On May 30, 2026, the San Antonio Spurs won game seven of the Western Conference Finals on the road to advance to the franchise’s first NBA Finals since 2014. I just published an article on NBA Finals Droughts, which was inspired more by the 2025-26 Eastern Conference Champion New York Knicks making their first NBA Finals since 1998-99 than by the Spurs ending their comparatively modest Finals drought. In today’s post, we will step away from studying the NBA Finalists to look at the team which came one step short of the Finals in their loss to the Spurs – the Oklahoma City Thunder. The 2025-26 Thunder were, much like their 2024-25 championship squad, an historically great regular season team. They posted a 64-18 regular season record, which is the fifth-best win-loss record for a defending champion (trailing the 2015-16 Warriors (73-9), 1996-97 Bulls (69-13), 1991-92 Bulls (67-15), and 2012-13 Heat (66-16)). The 2025-26 Thunder posted a Net Rating, which refers to points scored per 100…
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