Health Proving to be Key for Thunder's Play-In Push

Sitting in the 11th seed in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City Thunder are in the final stretch of the regular season. They're on the brink of postseason play -- even though that postseason play may be a Play-In game or two.

A big push to start the 2023 calendar year pushed the Thunder into a position to stay within arm's reach of the Play-In tournament, despite a cold stretch to follow All-Star break.

However, despite being one game back from being in Play-In tournament, every single win or loss has big implications on the Thunder's final stretch of this season, and being healthy -- or in the Thunder's case, unhealthy -- is going to be a key factor as the regular season play is getting more and more intense.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is dealing with a couple of injuries sustained along the season's play through wear and tear. Jalen Williams is dealing with a wrist sprain. Kenrich Williams will miss the remainder of the season. All three of those guys, in their own ways, play key roles that the Thunder need in this final stretch of basketball.

In this conversation, you can even include Aleksej Pokusevski, whose last game was played in December of 2022, and Chet Holmgren, who is out for the season. Both players could have played well within the system and provided much needed rim protection that could have swung a few losses into wins, which would have helped tremendously as tight as the Western Conference is.

So, injuries are getting in the way of what has the potential to be an incredibly surprising season where the Thunder could see their first bit of postseason play since 2020, and getting healthy with the few players that are still able to make an impact this season will be key moving forward.

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