Kevin Durant should have won a world championship with Oklahoma City.
He fled to the safety of Golden State, and had to pair up with Stephen Curry to win two NBA Finals on the Warriors’ superteam.
James Harden could have become the franchise face of the Thunder.
The Beard was foolishly traded away after just three seasons, abruptly ending the best young super-trio in NBA history.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just beat Nikola Jokic for the 2024-25 NBA MVP, and has the best regular-season team in The Association three wins away from the Finals.
Take the next huge leap, and SGA will make Russell Westbrook an afterthought in OKC.
The 26-year-old from Canada is still trying to convince ESPN that he deserves comparable coverage with LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Ja Morant and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
But there was no comparison during the regular season, since Gilgeous-Alexander easily beat Jokic in the NBA MVP vote and led the young Thunder to 16 more wins than the Western Conference’s second-place team.
SGA is brilliant on the hardwood, humble and team-first in his post-victory interviews, and has become the perfect answer for OKC after Harden, Durant and Westbrook moved on for bigger — but often not better — things.
“I never thought this was going to happen,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Thunder host Anthony Edwards‘ Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals on Thursday.
“I dreamt about it as a kid, but you know as a kid it’s a fake dream. But as the days go on and you realize that you get closer to your dream, it’s hard to not freak out.
GettySGA has become the few face of OKC[/caption] GettyNow he’s won an MVP like Durant, Westbrook and Harden[/caption] GettyHe regularly inserts his teammates in his interviews[/caption]“It’s hard to not be a 6-year-old kid again, and I think that’s what’s allowed me to achieve it. I try to not focus on it and just worry about what’s got me to this place, which is just working hard and taking it day by day and trusting the people around me and trusting the things that I’ve done to get me to this place.”
General manager Sam Presti has been the only constant from the Seattle SuperSonics, Durant, Westbrook and Harden to Mark Daigneault, Chet Holmgren and SGA.
But it’s the 6ft 6in and 200lb guard from Toronto who’s on the verge of accomplishing what Durant, Westbrook and Harden failed to achieve when they wore the same uniform.
The trio reached the 2012 NBA Finals, losing 4-1 to a Miami Heat team inspired by the dynamic trio of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.
Winning a world championship for small-market Oklahoma City, which had the best fanbase in the NBA during the peak of Durant’s early years in thunder blue, and has again become a huge home-court advantage in 2025.
As a franchise, the Sonics/Thunder only won one NBA Finals in 1978-79.
Outside of faded history, that title has nothing to do with Oklahoma City, and Presti has been building (and rebuilding) toward a defining championship since 2007.
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SGA is the modern shining centerpiece for OKC.
“The way I see it, everything is left,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
“When I picked up a basketball when I was nine years old, playing AAU, I never sat there like, ‘I want to be an All-Star, I want to be an MVP.’ I sat there like, ‘I want to win this tournament.’
“Winning is everything. If you don’t win, none of it matters. That’s just how I see the game. That’s how I see competition in general.
“You pick up the ball to play and win. That’s what I’m after, winning as many times as I possibly can.”
The Thunder have been a part of Oklahoma City since 2008.
Lost Thunder
Career earningsKevin Durant: $447 millionJames Harden: $372 millionRussell Westbrook: $345 millionTotal: $1.1 billionNBA championships with Thunder: 0
Durant is a four-time Olympic gold medal winner and one of the best basketball players in history, but he could soon be on his fifth team and his career arc took a major hit when he left OKC.
Harden is one of the greatest scorers in NBA history, yet he’s never won a title and likely never will.
Westbrook has an MVP and was a triple-double machine before Jokic, but he’s now a 36-year-old role player shooting 39 percent in the playoffs.
This is SGA’s time and his team.
Win seven more playoff games, and the young superstar foolishly traded away by the Los Angeles Clippers will become immortal in Oklahoma City.
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