Almost immediately after the Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks on Saturday night to clinch the 2025 Eastern Conference championship, the jokes, memes, and hand-wringing about the small-market profile of the upcoming Indiana-Oklahama City Thunder NBA Finals, which tip off on June 5, began. On social media, NBA commissioner Adam Silver—given the presumed low ratings that await Pacers (who play in the 25th-biggest TV market in the U.S.) and the Thunder (47th)—was depicted as Ron Burgundy going berserk, an exasperated LeBron James, and a hysterical Andy Samberg yelling, “I need to go to my quiet place!”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Shall we call this series Little Hoops on the Prairie? Headlines breathlessly wondered “How a small-market NBA Finals affects the league’s bottom line,” and “Does the NBA have a market size problem?” Some so-called fans have already labeled the 2025 finals boring, which is a funny way to characterize games that haven’t even started yet.
Yes, according to CBS Sports, you’d have to go back to the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks-Baltimore Bullets final to find a pair of teams from outside the top-20 markets meeting in the championship round. And this is the first finals matchup involving two teams who don’t pay a luxury tax, a measure instituted in 2002 that penalizes teams financially for spending above a set threshold.
So the small-market pairing will be the dominant theme of these finals. Prepare to hear about it ad nauseum.
But why should the number of people in the cities of Indianapolis and Oklahoma City have any bearing on whether or not to watch basketball games? For a viewer in Dallas or Dubuque—or even the recently vanquished cities of New York or Minneapolis—“Indiana” and “Oklahoma City” should be mere letters on a jersey, not some sort of cloud over the NBA’s title round.
Because if you look past market size, there’s lots to love about this duel.
Let’s start with the Thunder. Oklahoma City sneakily turned in one of the best regular seasons in the history of hoops. The Thunder won 68 regular-season games; only six other teams have won that many, or more, in a season. With an average age of 25.6 years, Oklahoma City is the second-youngest team in 70 years to reach the finals: the champion 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers, led by the late, great Bill Walton, were younger (25.03 years).
OKC’s a model in team building. The Thunder acquired Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—the 2025 NBA MVP known as SGA—from the Los Angeles Clippers, for All-Star forward Paul George, in 2019, following SGA’s rookie season. Oklahoma City also received five first-round draft choices in that deal, and turned one of them into Jalen Williams, who was selected 12th overall in the 2022 draft, out of Santa Clara. The versatile and electric Williams reached his first All-Star game this year. Williams and Chet Holmgren, the 7-ft. 1-in. unicorn taken second overall in that ‘22 draft, amplify SGA’s greatness: defenses can’t afford to just focus on stopping the shifty superstar. This young, hungry Big Three (SGA is 26, Williams, 24, Holmgren, 23) gives off dynasty vibes. (The trio has also joined forces for an AT&T commercial—in which they accidentally wear matching outfits to some sort of glitzy appearance—that’s been in steady rotation all playoffs long.)
Thunder GM Sam Presti signed big man Isaiah Hartenstein to a free-agent deal this offseason to fortify the front line and traded for Alex Caruso, one of the toughest defensive guards in the NBA. These two players have blended in with Thunder’s tight-knit crew: a group of supporting players usually surrounds the star of the game during postgame interviews, adding antics to a usually dreary affair.
The Pacers have similarly built their roster through the clever use of team assets. Just like Gilgeous-Alexander, after a promising start to his career elsewhere, Indiana point guard Tyrese Haliburton was traded to his current team for an established All-Star. In a multiplayer deal during the 2022 campaign—Haliburton’s second NBA season—the Sacramento Kings sent Haliburton to Indiana and got back big man Domantas Sabonis. Haliburton led the NBA in assists last season, made the U.S. Olympic team, and ahead of the 2024 trade deadline got the running mate he needed to compete for a championship: Indiana gave up three role players and a few draft picks to acquire Toronto Raptors All-Star Pascal Siakam, who won a title up north in 2019. At his best the rangy Siakam, the Eastern Conference Finals MVP against the Knicks, calls to mind a slightly smaller Kevin Durant.
The Pacers traded for Aaron Nesmith, the former Boston Celtic who killed the Knicks in Indiana’s Game 1 miracle comeback in the Eastern Conference Finals, after the 2022 season. The Pacers drafted its dual-threat big, Myles Turner, in 2015, and loaded up on a seemingly endless parade of role players—Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, Bennedict Mathurin, Ben Sheppard, T.J. McConnell, Thomas Bryant, and more—through smart draft choices, trades, and free-agent signings. Indiana is a deep and athletic squad, and shares the ball with abandon.
When Indiana is clicking, they’re a joy to watch. So is OKC.
Get used to less glitzy teams, like Indiana and OKC, succeeding. Unlike the Miami Heat, with James and Chris Bosh in the 2010s, or the Golden State Warriors with Kevin Durant prior to winning the 2017 and 2018 titles, or the Los Angeles Lakers with James during their 2020 title run, neither the Pacers nor Thunder have signed superstars in free agency. In fact, recent changes within the NBA’s collective-bargaining agreement make it more difficult for big-spending, big-market teams to stockpile free agents and make trades.
The NBA will crown its seventh different champion in seven years this June. The league’s parity era is already here and won’t go anywhere fast.
And isn’t this a better outcome than we see in, say, baseball, where teams in New York, Los Angeles, and other bigger cities can just spend, spend, spend to acquire superstars?
“I think it’s a new blueprint for the league, man,” Turner said after Indiana’s Game 6 victory over New York. “I think the years of the superteams and stacking, it’s not as effective as it once was. Since I’ve been in the league, this NBA is very trendy. It just shifts. But the new trend now is just kind of what we’re doing. OKC does the same thing. Young guys, get out and run, defend. And, you know, use the power of friendship is how they call it.”
A bunch of buddies bonding to win a championship? The potential of SGA and Haliburton going at it, like Magic Johnson/Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant/Allen Iverson, LeBron James/Steph Curry, and other great finals pairings of the past?
Sign me up. Population size is a snore.
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