Mussatto: Ease up on OKC Thunder expectations for this season. The good times are now.
CHICAGO — Let’s back up 371 days.
Back to opening night 2022-23 in Minneapolis, where the Timberwolves beat the Thunder 115-108. Aleksej Pokuševski started for OKC that night. Tre Mann, Darius Bazley and Eugene Omoruyi led the bench in minutes. The Thunder’s win total over/under was set at 23.5, and you could see why.
Turns out it was 16.5 games off. The Thunder went 40-42, ending its season in Minnesota where it started — only this time with a playoff berth on the line.
Now, with the Thunder in Chicago to open the 2023-24 season at 7 p.m. Wednesday against the Bulls, Oct. 19, 2022 is but a distant memory. Everyone from Bill Simmons to Adrian Wojnarowski is pumping up the Thunder, which has a win total over/under of 44.5, according to FanDuel.
I’m not here to dunk on your dreams — I’m predicting a 42-40 season with another play-in appearance — I just want to remind you that the Thunder skipped a step. Going from the so-called black eye of the NBA to the league’s darling isn’t supposed to happen this fast. So maybe ease up on the expectations.
“We're stealing from the future somewhere,” general manager Sam Presti said in his preseason news conference.
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What Presti meant is that a 24-win team isn’t supposed to organically win 40 games the next year. It’s not like the Thunder added a superstar in between. One of their own, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, developed into one. Presti is also quick to point out that the Thunder, 40-42 last year, is still not a .500 team.
“We got very fortunate, things went very well for us,” Presti said. “There's a lot of reasons why, like randomness and also a lot of our own hard work, but there will be some regression in that.”
The Thunder had two tanking seasons of 22 and 24 wins, the first of which fans were barred from seeing because of COVID restrictions. If you look back, that dark tunnel wasn’t as long as it seemed.
Mark Daigneault, last year’s NBA Coach of the Year runner-up, has a job that seasoned coaches would envy. Those same coaches just wouldn’t have been willing to captain the ship through the rough waters to get here, as Daigneault deftly did.
“The outside atmosphere, respectfully, is fleeting, so that's not a reliable source of motivation because it comes and goes based on outcomes,” Daigneault said when pressed on expectations. “We have high standards inside of our walls that when performed to our capability raise the bar higher than anything externally can.”
I was as guilty as anyone for my snark during the tank even though I knew it was the only logical path for a small-market team to get back to contention, and look now at what those losses netted. Guys like Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren — the last of which is just now making his NBA debut. And the Thunder still has draft picks galore.
You might need a pair of those eclipse glasses to safely stare at the Thunder’s future — a future when the primes Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren, Giddey and Jalen Williams could all overlap. If the Thunder wins 38 or 40 games this season, does that future look any more dim. Barring significant injury, how could it?
This is still the gravy zone.
“Enjoy the ride,” Presti said.
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Presti, to his credit, has literally stuck to his rebuilding script, which he shared in an Oklahoman op-ed in July 2019. His tone after a 24-win season was the same as it was coming off a 40-win season.
Presti said almost 16,000 words in his preseason news conference. He recited metaphors about the Minutemen and painting houses. He referenced two Hamiltons — the musical and the Canadian city. He rehashed an alternate universe in which Ben Gordon and David Lee played for the Thunder. He twice used the word “virtuoso,” in reference to pianist Keith Jarrett and guitarist Vernon Reid, who founded the band Living Colour.
What does any of that have to do with the 2023-24 Thunder? Well, that’s kind of the point. He talks as if he’s rearranging puzzle pieces in his mind — thoughts from different times and experiences that are all interconnected. And I think that’s how he views the Thunder, not season-by-season, but as a whole where the future, albeit fluid, is at the focus of every decision.
Some have slammed Presti for slow-playing this process. As ironic as it sounds, his patience was an accelerant.
2020-21 Thunder (Year 1 of rebuild): 22-50
2021-22 Thunder (Year 2 of rebuild): 24-58
2022-23 Thunder (Year 3 of rebuild): 40-42
“This is a young team, and the building process transcends any individual season,” Daigneault said. “We’re always trying to evolve and become better, and this (season) is no different.
The secret sauce in all this is time.
And it goes faster than you think. Think about where the Thunder is now compared to where it was 371 days ago.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
Thunder vs. Bulls
TIPOFF: 7 p.m. Wednesday at United Center in Chicago (Bally Sport Oklahoma)
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder predictions for 2023-24 NBA season shouldn't be everything
