{"id":614265,"date":"2026-04-19T10:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T10:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/614265\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T10:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T10:38:08","slug":"last-year-is-over-oklahoma-city-launch-title-defense-as-nbas-parity-era-faces-test-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/614265\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Last year is over\u2019: Oklahoma City launch title defense as NBA\u2019s parity era faces test | Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA has not seen a reigning champion take its title defense as far as the conference finals, let alone hoist a second consecutive Larry O\u2019Brien trophy, since the Golden State Warriors were cut off at the ankle and calf<\/a> by the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 Finals. That\u2019s seven straight seasons in which parity has ruled supreme, for better or for worse, and dynastic runs seem fated to be a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

Not if one team in America\u2019s heartland has anything to say about it. The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> embark on these 2026 playoffs in search of historic greatness, trends be damned. And less than two weeks before the first game of the postseason tips off, you\u2019d be hard pressed to find substantive evidence to believe their goal won\u2019t be achieved.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City will be the No 1 seed in the bloodbath that is the NBA\u2019s Western Conference for the third consecutive year this season. The last time a team has accomplished this particular feat, three straight years atop their conference? That aforementioned Warriors outfit (in 2017). And it\u2019s rarefied air in NBA history in general<\/a>: the only other teams to hold down the top spot that long, respectively, are the creme de la creme: the Celtics and Lakers\u2019 top rosters in their storied histories, and the Jordan Bulls. Every team with this accomplishment finished with the ultimate accomplishment: an NBA championship.<\/p>\n

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, MVP frontrunner for the second consecutive year, also exists in rarefied air at the moment. He has the potential to receive both league MVP and NBA Finals MVP honors in consecutive years. If he does, he\u2019d be the first to do it since LeBron James in 2012 and 2013. A big part of Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s MVP case \u2013 and why he\u2019s heavily favored to win the award again this season \u2013 comes down to his hyperreliable efficiency, something of which even James himself has taken note. Of the Thunder star on the most recent episode of his Mind the Game podcast<\/a>, James said: \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things I love about Shai \u2013 for him to play on the perimeter as much as he does, in the midrange as much as he does, and still be as super efficient as he is? It\u2019s Jordan-esque, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time in NBA history, there have been seven different champions in a seven-year span. Last year\u2019s winners Oklahoma City are hotly tipped to end that streak<\/a><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a reason, of course, that no team has successfully mounted a title defense since the 2017-18 Warriors. It\u2019s really difficult to do, and increasingly so as the league has become more and more talented, and as the ability to weather the war of attrition nature of the playoffs has become paramount. The mental and physical toll of an 82-game regular-season grind certainly doesn\u2019t get any easier to muddle through after a championship, and the only Thunder with experience in that particular arena, veteran guard Alex Caruso, knows that all too well. I ask him what advice he had, if any, for his younger compatriots this summer, heading into a title defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally just trying to stay present. Each year is a different team in the league,\u201d he says. \u201cI tried to tell them just stay present, enjoy the moment with the team we have now, because it\u2019s not guaranteed that you get to try and play for a championship or play on a great team every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about the natural lag in urgency that seems almost inevitable once you\u2019ve submitted the mountaintop?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou fight human nature a little bit through the regular season,\u201d he tells me. \u201cBut once the postseason starts, it\u2019s kind of do-or-die, and that mentality, that feeling, is pretty easy to chase again.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that another notch in the \u201cOklahoma City will repeat\u201d column is that, by all accounts, the young bucks on the team didn\u2019t even really need much cajoling when it came to maintaining their focus throughout a long, arduous season. I ask head coach Mark Daigneault about the unique challenge that a championship defense presents, and how he\u2019s steered his troop through it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team, to be honest with you \u2013 it is a long season and it is a grind, but this is a team that truly enjoys being around one another,\u201d he says. \u201cThe minute they get together on the bus, it seems that their energy goes up. When they\u2019re together in practice or shoot-around, their energy goes up. Even in games, they gain energy by being around each other, and they\u2019ve kind of always been like that. So, that\u2019s been a quality that\u2019s existed independently of context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daigneault also emphasizes that he encourages players not to even consider the season a \u201cdefense\u201d, per se. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to look at it as a new season, that started from scratch,\u201d he tells me in Los Angeles. \u201cLast year was great, no one\u2019s taken that away from us, but it\u2019s also over. And we\u2019ve tried to look at this season as a new blank canvas that we\u2019ve had to paint on, or whatever you will. So, they\u2019ve done a great job of that, and we\u2019ve been able to play pretty consistent basketball throughout the season as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder aren\u2019t repeat champions yet \u2013 that\u2019s why you play the games, as they say. But between their level heads, stellar leadership, youth, athleticism and skill, they are as primed as any team in recent NBA<\/a> history to get the job done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA has not seen a reigning champion take its title defense as far as the conference finals,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-614265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614265","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=614265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}