Clark Matthews: A Painful Thunder Postmortem

Losing is never fun.

Losing to a giant, arrogant Frenchman surrounded by a host of sycophants, up to and including the NBC game crew, is even less fun.

Repeating as champions was never going to be easy. The Thunder learned this the hard way. Winning the first ring was a slog that required physical exertion until late in June. The players then had a short window to rest their weary bodies before reporting to camp a couple months later.

The rest of the league got two more months of offseason compared to OKC, including the San Antonio Spurs who sat around waiting to win their third straight lottery while the Thunder fought arduous battles against the Nuggets, Timberwolves, and Pacers. Only one other team could empathize with such a grueling, strenuous ordeal, the 2025 Finals opponent Indiana. They only won 19 games this season.

It showed. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault never had his full array of roster talent to pull from. Even ignoring that their 2025 first round pick Thomas Sorber sat the entire season after tearing his ACL in post draft workouts, there were only a handful of games where no names joined Sorber on the injury list. Most of the time, those names included important contributors if not a host of important contributors.

Jalen “J-Dub” Williams is arguably the second most important player on the roster. He played 33 regular season games. He missed the first chunk of the season after having two surgeries to repair the torn wrist ligaments that he heroically played through in the championship run. Then, he suffered a series of hamstring injuries that re-occurred whenever he started to get back into a playing groove. (My theory is that he overdid leg day in the off-season because he was limited on upper body work because of the cast on his right wrist, making his hamstrings susceptible to strains.) He managed two full games during the playoff run.

Ajay Mitchell was a revelation during the 2025-2026 season. Drafted in the second round of the 2024 draft, he played most of his rookie season on a two-way contract, only signed to the full roster on the eve of the 2025 playoffs. Barring the abdominal strain and ankle sprain that forced him out of action during the middle of the season and kept him from reaching the minimum number of games to qualify for postseason awards, he would have been a strong contender for both Sixth Man of the Year and Most Improved Player. His ball-handling ability and strength of attacking the rim could have diversified the Thunder’s offensive attack against the Spurs. Instead, he went down with a soleus strain (the injury that Tyrese Halliburton attempted to play through before famously tearing his Achilles tendon last season) while helping the team get out to a 2-1 series lead.

Down their second and third best offensive weapons, the Spurs were rarely forced to make defensive adjustments. They keyed on MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and forced him into tough situations, making him rely on role players who were just unable to rise to the occasion. The team still managed a strong battle against a 62-win, fully healthy San Antonio Spurs team built around the cocky French giant, Victor Wembanyama. And if it had not been for his whole team being blistering hot from three in game seven, this might have been a different article altogether.

Alas, this is a postmortem.

After a disappointing finish to a spectacular season, many fans want to blow up the whole project. Former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo wants a change of scenery out of Milwaukee, so social media is full of fake trades that Thunder GM Sam Presti could put together. Be they deals offloading important contributors that are centered around the ostensibly injury prone J-Dub, or Chet Holmgren because he disappeared (offensively) in Game 7, the short-term thinking is that the “Greek Freak” is the silver bullet the team needs to retake the Western Conference crown from the “French Alien.”

There is no reason to believe that Sam Presti thinks this way. Throughout the development of this roster, he has preached patience. Reaching the mountaintop once and coming really close a second time is not likely to change that philosophy.

This Thunder team is still a young roster with untapped potential. J-Dub’s career is unlikely to be destroyed by muscle pulls. And Chet’s exposed weaknesses in the Western Conference Finals are more likely to have him in the gym working on the speed of his three-point releases and tighten his ball handling than they are to derail his value as the 2^nd place finisher in the Defensive Player of the Year vote. Giving up either young star for a past-his-prime player that has been an enigma in the locker room for years is not the solution.

That said, there will be some tough decisions this, now arrived, off-season. The luxury tax is coming and the dreaded “second apron” will be difficult to circumvent. Massive contract extensions for the team’s big 3 (Shai, Chet and J-Dub) kick in for the 2026-2027 season. Meanwhile, supersub Cason Wallace—a player coveted by many teams should he ever get to the open market—is eligible for an extension of his rookie contract. Decisions will need to be made whether to pick up the options on starting center Isaiah Hartenstein’s large dollar final year, All-Defense Lu Dort, and veteran Kenrich Williams. Plus the team has two first round picks, including one lottery selection, in the draft later this month.

Assuming the team does not trade both of those picks (and passing on a lottery pick in a strong draft pool would be shocking), something will have to change. Only fifteen players can make the opening game roster. Salary considerations could lead to some or all of the team options being declined, though it would not be like Presti to allow players of that caliber to go elsewhere while getting nothing in return. Players such as Aaron Wiggins, who had a disappointing season, or Isaiah Joe who failed to make an impact in the playoffs for a second straight season could be shopped around the league, most likely to teams with salary cap space.

By the time this slightly longer off-season has concluded, the changes to the team will probably be minimal. That’s what Thunder fans should hope. Until a hard-fought, seven-game series loss, this team was anticipated to be a budding dynasty. That potential still remains.

It still hurts to lose to that arrogant French guy, though.