Alex Caruso Revamping OKC Thunder Since Making Return

Alex Caruso, who is playing his debut season with the Oklahoma City Thunder, signed a four-year extension last month — and was sidelined with a left hip strain during his next appearance after diving for a loose ball.

The eighth-year guard ended up missing three weeks before making his return against the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 14. Oklahoma City won by 16 points over the hampered 76ers but lost Caruso's minutes by 15, an outcome that has shifted drastically since then. Caruso has accumulated a +67 plus-minus over his last five games, which includes two losses against the Dallas Mavericks. On the season, Thunder lineups containing Caruso are outscoring opponents by 14.4 points per 100 possessions — 3.3 points more than without him.

Caruso scored 10 points on perfect shooting in a blowout home victory against the Cleveland Cavaliers two days after playing Philadelphia. His 3-point percentage has gradually improved over the season: 1-for-9 (11.1%) in four October games, 7-for-30 (23.3%) in nine November games, 9-for-26 (34.6%) in seven December games and 8-for-18 (44.4%) in six January games.

His most impressive sequence occurred in a home win over the Utah Jazz on Jan. 22 — back-to-back inbounds steals against rookie guard Isaiah Collier, leading to a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander mid-range bucket and wide-open 3-point miss.

"We kinda recognized on the bench that we needed to amp up some of the intensity and some of the pressure," Caruso said. "Just picked up full court, trying to change the energy of the game — got a couple steals and it was good for us."

Defensive impact cannot fully translate to any box score. Caruso has registered a career-high 4.6 steals per 100 possessions and a career-high 9.1 deflections per 100 possessions, in addition to forcing 3.7 more turnovers per 100 possessions relative to league average.

He has also held opponents to a 9.7% worse field-goal percentage than their overall efficiency on his 20.9 shot contests per 100 possessions, which improves to 14.3% worse on rim attempts.

Back-to-back All-Defensive First Team selections in 2023 and 2024 vindicated Caruso's game-changing presence, which is enforced more by advanced metrics. This season, he leads all NBA players with a +3.5 Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus and a +4.4 Defensive Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus. In other words, Caruso stands out among other intimidating personnel on the league's unquestioned best defense.

Caruso and the Thunder play the Portland Trail Blazers on the road tomorrow at 5 p.m. CST. It will be the only NBA game of the day.

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