Stiles: Thunder Are Overlooked Nationally

Rylan, how are you, man? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm excellent.

Thank you for taking the time to join us. I mean, for a team that just went 68-14 and just had a historical blowout in Game 1 of the first round against these Grizzlies. You've been following this team all the way through. Are you surprised at what they just did? Yeah, I was surprised that they were able to have such a dominating win. I mean, they did sweep the Grizzlies in the regular season and they won the games by an average of 18 points.

This was something completely different. Clearly, Memphis was on the wrong side of things in more ways than one with having to play Friday night and then Sunday morning. But you look at last year's Thunder team, who in Game 1, after a week-long layoff, almost lost to a Zion-less Pelicans team had CJ McCollum's three bounced in. Memphis was not even competitive. They just outright quit after a quarter and a half of basketball.

And that was shocking. I thought that you would see Jama Rant debuting his shoes and you'd see John Payne and Jaron Jackson Jr. really try to rally around one another. I picked Thunder in five. I thought Game 1 was one to earmark that OKC could have lost just given their long layoff. This Thunder team hasn't played competitive basketball in over a month. They've had everything locked away in terms of their seeding and records. And Memphis, on the other hand, has had to play two do-or-die games in the last week. And I thought maybe you compare it to college basketball where the number 11 seed gets hot in the play-in, plays spoiler, and that's their one win of the series instead. It looks really dark for Memphis right now.

It looks real dark. Rylan Stiles is joining us, covers all things Oklahoma City Thunder. When you consider the fact that Shea Gilgus Alexander only had 15 points, was 4.13 from the field, he's likely going to be this season's NBA MVP. What does that say towards the depth on this team? Because a lot of people across the country hear Shea Gilgus Alexander.

You're familiar with Chet Holmgren, but it pretty much stops there. What does it say about the depth of the squad? Yeah, the Thunder have the most depth in the NBA, and it's why they were able to have the biggest pullout win in playoff history for Game 1.

Because their version of waving the white flag is still playing guys that Memphis would kill to have in their rotation with as lackluster as Memphis' roster is. I thought that the main thing it said though was Jalen Williams was taking a leap from where he was a year ago, where against Dallas he just had nothing offensively. He was still really good on the defensive side of the floor in that series, but offensively he left a lot to be desired, which is no problem because it's his first ever time in the playoffs. When you look at how he played last night, particularly in that second quarter, to lead the Thunder to a 30-5 run and blow this game out of the water, what once was a 12-point game, and Memphis felt like they could kind of punch you without Shea on the court, it was J-Dub who had a massive step forward, and that's an offensive gear that he didn't have a year ago. His facilitation was great, his ability to get downhill was great, and if that keeps up and that trend continues, it's why the Thunder will be a popular pick to win a championship. But it goes all out to where you point to Aaron Wiggins, who didn't play a single minute of the first quarter despite the Thunder flipping through 11 guys, and then he starts the second quarter and his three straight threes and continues to help the Thunder gain that separation. So from top to bottom, this is a team littered with talent-rich players, and they're all under contract for next season as well. Well, Ryland, you talk about what the team had to go through last season, what they did this year. Their largest offseason acquisition is someone from the New York Knicks. Him leaving the Knicks hurt the Knicks.

It's Isaiah Hartenstein. He certainly helped them out. What dynamic has he added to this team? Yeah, Hartenstein's just been a great addition to Oklahoma City in terms of the way that he's fit the culture especially. I had an exclusive article of him talking about why he signed in Oklahoma City, and it was deeper than just the payday, which was obviously nice. But he really embraces everything the Thunder are about, the zero-and-zero mentality, coming into work every day and putting your best foot forward, and then the selfishness of this team, where this is a guy who has been willing to come off the bench whenever Chet Holmgren returned from injury, and they've tried that out. They've tried the double-big lineups out to start, and he has no ego about it, and ultimately they've landed on starting that two-big lineup for the majority of the time that those two guys have been healthy.

But it's not because of his unwillingness. He's more than willing to do whatever it takes to win, and I think that he and Caruso just provide a steadiness that the Thunder did not have a year ago, and you can credit him with what he said at practice today. Hartenstein, he was talking about that game one is over now, and it doesn't matter. You win by one point. You win by 51 points.

It doesn't matter at the end of the day. It's only one of the wins you need to win a playoff series. It's all about game two, so I think that you're going to see tomorrow what Hartenstein's brought to this team. It's that professionalism, and it's that mentality of what you need to try to win a championship and a guy who can get you over the hump.

Rylan Stiles is here with us on the JR Sport Reshow. Rylan covers the Thunder for the Locked on Thunder podcast as well as Sports Illustrated. When you think about the Thunder, it's 68 games that they won this season, but all things considered outside of Che Gugas-Alexander, they've been relatively quiet. It's like, oh, they won again, and is it him or Jokic? And that's pretty much been the extent of it. Do you think this Thunder team has been overlooked by the country?

I do. I think that they've been overlooked, especially from a standpoint of what they've had to go through to get here and how much better that they can actually be. Because you look at the Thunder, I think that you see them at the top of the West, and you kind of just cast them aside because they were the one seed last year. And because after the additions of Hartenstein and Caruso, they were picked to be the one seed again this year and how seriously they take the regular season comparatively to the rest of the NBA teams nowadays. But the reality is, last season, they were the number one seed in name only.

I mean, it was a three-way tie, they went out of technicality, and if Devante Graham doesn't hit the shot of his life, then the Thunder are not the number one overall seed. This year, they lapped the field in the Western Conference, and they did so while missing 20 games from Hartenstein, while missing Chet Holmgren from November 10th all the way through February 7th with a broken hip. And they somehow got him back and ready to play off of a broken hip, an injury never before seen in the NBA. You've seen Caruso, J-Dub, you've seen J-Will, you've seen Kinrich, you've seen all their rotational players miss significant time and be in and out of the rotation. And it hasn't wavered them one bit because of their strong-mindedness, because of their togetherness, and because of their depth that we've already touched on.

So now, they're healthier than they've ever been. Going back to training camp, they didn't have Kinrich, they didn't have J-Will, and then they lost Hartenstein in the preseason. They've never been as healthy as they are right now, and they still won 68 games, and they still had the most double-digit wins in NBA history, leading them to the best point differential in NBA history.

This is the start of something that could be really special in Oklahoma City, and I don't think that people have quite grasped how good they are. It wasn't maximizing all these top talent teams. It wasn't maximizing their top rotation. It wasn't just outworking teams in the regular season. It was a combination of their depth because they really needed it with all of their adversity. So this team isn't battle-tested in terms of playoff games, right?

Most of their roster has only played now 11 playoff games, but they all are battle-tested through the adversity that they've had to go through throughout the 82-game season. When you think about the Thunder, do you see them representing the West in the NBA Finals, or do you see them as the overall favorite to win the championship? I think that right now you have to just get out of the West.

I would not be shocked. I think that Boston should still be considered the NBA favorites just because of how great that they are as a team, and they've been there and they've done that, and it would be exceptionally hard. If the Thunder win a championship this season, it would take Jay, Dub, and Chet Holmgren and their second-ever playoff run to go do it. That's something that's rarely ever been seen in the NBA, but I think that winning the West is more than obtainable for this Thunder team because they're so dominant and we've went through their records. You look at the playoff bracket. It's one tough matchup to get to the Western Conference Finals.

Memphis is a pushover. You've just got to go take care of Denver or the Clippers, and if you're as good as your record says that you are, you should be able to handle that one tough matchup. Then you're in the West Finals and you're a step away from the NBA Finals where the bracket could still break better for you so long as the Lakers are not in that mix if they lose to the Timberwolves or before then. I think the Thunder should be the favorites to win the West because they have the cleanest path. You're saying the Los Angeles Lakers would be their toughest competition of advancing to the Finals.

For sure. To me, with all due respect to the rest of the West, Luka Doncic is an amazing playmaker, and that's what you're seeing Memphis lack. Memphis cannot take advantage of whatever holes the Thunder defense gives up, which typically is conceding the corner three-point shot. They cannot expose that because they don't have the guys capable of making those corner threes that are open, but also, more importantly, they don't have the guys capable to get the ball there.

They can't even throw the ball to the corners because they're being harassed and hounded. And you saw Luka Doncic all last postseason. While he had one of his worst scoring series, he had his best playmaking series of just spoon-feeding open looks to P.J. Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. and his role players, and they delivered for him. You look at his Laker role players, they're a lot better than P.J.

Washington. I mean, Dorian Finney-Schmidt's been there, done that. Gabe Vincent's been there, done that. Leading teams as co-stars to deep runs in the postseason in each of their histories before. And, oh, yeah, he's got LeBron and he's got Austin Reeves. So they'd be the toughest matchup. Not an infallible flow for the Thunder, but for sure it would be the toughest test.

Hey, Ryan, last question for you. We got a lot of teams all over the NBA just trying to build anything. I mean, today, the Atlanta Hawks, Scott Redelandri-Fields is their GM. We see the disaster that is Nico Harrison with the Dallas Mavericks. Sam Presti has gone through Russell Westbrook and Ibaka and James Harden and Kevin Durant, going through a period of transition to having another team here. What has Sam Presti done? And do the fans really appreciate how he's been able to bridge and come out of what was one era to another?

Sam Presti could be the governor of the state if he wanted to be. The fans love him so much because what he's done would be impressive in any NBA market, but to do it in the smallest NBA market and have sustainable success with only two years of a true rebuild under your belt is phenomenal. And I think that more teams need to adopt his style of team building where he circles his guys, like Chet Holmgren was always his guy the entire draft, and Jalen Williams, who had a rising stock in his draft cycle late after the combine. But even him was viewed as like, okay, maybe you reached a little bit at 12, but you reached on your guy.

Who cares what the consensus is on some of these players? And then the willingness to go out on a limb and try and fail. Like you go and try for Pokushevsky, you go and try for these high-end players who have very low floors. But whenever you're in a market like OKC, your best bet on hitting on a star isn't free agency and isn't even really the trade.

It's finding them in the draft through those crevices. So you've got to be willing to fail and you've got to be willing to let young players play. I think that oftentimes teams just look at the record and then the Thunder went through two seasons where they won 20-something games. But in those two seasons, their young guys played, their young guys got better, and their young guys were with the same coach who instilled in them the defensive schemes that you're seeing have such success today and take them to such a historic height. So the patient approach from Sam, whenever everybody was begging for him to cash in these future first-round picks on the trade market and instead he just remained pat and stuck to his plan, that willingness to be patient is lost on a lot of NBA teams. Oh yeah, we certainly see that.

A lot of guys at the top of the totem pole, the owners, just try to hit the button a little too fast. We see that in Phoenix with a guy like Matt Ishby and now he's paying for it and paying for it in more ways than one. Hey Ryland, I appreciate the time and your insight as it relates to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Where can people follow and listen to you and your work covering the team? I appreciate you having me on. This was a lot of fun. You can go check out Lockdown Thunder anywhere you get your podcasts from and ThunderNSI.com as well and on Twitter at Ryland underscore styles. But I appreciate you having me on. This was a lot of fun.

Absolutely, Ryland. Let's see what happens the rest of the playoffs. Have a chat maybe again real soon. Sounds good.