The best team in the West is on the rise. This franchise hasn’t won an NBA title since the 1970s but led by a 26-year-old guard fresh off his first MVP trophy, it nearly won 70 games, finished with a double-digit point differential and won the Western Conference finals in five games.
I’m talking, of course, about the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors, who reached their first of five consecutive Finals a decade ago this week.
But all the same characteristics apply to the 2024-25 Oklahoma City Thunder, who advanced to the Finals with a 124-94 closeout win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday. The Thunder aren’t just a typical finalist, but a historically great team, and they mirror those Warriors a decade later, due to a number of eerie similarities between the two squads.
Midway through the 2010s, nobody would have reasonably expected the Warriors — who, to that point, hadn’t reached the conference finals in the Stephen Curry era — to become the decade’s defining team, but they forced their way into that spot with repeated trips to the Finals. Similarly, the Thunder hadn’t reached the conference finals in the first half of the 2020s, but they’re poised to dominate the rest of the decade — and, perhaps, to build a comparable dynasty of their own.
The similarities start with the two teams’ demographics. For now, the 2015 Warriors are the youngest title-winner since 1980, with an average team age (weighted by playoff minutes) of 26.4 years. But the Thunder are even younger, at 24.7.
That youth includes the two teams’ leading scorers, who are at the same point of their marvelous careers. Curry was 26 years old in 2014-15, just as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is now. Curry had a 63.8% true shooting mark en route to his first MVP a decade ago, while new MVP Gilgeous-Alexander had a 63.7% true shooting mark this season. (Curry’s 2015 season is still, remarkably, the most recent MVP campaign that ended in a championship, and SGA has a chance to join him in that feat.)
Their sidekicks also look familiar. Klay Thompson was a 24-year-old two-way star who made his first All-NBA third team when the Warriors embarked on their first title run. Jalen Williams is a 23-year-old two-way star who received his first All-NBA third team nod this year. Draymond Green was a 24-year-old positional tweener from the Midwest who received first-team All-Defense honors. Chet Holmgren is a 22-year-old unicorn from the Midwest who led the league in rim defense, and would have contended for All-Defensive recognition if he had been eligible.
2:34
Michael Malone: Thunder are absolutely unrelenting on defense
Michael Malone joins Scott Van Pelt to break down what makes the Thunder so hard to stop after sealing the Western Conference finals.
But wait, there’s more. Andre Iguodala was a 31-year-old defensive savant who elevated the Warriors when he entered games as a reserve. Alex Caruso is the same for the Thunder, just a year younger. Iguodala earned Finals MVP honors that season. Could Caruso follow suit?
Andrew Bogut was a defensively stout foreign center who started games but didn’t always finish them, averaging 23 minutes in Golden State’s playoff run. Isaiah Hartenstein is practically the same, with 24 minutes instead of 23.
Both teams also made a critical offense for defense trade as they built out their rosters. The timelines don’t match perfectly, but the Warriors traded a gifted guard in Monta Ellis because he was a worse playmaker than Curry, and an ace defender (Bogut) was a better fit for the team. Similarly, the Thunder traded a gifted guard in Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls because he wasn’t as good as Gilgeous-Alexander, and an ace defender (Caruso) made more sense for their rotation.
Golden State and Oklahoma City also traveled along similar paths through the playoffs, en route to the Finals, even as critics doubted their ability to translate such tremendous regular-season success to the postseason. Remember all the talk a decade ago about how a 3-point-centric team like the Warriors couldn’t possibly win in the playoffs? It sounded a lot like the narrative this year about how opponents didn’t “fear” the Thunder because they hadn’t won the title before.
The 2015 Warriors and 2025 Thunder both swept the No. 8 seed in the first round, with a big comeback win in Game 3: Golden State stormed back from 20 points down in the fourth quarter in New Orleans — Curry’s ludicrous tying 3-pointer over Anthony Davis highlighted the comeback — while Oklahoma City overcame a 29-point deficit in Memphis.
Then both teams had to survive a gut check against a veteran, playoff-tested squad in the second round, after falling behind 2-1 in the series. The Warriors came back against the Grit ‘N Grind Memphis Grizzlies to win in six games while the Thunder used multiple fourth-quarter comebacks to beat the recent champion Denver Nuggets in seven.
Both teams used a novel defensive wrinkle — the Warriors had Bogut “guard” non-shooter Tony Allen, and the Thunder put Caruso on three-time MVP big man Nikola Jokic — to pave the way to victory.
And in the conference finals, facing a team led by an ascendant star guard (James Harden of the Houston Rockets then and Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves now) and a multitime Defensive Player of the Year at center (Dwight Howard then and Rudy Gobert now), the Thunder and Warriors won in five.
Perhaps the two teams followed analogous trajectories because of their similar statistical profiles. The Warriors are remembered for their offensive brilliance, as avatars of the 3-point revolution, but their first championship team was actually better on the other end. Golden State ranked first in defensive rating and second on offense, similar to the Thunder ranking first in defensive rating and third on offense this season.
Both teams allowed significantly more free throws than they attempted, but they led the league in points off turnovers and were capable of breaking their opponents with sudden points barrages.
Perhaps the most crucial connection in the big picture between the two dominant teams is that the best was yet to come for Golden State, which may be true for Oklahoma City as well. In retrospect, it’s easy to identify the Warriors’ magical 2014-15 season as just the start of something special, rather than the peak — they actually had a better point differential in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and won several more titles after their first.
Similarly, it’s not hard to imagine an even better Thunder season in the near future, given the group’s youth and roster flexibility. The Thunder could also benefit from better injury luck. They won at a 70-win pace when at least one of Holmgren and Hartenstein was available but lost both big men for a couple less successful stretches of this season.
After all, the Thunder already set the NBA record for point differential this season. With another year of development, is it that hard to envision them pushing for the regular-season win record (73) next year, considering the Warriors set the mark the year after their first Finals run?
Two primary obstacles could get in the way of an Oklahoma City dynasty that would rival the Warriors’ last decade, however. First, the NBA’s new apron rules could cause a premature breakup of the Thunder’s elite depth.
In order to keep their championship roster together for the long term, the Warriors led the NBA in payroll in 2017-18 and 2018-19, with a combined $86 million in luxury tax payments across those two seasons. A decade later, it’s not just a question of whether Oklahoma City’s owners will approve such lavish spending, but whether additional apron restrictions will preclude that possibility entirely.
Second, the Warriors extended their run by signing Kevin Durant in his prime.
It’s fun to speculate how their dynasty might have unfolded had Durant signed elsewhere or stayed with the Thunder in 2016. It’s not as if Warriors would have collapsed without him: They had just won 73 games and likely would have won the title if not for Green’s suspension in the Finals.
But Cleveland had arguably the best team of the second LeBron James era in 2017 — those Cavaliers started 12-1 in the playoffs to reach the Finals — and Western Conference threats like the San Antonio Spurs and the Rockets were on the rise. Golden State probably wouldn’t have reached five Finals in a row without Durant.
(It’s easy to spin out further hypotheticals here. If Durant hadn’t signed with the Warriors, would Zaza Pachulia have been in a position to slide under Kawhi Leonard‘s foot in the 2017 conference finals? Would Daryl Morey have traded for Chris Paul to build the first 60-win team in Rockets history? Would the Thunder have even traded for Paul George as a Durant replacement, setting in motion the events that led to Gilgeous-Alexander’s arrival in Oklahoma City?)
Regardless, Durant’s move to Golden State captured an unprecedented scenario in the game’s history, which created arguably the best team the league has ever seen: the 2016-17 Warriors, who rampaged through the playoffs with a 16-1 record.
Unless the Thunder win the title and trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer, it’s irrational to imagine a comparable move for Oklahoma City. In and of itself, that might be sufficient reason to doubt the Thunder’s ability to dominate the rest of the 2020s, relative to Golden State’s in the 2010s.
2:28
Thunder cruise past Wolves to clinch Western Conference finals
The Thunder blow past the Timberwolves in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals to reach their first NBA Finals since 2012.
But the Thunder have one advantage the Warriors didn’t. Other than Durant, Golden State didn’t really add to its core once it started winning. Of the top 10 Warriors in total playoff minutes during their five-year run, eight were already on the team when the 2014-15 season began. The only exceptions were Durant and Kevon Looney, who joined the club in the summer of 2016 via free agency and the draft, respectively.
Golden State barely used the draft after adding Curry, Thompson, Green and Harrison Barnes from 2009 through 2012. Due to a number of trades, the Warriors made just three picks in the six drafts from 2013 through 2018. Looney worked out, but Damian Jones and Jacob Evans did not. They also traded for Jordan Bell, Patrick McCaw and Nemanja Nedovic on draft night, none of whom developed into long-term contributors.
Unlike the Warriors, the Thunder have more picks than they can actually use, including all of their own picks and future first-round selections or swaps from the Miami Heat, LA Clippers, Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz, Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks. That stash means more opportunities for Oklahoma City to build around its young big three — which will be necessary, given the cap complications that hamper deep, star-laden teams in the modern NBA.
The notion of a dynasty in Oklahoma City still seems far away given that it hasn’t won its first title yet. But the Thunder are heavily favored to do so, and should they win, they will be in a better position to extend their reign than any recent champion.
After an entire column’s worth of similarities, that context might be the greatest difference between the 2015 Warriors and 2025 Thunder. Golden State emerged into the spotlight as the latest edition in a long lineage of NBA dynasties. From 1999 through 2014, every Finals featured the Lakers, Spurs or Heat, and repeat titles were the norm rather than the exception.
By comparison, as Oklahoma City ascends the competitive ladder, the NBA is guaranteed to have its seventh different champion in the past seven years. No reigning champ has advanced past the second round since the 2018-19 Warriors.
But the stage is set for the next great NBA dynasty. The Thunder’s blueprint is clear, as they follow the Warriors’ model a decade later. They’ve assembled a talented big three with the proper supporting cast. They’ve survived the necessary playoff tests. And they’re prepared to define the 2020s, just as the Warriors became synonymous with the NBA in the 2010s.
