Why Thunder are clear title favorite, per analyst
11/08/2024 07:29 PM
Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault says the Denver Nuggets exposed the Thunder’s weaknesses on Wednesday in their 124-122 loss. The Nuggets snapped Oklahoma City’s historic seven-game win streak, but that didn’t discourage Yahoo! Sports’ Tom Haberstroh from picking the Thunder as his title favorite to win it all in 2025.
On the latest episode of The Big Number podcast, Haberstroh and his co-host Dan Devine talked about the Thunder’s outlook for the regular season, to which Tom stated OKC is his favorite to win the title.
“I think they are the title favorites at this point. I think they are better than any other team in the NBA, and I think come playoff time, once Isaiah Hartenstein is in the fold, I think people will start realizing that we should have been paying attention to this way back when they were just destroying opposing offenses.”
The defensive dogs, better known as the Thunder, are known for barking occasionally, thanks to Jalen Williams. They’re also known for eliminating star-level production that opens the floodgates to all seven lopsided victories throughout the Thunder’s unprecedented season-opening win streak to start the 2024-25 campaign.
Haberstroh illustrated the dog’s “victim list” to further prove his point.
“Here is the Doberman victim list: They made Trae Young cough up a season-high ten turnovers. They made Zach LaVine cough up a season-high seven turnovers. They made the Wagner brothers cough up. Yes, the brothers combined, and they were a season-high nine turnovers,” Haberstroh said. “They held Wemby to like the worst game of his life. He had six points, one basket the entire game. They held Nikola Jokic, in that season opener, to a season-low 16 points.”
The Thunder defense is getting the worst out of opposing stars
The Thunder’s historic double-digit, undefeated win streak handed losses to some of the NBA’s best players, including Clippers star James Harden, Hawks star Trae Young, and the league’s Rookie of the Year, Victor Wembanyama. At the beginning of the 2024-25 campaign, this small sample-sized defense highlights a telling defensive stat that Tom Haberstroh alludes to in his argument for labeling the Thunder as title favorites.
“That defense, with those Dobermans out there, they assault the opposing ball handler when they’re trying to run a pick and roll. This is a crazy stat: OKC, according to the Synergy Sports tracking, the pick-and-roll ball-handler, albeit James Harden, Trae Young, those kinds of players, when they’re attacking, they’re more likely to turnover the ball than they are to score. Only one other time in the last 20 years, since Synergy has tracked this, is a ball-handler more likely to cough up a ball than score.
“The only other team to do this is, of course, the Doberman-like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat defense,” Haberstroh concluded.
The Thunder will host the Rockets on Friday.
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