Predicting the Thunder's Win Total for 2023-24 Season
The Oklahoma City Thunder shocked the basketball world with its performance this season, making the postseason with one of the youngest teams in NBA history. With all of OKC's roster coming back, the Thunder appear poised to impress the league again this season.
Oklahoma City went 40-42 in the last year, taking down he Pelicans in the opening round of the NBA Play-In before falling to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Coming into the season, OKC was projected to win only 26 games.
This comes after two consecutive seasons that saw the Thunder fail to reach 25 wins due to the team's tanking efforts. With their foot back on the gas a season ago, Oklahoma City was able to hold its own on a nightly basis once again.
The main catalyst for OKC's improvement was the play of All-NBA guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. SGA improved his scoring output by nearly seven points per game in 2022-23, doing so while maintaining the best field goal percentage of his career.
Gilgeous-Alexander was not the only pleasant surprise for the Thunder last season, as rookie wing Jalen Williams played his way onto the All-Rookie First Team. Additionally, Josh Giddey's game took major strides throughout the season to help push Oklahoma City over the top whenever the team needed it.
If these three continue to play at such a high level when Kenrich Williams and Chet Holmgren return this season, OKC will have an even better record at the end 2023-24. By adding Williams, Holmgren and whoever the Thunder select in this year's NBA Draft, Oklahoma City should be in an even better spot than it is following this season.
That being said, it is likely that OKC wins between 40-50 games in the upcoming season, matching or slightly increasing their win totals from a season ago. In the first iteration of the Thunder, the team went 23-59 in 2008-09 before winning 50 games the following year.
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