though, is the question of whether they can — or even want to — break the 2015-16 Warriors’ single-season record of 73 wins, and where this year’s Thunder may eventually find themselves in the conversation of basketball’s greatest-ever teams.