Lost in all of the hype about the two Los Angeles teams, Luka mania and the manic James Harden-Russell Westbrook duo in Houston is the fact that the Oklahoma City Thunder are actually a decent ballclub.
Going into their Saturday night matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Thunder are winners of four straight and are 19-15 on the season, good for seventh place in the Western Conference.
Oklahoma City is also six losses ahead of the ninth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers, so given how bad the bottom half of the West is, OKC is probably going to make the playoffs at this rate.
The thing is, that's almost certainly not what the Thunder wanted heading into the 2019-20 campaign.
When Sam Presti traded away Paul George and then a franchise icon in Westbrook this past summer, it was an obvious signal that Oklahoma City was starting over.
Pretty much everyone expected OKC to be one of the NBA's worst teams this season, as its best player was an aging, declining, injury-prone Chris Paul.
Instead, Paul has actually remained healthy and is playing very well, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been a monster, Dennis Schroder has been efficient for once and Billy Donovan has done a heck of a job of getting the most out of this roster.
Make no mistake: the Thunder are not legitimate threats to make any noise in the playoffs, but the fact that we are even mentioning Oklahoma City and the postseason in the same sentence is a miracle in and of itself.
It also could inhibit OKC going forward.
The Thunder surely wanted a lottery pick this season, and as time passes, it's looking less and less likely that that's going to happen, and the chances of Oklahoma City finishing with one of the league's worst records are very slim.
Of course, OKC could still swing some trades before the deadline to clear off some pieces, but good luck trading Paul and his massive salary, and while Danilo Gallinari certainly has value, it's going to be difficult for a team to match the $22.6 million he is earning this season. The same goes for Steven Adams, who is genuinely one of the game's best centers but has two years left on his deal at around $53 million.
So unless the Thunder want to take something nasty back in return, they probably aren't going to be able to unload any of their top veteran players, which means that they'll probably keep winning games at a decent rate.
While it's obviously great that Gilgeous-Alexander is playing so well, the same cannot be said for the aforementioned vets, as they don't factor into Oklahoma City's future.
At this point, there doesn't appear to be much OKC can do other than just ride this out. The Thunder almost certainly aren't going to be buyers at the trade deadline next month, and because the chances of them being able to sell off significant pieces seem pretty slim, they'll probably end up standing pat.
At the very least, Oklahoma City certainly seems to be in good hands with Gilgeous-Alexander moving forward, and given how miserable the bottom half of the West is, perhaps this rebuild won't take as long as we all originally thought.
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