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Strength of schedule may not be that refined yet but BRef's calculation has Thunder's SOS as weakest / easiest in league so far.

John Schuhmann says Thunder has lowest transition scoring rate.

Nuggets 9W - 10L against Thunder in last 3+ years (including playoffs). Best in their championship 2022-23 season but competitive last season.

From last regular season to playoffs, Thunder got better on 4 factors, worse on 4.

Better on offensive rebounding, own ft/fga, shot defense and opponent turnovers.

The same factor split and same directional change occurred for every rs to playoff factor on average.

How many of the other 7 of the top 8 playoff teams followed these factor trends would take more digging.

Crow wrote: ↑Mon Nov 24, 2025 5:06 pm From last regular season to playoffs, Thunder got better on 4 factors, worse on 4.

Is that accounting for the strength of opponent in each series?
Playoff teams have up to 4 opponents, each with 8 Regular Season Factors and their relation to NBA averages.
In RS, competition is average; in PO it's typically well above.

It looks like most OKC players picked up their OReb% in playoffs. In RS they often didn't have either Hartenstein or Holmgren; in PO they had both, most of the time. Maybe IH got even more than his usual because of CH being there also?

Min and Mem were both just-above-avg DReb% teams; Den and Ind just below avg.

I didn't adjust for opponent quality. Better quality is expected. Adjustment would be good for greater understanding.

Thunder formula for success:

Competitive window design + shedding of higher maxes + acquistion of SGA + tanking + churn almost everything for draft picks + new coach + defensive focus & aggression for turnovers in period of refereeing allowing more contact + cultural focus and player character / leadership + going young + cap management starting with just one 1st tier max+ commitment to depth including moderate vets+ analytics (at least with regard to player acquistion mainly thru draft) + fan support + constant competitiveness & comeback ability + Nuggets lack of an adequate bench & poor shooting + A Edwards not being a superstar & not really that good a design & fit + Warriors 2 timetable debacle + Leonard injuries & not playing + James not fitting with Doncic & overall dubious playoff lineup management + Rockets poor bench play + Tatum injury + Cavs flop + Haliburton injury + healthy enough at the end, including JDub playing thru injury + recovery in must win games + just good enough overall play including MVP play from Shai= Thunder Championship.

2 of the bigger negative +/-s last night were Dort and Hartenstein. For season they are 8th and 11th best for team +/- on court and on / off. Last playoffs they were 9th and 10th... Lots of quality competition but those are the facts.

Both with team options next season.

Hartenstein with 2nd best BPM of career. Near career high ts%. Dort at career average -2.1 after his one and only barely positive on BPM last season. Near career low ts%.

Dort appears more possible to move in summer to me, but won't unless deemed financially necessary.

Dort -0.2 on / off. Wallace +7.5, Caruso +16.8. AJ Mitchell +2.3.

Dieng shooting / scoring better, including 44% from 3. Weakest rebounding on career. Clear best season on TO%. BPM slipped from last season's best (but still negative) because of a drop in DBPM.

Career worst raw on / off. Career worst fg% at the rim. Career low on at the rim frequency at less than 10%. 3pt rate is pretty high but still career low. Mid-range frequency dramatically up to by far career high, though only league average.

7 weeks left to trade. Or perhaps sign n trade? Retain? It better be a good number, with either some evidence based support for optimism or plans to trade later.

I would be releasing Youngblood. Never would have signed. Spot should have gone to a PF.

15th best +/- on and on / off. Barnhizer 16th. One is unnecessary, at least. Youngblood with a BPM more than 4 times as bad at -5.2.

Youngblood, +.005 Winshares / 48 in G league. Shoots alright. Less than 1 :1 A/ TO. Worst steal rate on team, bad defensive rating...

Leons is gone but there are surely decent bench big prospects out there.

Lakhin, PJ Hall, Bol Bol, Bamba, Moses Brown, JRE, P Baldwin, B Simmons, J Edwards, G Nelson, Sanogo, Reese, others...

Half of these could sign 2ways, the rest would require moving Dieng or somebody else. But ideas, then consideration of desirability and pathway.


Would be more important to have another guy to cover Randle, Gordon, Anunoby, Wembanyama, etc. than be a 11th guard...

How many new Thunder players this summer? Currently have 5 top 40 draft picks. 3-5 new guys could be good. Good chance it will be 2.

14 Thunder players play 10+ minutes when they play. 9 of them have not played in 8 - 10 games. Injury, rest or just not wanted / needed, those absences get things down to a 9-10 man rotation.

Dort, 11th best raw team +/- on court and on / off.

Career low ts% below 49%.

5% assist rate.

Negative +/- in 5 of 5 last games.

Darko long-term trend has been up but slowing to a trickle. Tied for 38th on still improving defensive Darko, modestly above average on offensive but that is slightly negative and peaked 2 years ago.

By ESPN net points, Dort is only rotation guy in the negative, modestly. Wallace and Wiggins only modestly positive.

Coach D used 22 lineups yesterday. 6 biggest all badly negative. 78% of all lineups negative. 12 brand new for the season against a main rival who had previously beaten them. As usual. Didn't work this time. Almost completely different lineups set from first loss to Spurs. Just 3 repeats. 2 biggest lineups bad and horrendous and then a near dink positive. Everything else new and almost all negative.

What happens tomorrow? What gets tried?.

Tiny samples but the 5 best lineups against Spurs all had Caruso and 4 had 1 center. Only 16 total minutes for these lineups. Too busy throwing out other dinks. Overall in 2 games nearly 2/3rds of selected lineups were non-positive and only 1 lineup over 4 minutes per game.

Spurs still scattered but about 25% less so. 4 of 6 most used strongly positive.

Last season, Spurs won with 4 of 6 biggest lineups but were just as scattered. Lost 2 of 3. Thunder averaged 1/3rd less new lineups per game last season compared to this season. Won 7 of 9 biggest lineups. But it was still quite scattered as only 1 of 42 lineups played in more than 1 game. .