 What's the word y'all? Yoke see thunder just added another really big win to their resume and all season long I've been watching the thunder they're like my favorite team to watch for multiple multiple reasons and I see a team that is a contender in there but in the back of my mind I think about their youth as of right now of course as you know they are the fourth youngest team in basketball fourth youngest team and look at who's around in the piscis are not good the spurs are not good I'm being nice the trouble is not good and then obviously we're talking about one seat the magic are good basketball team the jazz maybe not so much anymore but these teams that they are around they are leagues and leagues ahead of and I notice it's not rare this like you've probably seen this talk at point multiple multiple times throughout the season will their inexperience matter because if you just close your eyes and look past the fact that they are all super super young they have all the the makings for a team that can win an NBA championship they have a superstar point blank period winning an NBA championship you need to have a superstar more times than not they have that is Shay Gildes Alexander they have elite level shooting they are third in the association in three point percentage only behind the Clippers in the Minnesota Timberwolves they have an elite level defense fourth in the association at this moment they have great depth and they're well-coached what much more can you ask for for championship contending team then again you think about the fact that there's only a few players on their roster that have even played in the NBA playoff game and again like last night versus the Clippers showcased all of those things and I'm gonna break them down one by one first one Shay Gildes Alexander gave us his prototypical stat line of 31 points has some change 31 he always ends up with 31 I noticed to me but he was amazing there was a game early the season where they played against the Clippers and there was a lot of conversation about who the Clippers might have a kryptonite to shake it was Alexander they threw some bigger defenders on him and he struggled wearing this way it didn't matter who was guarding him when he had Kawhi when he had Paul George when he had ten words man it didn't matter Norman Powell did a full 360 on a step back she got to his spots and Shay executed when he got there in this game they shot 17 of 35 from three all season long there's there've been people saying and people speculating they were gonna have some three point shooting regression from the Thunders because they have too many people shooting career highs Lou Dort Lou Dort Lou Dort shot 30% from three is rookie season 34% sophomore than 32 than 33 and now he's sitting at a smooth 39% on five attempts Shay Gildes Alexander is getting closer and closer to getting back to that 41% three point shooter we saw in a second year in OKC and if you look at his last 15 games he's shooting 53% from three on three attempts I just don't know how you guard them then. Chad Holmgren almost 40% from three as a seven foot one rookie center it goes on and on and on Aaron Wiggins is a guy that a lot of people said his jump shot was gonna be one of the reasons why he may not be a full NBA player 51% from three Jdub 45% Isaiah Joe 43% like I can't believe case in Wallace 41% the shooting regression has never come which maybe scares me a little bit because maybe it comes in April I don't know or maybe this is just who this team is right now the defense last night amazing now Paul George has been through a major major slump I think he shooting 20 something percent from three in his last 15 games it's it's been kind of rough but they held Paul George to 14 points James Harden the 17 only 20 for Kawhi even though it was an efficient 20 like they really defensively stepped up specifically in that third quarter why I think they had seven to eight blocks all of those but like it was on Zubac like the defense really ramped up and that is the moment that they pulled away in this game where we got it where Chad Holmgren went to the bench and we get the small ball lineup of Cambridge Williams and Josh Giddy as the four and the five and they were everywhere arms everywhere steals layups three point shot trailer all of the defense was played and they would get the depth in this game in the first half Isaiah Joe scored 0-0 points in the first half none for some reason coach Mark Dayton on this goes hand-to-hand we talk about this this coaching stuff coach Mark Dayton I was like you know we're gonna start our third quarter with Isaiah Joe on the floor it had a lot to do with the way the Clippers were covering them the same way a lot of teams are gonna cover them once they play against okay seeing Josh Giddy's on the floor he is a non-threat to all teams across basketball so we're gonna guard him as a non-threat you know it's a big threat Isaiah Joe and in that third quarter Isaiah Joe hits a big time threes some big time cuts and play phenomenal defense on isolation with James Harden but Mark Dayton all saw this guy who in this game was had 0 points 2000 two turnovers going into halftime it was like you know what he needs to start in this third quarter and that is the type of depth we talk about with okay see and the type of coaching we talk about with okay see not to mention in this when Cambridge Williams was everywhere when his minutes I had a big time corner three got some steals and so on and so forth and the depth is only gonna get better because Gordon Hayward who played his first official game 13 minutes and do much other than get a couple rebounds but we know Gordon Hayward once he starts to ease his self back into playing after the injury and then time off he's gonna provide some depth and they picked up Bismac-Biambo who like the one of the major things other than the age thing the other major thing around okay see is like man they're gonna get killed on the glass they're a smaller team Bismac-Biambo as if you know you know he's he's been a character on my channels for years and years and years but the man is a good basketball player I guess has been up and down throughout his career but his last tenure in Memphis early this season this stat right here is how many of the teams miss field goals in the half court did they rebound so how many offensive rebounds that the team give up when busy was on the floor he was in a 94th percentile which means that hey you're not getting an offensive rebound when I'm on the court again it's been ups and downs and you before that a Phoenix it was awful but he's had really good years and this is one of his really good years when it comes to rebounding or not allowing the opposing team to get rebound now obviously busy is not a player that's going to be close in our games he's not a player that's even gonna play huge minutes but it's just in those those mixed minutes where he's getting you 15 minutes a night in those 15 minutes when you're going super small you know what I'm saying I didn't see people talk about a secondary star I don't know if you've been watching okay see like you should be because they have that secondary secondary star I want to show you something now if you don't know who I was referring to I was referring to Jaylen Williams he's averaging 19 points per game four and a half assists for rebounds 50% for the field but this is I want to go to his last year his rookie season stats I want to show you something ridiculous so in his first month of his NBA career he averaged 10 points per game second month 12 points per game third month 13 then 15 then 20 and then you get the three games at the end sees nose don't count those okay but in it his last month last complete month as a rookie averaging 20 points per game right this year 15 points per game in the first couple games of the season then he went up to 18 then it was 19 then it was 20 and right now he's in the midst of 23 points per game are you seeing a pattern about how much better this player has got from week one to week now and it continues to get better and better and better and these fourth quarters that Jaylen Williams has been able to put together have been phenomenal right now he is 11th in the league and fourth quarter scoring in just nine minutes and that's 58% in the field 58% of three I mean he's doing it you know fourth quarter j-dub is real but for some people everything that I just talked about doesn't matter because they're super young and I just understand it right it's rare and I mean extremely extremely rare that we see a team with zero playoff series wins jump to title contender in one season so the best example we have that's somewhat similar to this is okc teams of last we're in 2010 this team made it to the playoffs and lost in the first round to the Lakers then in year number two of being together they made it all the way to the conference finals and the year number three of being together they made it to the finals and eventually lost now you can look at this a couple different ways you can say that the current okc team may not have that first round exit like we saw the 2010 okc team do but they do have post-season or a post-season appearance last year with them being in the playing does that count we don't know the only other example I could think of at least in recent history is like an okc a warriors team of the past but it's not a one-to-one parallel because of 2012-2013 warriors even got to the second round and this is year three Steph Curry this is rookie Draymond Green in year one Clay Thompson the year after that they made it to the first round two and lost a seven to to the Clippers and then we saw them win a championship so they basically had three years of their court together before they ended up winning a championship and I would say okay see this is really year one because Chet is that impactful of a player you know what I'm saying so it's really just year one of them all coming together so it's not great one-to-one parallels as far as these super young teams being successful but we do see something that you can squint your eyes and say it's similar now another one of the main things that's going against okc in this conversation is how ridiculous the western conference is the western conference is always ridiculous but particularly ridiculous this year so let's say this is a snapshot let's say the season were to end today right now they would have to play either the sons the kings the lakers and the warrior or the warriors in the first round hello um uh Devin Booker is one of the best shouldn't guard the basketball if not the best in basketball Kevin Durant is still Magnificent Bradley Bill if he's healthy he's still ridiculous this team has experience the kings may not have a ton of experience with only one playoff series under their belt but that's more than what okc's got right now obviously the Lakers won a championship four years ago and they have Anthony Davis and Braun and then the Warriors have Steph Curry Draymond and the Remain is of Clay Thompson so they're going to be outmatched on experience in all of these and I'm sure that if if one of these series were to happen they're going to be a lot of experts on tv or panelists they're going to say hey this might be a first round exit for the Oklahoma City Thunder but let's say they do end up winning that round yes they did it and now they get to the second round guess what you got to go either against either the Clippers or the Mavs I mean you just beat the Clippers two times out of three um and then last time we played the Mavs they dogged y'all but like it's gonna be a tough path and let's say you get past them now you got to go against either the Nuggets or the Timberwolves in the conference finals and then if you get past one of them you got to go against one of these teams probably the Celtics probably the path could not be more difficult especially for a young team that hasn't had to really get down to that nitty gritty for a seven game series before I'm extremely excited to see if they can do it I still don't know if I put them as like one of the real contenders for everything that I just said but I'm excited to figure out what's right and what's wrong