Oklahoma won the regular NBA championship in the Western Conference

One of the main results of the NBA regular season that ended last weekend can be considered a real sports anomaly. First place in the Western Conference and second in the league summary table was taken by the Oklahoma City Thunder club, whose rise before the season none of the experts dared to predict. It’s all about the exceptional youth of the club, whose core is formed from players aged just over 20 years.

The funniest thing after the stormy final day of the NBA regular season was to check: was my memory failing me? Is it really true that before the season there were no experts who saw in Oklahoma a club that was capable of blowing up the hierarchy? After all, people who do this kind of guesswork usually know everything about basketball. It is impossible that they did not smell the sensation in advance. But no, nothing like that. Sporting News did not even include it in the top ten in the Western Conference.

Although, in general, it’s easy to understand all these analysts who didn’t notice Oklahoma. Who in their right mind would have thought that she could be competitive! No background.

Two years ago, Oklahoma finished the regular season with a shameful number of victories – 24, such an absolutely hopeless outsider. In 2023, it raised its status, but only slightly. She barely climbed to tenth place in the Western table and got caught up – no, not in the play-offs, but in the so-called play-in. In the NBA, unlike, for example, the NHL, not eight clubs from the conference directly advance to the opening round of the cup stage of the season, but six. Two more are added to them after that very play-in – a mini-tournament with the participation of teams that finished in places from sixth to tenth. In it, Oklahoma lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves last year. In general, again, nothing interesting, hinting at an imminent breakthrough.

And her application did not hint at him at all. There is one superstar – Canadian Shay Gilgeous-Alexander, who is a jack of all trades: playmaker, scorer, defender. But around him there is a squad of basketball players whose data does not at all coincide with the ideas of what a contender for great achievements should look like. And we’re not talking about height or specific gaming talents.

ESPN he even recorded a kind of record, which is hard for anyone who closely follows the NBA to believe. But the numbers don’t lie.

Oklahoma played many games this season with a starting five in which 25-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander looked like a true veteran.

The others were even younger. Luguentz Dort is 24, Jalen Williams is 23, Chet Holmgren and Josh Giddey are 21 each, and another trusted guard by coach Marc Daigneault, Cason Wallace, is 20 years old. Yesterday’s or the day before yesterday’s newcomers. There has never been such a team in the NBA.

However, in the regular season everything worked out for them. Shay Gilgeous-Alexander played in such a way that the talk that he should have been awarded the best player of the season award became relevant. With an average of 30.1 points per game, he was third in scoring in the championship, slightly behind Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, and shared the first position in steals (exactly two on average per game) with De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings. He was good in other aspects too.

And the inexperienced youth may not have done anything outstanding, but at least they were reliable and surprisingly stable. And after Sunday’s 135:86 rout of Oklahoma against Dallas, it turned out that it has the same number of wins – 57 – as the Denver Nuggets, and has an advantage in additional indicators. By the way, over the club that became the NBA champion a year ago.

And a number of competitors remained far behind, which, like Denver, were rated much higher than Oklahoma.

The Los Angeles Lakers, with the evergreen LeBron James, and the Golden State Warriors were completely included in the play-in. Gilgeous-Alexander, who was asked to comment on the outcome of the regular championship, could not find a more suitable description than “surreal”.

In the league summary table, Oklahoma, however, still ended up in second place. In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Celtics went through the regular season amazingly evenly, winning 64 out of 82 matches, which surprised no one: the Bostonians have an extremely powerful and dense roster – exactly the kind that not only hints, but demands the inclusion of its lucky owner to the shortlist of obvious contenders for the championship.

Alexey Dospehov