The Oklahoma City Thunder, on the back of a stellar end to 2023 and promising start to 2024, were garnering some loud buzz as one of the most legitimate contending teams in the association. After all, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who received All-NBA First Team honors last season, has taken his game to even greater heights while the addition of Chet Holmgren has given OKC a bonafide rim protector and a unicorn on offense.

Alas, the Thunder have hit a few speedbumps over the past few days. After their exciting win on January 2 over the Boston Celtics, they've proceeded to lose their next two games. Now, their loss on January 3 against the Atlanta Hawks could be chalked up to fatigue, as they were on the second night of a back-to-back. But their 124-115 defeat to the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night won't be looked at as kindly, as they fell behind by 30+ points to a struggling team that had lost five straight games (four of them in blowout fashion) entering the night.

Nevertheless, the Thunder are not panicking. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is preaching calm, and he has some very good perspective about how this bit of a rough patch they find themselves in could only be of help to their chances of competing in the long run.

“We've lost two games in a row that maybe people say we shouldn't, or games that aren't to our character. But it happens. You have to lose to become a winner,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, per Joel Lorenzi of The Oklahoman.

This Thunder core is no stranger to losing. They undertook a three-year rebuild, a period in which they lost 150 of 236 games, so they should already know the deflating feeling of defeat. This year's Thunder are being held to a much higher standard, and rightfully so, and there simply should be no excuses for them to lose in this fashion, against a struggling Nets team no less.

Thankfully for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and company, they'll have two full days of rest before they take on the moribund Washington Wizards on the road. If they lose that game, it may be time for them to sound the alarm bells.