{"id":146114,"date":"2025-09-15T23:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146114\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:59:07","slug":"major-thunder-mistake-could-lead-to-ultimate-roadblock-to-repeating-as-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/146114\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Thunder mistake could lead to ultimate roadblock to repeating as champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months back, ESPN’s Zach Kram argued that the decision to trade Alperen Sengun to the Houston Rockets on draft night back in 2021 is the “biggest roster mistake”<\/a> the OKC Thunder have made since 2020.<\/p>\n

Though he made sure to note that the exchange did net Sam Presti and company two future first-round picks, it’s important to understand that these assets were ultimately used a year later in a trade-up during the 2022 NBA Draft to select Ousmane Dieng.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, moving on from Sengun wound up being far from a crippling decision for the franchise. After all, they just won their first Larry O’Brien Trophy last season and, by all accounts, look to be set up to become the game’s next great dynasty.<\/p>\n

However, in an ironic turn of events, at least as far as the upcoming 2025-26 campaign is concerned, this move now has the opportunity to thwart the club’s pursuit of winning back-to-back titles.<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun leads charge for one of biggest Thunder threats<\/p>\n

At +225, the odds-makers view the Thunder as the clear favorites<\/a> to win the 2026 NBA Finals and, in turn, become the first club since the 2018 Golden State Warriors to repeat as champs.<\/p>\n

Only a few rungs below them are the Rockets at +850, the fifth-best odds to win it all in the entire association.<\/p>\n

Following the offseason trade that sent Kevin Durant to Houston<\/a>, many are now viewing the future Hall of Famer as the leader of the reigning second-seeds. However, despite what his resume and all-time accolades may suggest, this team is still unequivocally Sengun’s.<\/p>\n

Every season since entering the league, the 7-footer has only managed to improve his all-around level of play.<\/p>\n

2024-25 proved to be his best yet, as he dropped averages of 19.1 points, 10.3 rebounds (career-high), and 4.9 assists on 49.6 percent shooting from deep while sporting a 7.6 net rating (career-best), guiding the team to their eighth-most wins in franchise history (52) and their first playoff berth since 2019-20, all en route to his first All-Star nod.<\/p>\n

Now, following such a season while entering into the first year of his lucrative $185 million deal, both his usage and pay-day solidify him as the de facto star of this top-threat contender in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

While Durant may give the Rockets an even greater edge than what they had last season, in the end, Sengun is the conductor of this team — they will go wherever he leads them.<\/p>\n

Last season, he was able to guide them to a 2-3 record in head-to-heads with the Thunder, making them one of only a handful of teams to pull out multiple wins against the eventual champions.<\/p>\n

With an improved supporting cast that now includes the likes of KD, they should only be expected to become even more challenging for Oklahoma City to square off against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few months back, ESPN’s Zach Kram argued that the decision to trade Alperen Sengun to the Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-146114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}