{"id":191439,"date":"2025-10-05T14:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T14:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/191439\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T14:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T14:07:07","slug":"latest-thunder-prediction-goes-against-the-grain-in-worst-possible-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/191439\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Thunder prediction goes against the grain in worst possible way"},"content":{"rendered":"

The OKC Thunder are gearing up to defend their crown during the 2025-26 season, and, according to the odds-makers, should be viewed as the overwhelming favorites<\/a> to take home their second consecutive Larry O’Brien Trophy.<\/p>\n

However, the folks at Bleacher Report are more under the impression that, even if they wind up winning it all and become the first repeat champion the league has seen since 2018, “there’s really nowhere to go but down.”<\/p>\n

Because of this, writer Grant Hughes has Oklahoma City taking somewhat of a step back<\/a> this coming year, at least in the record department, as he predicts the club will finish with six fewer wins than they did last season.<\/p>\n

Thunder predicted to go 62-20 in latest B\/R piece<\/p>\n

Though Hughes would make sure to note that he believes the Thunder are “deservedly” the favorite to win the 2026 NBA Finals, and that he projects the club to win five more games than any other team in this exercise, he’s still under the impression that they will be taking “a step backward from last season’s 68-14 mark.”<\/p>\n

Of course, his case for why is more due to self-imposed causes than anything else, as he wrote: “Between some health-related caution and stylistic tinkering, the Thunder will, by choice, not threaten 70 wins again this season.”<\/p>\n

Clearly, this is the opposite take of virtually every other big-name pundit out there discussing the Thunder’s potential record.<\/p>\n

Some, such as ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, have gone as far as to suggest they could realistically push past that 70-win mark relatively easily, saying earlier this summer<\/a>, “it ain’t like they went all-in to get to 68 last year.”<\/p>\n

By all accounts, this seems to be both the preferred thought process for OKC fans and, arguably, the more logical overall.<\/p>\n

As Hughes mentioned, there’s a realistic chance that the Thunder could look to periodically rest some of their key players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren throughout the upcoming campaign.<\/p>\n

However, it’s not as if they didn’t already find themselves marching into games with core talents donning street clothes on a consistent basis last season.<\/p>\n

With Hughes’ proposal, the only difference between last year and this year would be that it’s coach Mark Daigneault making the ultimate decision of whether a player will be held out rather than the medical staff’s.<\/p>\n

In 2024-25, nine of the team’s core talents missed 10 or more games, while five were sidelined for north of 20. Holmgren, their cornerstone big man, missed a whopping 50 on his own. As a result, the Thunder were forced to roll out 30 different starting lineups during their 82-game regular season.<\/p>\n

And even with all of these hardships, they still were able to wrap up with the fifth-most wins as well as the best point differential in league history.<\/p>\n

Assuming their unfortunate injury woes don’t transfer over into this season, the Thunder are bound to see way more rotational continuity, which can only help their success rate, not hurt it. On top of this, they’re also adding some exciting new pieces to the rotation, such as last year’s redshirted lottery pick, Nikola Topic.<\/p>\n

All things considered, it seems more plausible that this team, as currently constructed, will push for two more wins rather than six more losses in 2025-26. Frankly, should the latter actually wind up becoming a reality, it could be seen as a serious letdown for the reigning champs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The OKC Thunder are gearing up to defend their crown during the 2025-26 season, and, according to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-191439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}