30 teams, 30 days: Oklahoma City Thunder | 2027 Season Preview

Welcome to the 4th edition of my annual 30 teams in 30 days series, the most comprehensive and informative previews for every team in the NBA. Inside these posts, you’ll get up to speed with every team’s offseason additions and their roster hierarchies, learn whether they’ve addressed their biggest areas of need, ponder over 5 questions that will define their season and then decide whether you agree with my offseason grades and record predictions. For the first time, these articles will be exclusively posted on the Hardwood Collective and are paired with video deep-dives over on my Youtube and full-length podcast episodes over on The Fifth Factor!

Notable Additions: Isaiah Hartenstein (re-signed), Aday Mara, Bennett Stirtz, Kenrich Williams (re-signed), Otega Oweh, Brooks Barnhizer (re-signed), Josh Dix

Draft Pick Comps & Strengths + Weaknesses

#12: Aday Mara

Mara is an omnipresent force who rules the most valuable part of the floor in every facet imaginable, the literal embodiment of the advantages Michigan rode enroute to their national title. Standing @ 7'4 with overwhelmingly strong positional playmaking, offensive rebounding, rim protection AND rim deterrence, Aday profiles as one of the most valuable archetypes in the NBA and directly addresses several areas of need for OKC. Here's just a few datapoints that confirm his rimfluence:

#16: Bennett Stirtz
How many prospects entered the league as a 38% 3-point shooter on several hundreds of attempts? How many of those prospects took a sizable portion of those threes off the dribble? How many of that subset were ++ relative TS% scorers in the halfcourt? How many of them played at a league-low pace?

Even at the ripe old age of 22 years old, Bennett Stirtz is brimming with upside, perfectly positioned to unleash his savant level decision making & shooting for a team that loves to get out and run.

Read Ahmed's draft notes on Bennett Stirtz: https://thehardwoodcollective.com/articles/stirtz-draft-notes-v2.

#41: Otega Oweh

Otega boasts one of the most unique profiles in recent memory, measuring at sub 6'5 with a 50% rim rate and a 10% dunk rate, on a much higher assisted rate than you would expect from a guard/wing. Oweh ranked in the 14th%ile historically among his position group in % of 2-pointers assisted on, which heavily suggests he will struggle to exert scoring pressure in the league outside of transition or scramble scenarios.

Undrafted: Josh Dix
Dix would be far more intriguing if he just offered a bit on the glass or on defense, but unfortunately he projects as a very narrow archetype with a tiny margin of error (or shot variance).

Notable Subtractions: Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, Branden Carlson, Payton Sandfort

Depth Chart + Roster Hierarchy

Franchise — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Core — Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren

Key Rotation — Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso

Rotation — Kenrich Williams, Jared McCain, Jaylin Williams, Bennett Stirtz

Development — Aday Mara, Otega Oweh, Josh Dix, Brooks Barnhizer, Nikola Topić , Thomas Sorber

Cap Sheet:

Offseason Overview:

The Thunder did more than just climb the proverbial mountaintop when they lifted the Larry O'Brien in June of 2025. They set a bar for collective excellence at an elevation that may prove to be insurmontable for the foreseeable future, beating opponents by 15 points per 100 possessions in non-garbage time minutes^[1], a level of dominance that only the KD Warriors have ever even sniffed. The following season, OKC became just the 8th team in NBA history to achieve three consecutive first seeds, posting the 7th best net-rating historically throughout the campaign.

From their vantage point atop the league, no one in the West projected as a challenge, until a new challenger rose out of San Antonio, young and relentless like the Thunder were themselves just a few months prior. The Spurs pushed OKC all season, nipping at their heels for months. The two were on a collision course, destined to clash in the Western Conference Finals. The series went all 12 rounds, with OKC losing JDub and Ajay to injuries by Game 3 and ultimately succumbing in 7 games.

Track 13 on Alfredo 2, Jean Claude, ends with these words: "Even at the top of a f*****' mountain, It's always another peak.". The Thunder FO made the entirely rational decision to not tweak the roster in the slightest after winning the Finals. If they had broken through once again, would Presti have gotten creative in remolding the team with younger contributors? Would this team have any reason to iterate and aspire to reach a peak beyond conceivable thought? Perhaps the pain of coming short of attaining basketball immortality will serve as the exact fuel to truly establish themselves as the most dominant dynasty in NBA history.

Pre-Draft Areas of Need:

🥇 Offensive Rebounding: 28th in OREB%, 30th in Contested OREB%

dominated every other facet of the possession battle BESIDES the offensive glass (neutral on defensive glass, cleaned up foul rates)

Addressed w/ Mara pick + healthy Sorber, more potential mins for Caruso in Dort’s abscence

🥈 Dynamic Shooting: 5th in Unguarded C&S 3PT PPP (1.25), 21st in Guarded (0.96), shot just 28.4% on Off-Screen 3PA (26th) and Off Screen poss were only 2.3% of their playtype share, 2nd lowest

Partially addressed: Stirtz pick, traded away Joe + Dort

🥉 Tertiary Offensive Support:

SGA ranked 3rd in Biggest Gap in Gravity (+10.8), 4th in Gap Between Shotmaking above Expected (+4.8%) and 7th in Shot Difficulty (-5.2%)

Addressed: Healthy Jdub + Ajay with Stirtz developing and Cason in the lineup, plus the burgeoning frontcourt playmaking with Mara & Sorber should make this a far more versatile Thunder offense

Season Outlook:

1) Does the Mara pick mean Daigneault will go to double-big lineups — or maybe even triple-big lineups — more often?

The Thunder have played double big lineups in 34.1% of their total minutes played over the last 2 years, with Chet & iHart comprising the frontcourt in 2 of their 4 most played lineups over that same span. They started 40 games alongside one another last year, with OKC winning 34 of those games, a bonkers 85% win-rate. The Thunder went a pedestrian 28-14 (at least for their standards) when they didn't start their two bigs. Both Chet & iHart and the team as a whole seemed more comfortable in this look than last season, where they struggled in the Finals with both bigs on the floor.

While Chet is able to sustain the defensive impact of the Twin Towers look in his solo minutes, OKC gets absolutely obliterated on the offensive glass. This is a reflection of both Chet's limitations and the Thunders' storied lack of backline size & rebounding unless Dub is healthy. Additionally, the Thunder are one of the lowest frequency passing teams in the association, making just 264 per game. This makes iHart's push shot, short-roll passing and DHO facilitation an absolute must for their offense, as he can salvage possessions by flashing to the middle or triggering impromptu "Get" actions. This ability is how I would explain OKC ranking closer to a league average potential assists team despite being such a low volume passing team, as they are hyper efficient when they DO pass.

Mark is one of the most willing lineup scientists in the NBA, so I'm excited to see how long of a leash he gives their young bigs, who have some of the same skills iHart has used to make himself indispensable. I'm also curious if he could turn to his "wingified bigs", Jaylin Williams and Kenrich, to beef up lineups rebounding while still maintaining some drive & kick and 3P volume.

2) Will Cason Wallace have the same entrenched spot in the starting lineup that Dort held for years?

Lugentz Dort started every single game of his OKC career after his rookie season, clearly earning the complete trust of Coach Daignault. This belief in Lu persisted throughout the playoffs, where he started all 54 of his career playoff appearances, even in matchups vs teams like Denver and San Antonio, who mercilessly exploited his shooting and passing deficiencies.

Most NBA coaches would echo Mark's sentiments above, but I also believe he has a unique perspective as one of the only coaches who wouldn't shock me if they rotated through 10 players in the 1st quarter of a Conference Finals game. His proclivity to experiment and his clear value of a defensive stalwart opposite of Shai will be his own personal angel and devil whispering in his ears all season. Cason is the clear easiest player to slot in for Dort almost 1:1, but what could Ajay provide in a scaled-up role? Caruso is still one of the most impactful players in the league, McCain provides necessary shooting & Stirtz needs to be validated alongside the core pieces as well.

I'm anticipating that Cason is the penciled in starter, with Mark cycling the other aforementioned guys throughout games for varying stretches, as opposed to switching up the starting lineup.

3) What are the next steps forward for Jalen Williams & Chet Holmgren?

Every move OKC made this offseason was rooted in a need to create more financial flexibility, as they brace for the challenge of building around 3 players occupying 90+% of the cap. With the 2nd apron looming, the Thunder could've opted to move off of one of Jalen Williams or Chet Holmgren, but instead chose to dump a collection of key rotation players. This indicates their belief in Chet & Jalen around SGA long-term, so what strides do those 2 need to make to continue to complement their star?

A truly ugly playoff series vs the Spurs wiped away a decent amount of the good public perception Chet had banked, but he won't be the last big to get engulfed by Wemby, and he also was in possibly the most suboptimal situation for his skillset. With no Ajay or Jalen Williams, a team that already was lacking in handling had to overextend Chet even further by asking him to function more as a wing, which put him at a massive deficit against a Spurs team that could assign a number of wings to crowd his space.

The infrastructure isn't entirely to blame of course, he got blocked off the catch multiple times due to his painfully slow release and he was unable to punish mismatches against the smaller Spurs defenders. Whether he decides to develop his handling & twitch or his strength, this inability to force teams to guard him with another big is the most crippling takeaway from the Spurs' series. That's the clearest growth point, but I'd also love to see him continue to lean into his growing passing arsenal.

Jalen Williams would also benefit from a offensive hierarchy shift in my opinion, as he already has the ideal skillset and set of tools to be a devastating off-ball scorer. He's become progressively less and less active defensively, which could be a symptom of being tabbed as the secondary handler so often. He certainly can function as such, but I see him being fully maximized playing off of 2 other handlers, such as SGA and Stirtz/Ajay, instead of as the only other handler Shai's sharing the floor with.

4) Has the identity of this team tilted more heavily towards offense?

When you've run the table for so long, it can be hard to find points of improvement, but the Thunder's Achilles heel has always been on the offensive end. You can have your pick between what has been more detrimental, the offensive rebounding, 3P volume or lack of secondary creation, but they've been able to trump any and all of these flaws with the strength of their defense. With Lu Dort shipped to Atlanta and the slighter Cason Wallace in his stead, this team may appear as if they're going to lose a step defensively.

They will be playing more offensively-tilted players in the aggregate, but the continuity of the unit and the excellence of any of their frontcourt options has me confident their defensive floor will remain as high as it's been the past 3 years. Any slippage though, should be offset by how much more versatile a fully realized version of this team will be.

5) Who among the young quartet (Mara, Stirtz, Sorber, Topic) projects as the most near-immediately viable rotation player?

Aaron Wiggins had a very rough season last year. Lu Dort consistently constrained their offense and suppressed SGA's scoring. Isaiah Joe didn't have quite as large a role with the emergence of Ajay Mitchell and the addition of Jared McCain. Even with all this in mind, all 3 played a consequential role in this team's rotation, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Their departure necessitates at least one successor, even if it isn't in the exact role or archetype. OKC will need one of these young guys to give them meaningful minutes.

Sorber and Topic feel like long shots, the track record of guys even becoming rotation players at all, much less immediately after missing out on a year or more of NBA reps, is pretty slim. I still believe in both of them a decent amount, with mroe trust in Sorber returning positive value relative to draft slot, but I think it would be unrealistic to ask either of them to play consequential roles from the beginning of the season. That leaves Mara and Stirtz, and of the two, I'm anticipating Bennett Stirtz to earn the most minutes from this quartet.

He has an in-demand skillset, extensive experience as an on-ball creator, a teflon shooting track record and is a strong team defender. Variety is so vital in today's NBA and his pull-up shooting & playmaking differentiates himself from every other guard on this roster. San Antonio used their 3 guards differing styles to batter, slice and carve up opponents, and I could see OKC leaning into a similar multi-handler, uber-versatile glut of guards to pair with their frontcourt.

Record Prediction

Combined Odds: 60.4 via multiple sportbooks

My Model Projection: 64.7 (1st of 30), +10.78 Net Rating

Floor: 57-25 (-7 wins)

There are inevitable challenges when integrating new talent, especially when cycling in precocious players in for veterans who were vital in the backbone of a title team. Dort, Joe & Wiggins were 3 of OKC’s most important players in the regular season & while I do believe Cason, Ajay & eventually Stirtz can step into their roles quite seamlessly, Shai’s supporting cast may be a bit less consistent in years past.

Ceiling: 68-14 (+19 wins)

My model sees OKC as the #1 seed in the West for the 4th straight year, marking an unprecedented run of dominance, particularly for a team that’s so young. That youth the fact they’re beginning this campaign fresh off a G7 WCF loss makes me not the slightest bit concerned that they’ll coast through the regular season.

Overall Grade: B

Let me know if you agree with my predictions! What are your expectations for the Thunder this season?

Up Next: New Orleans Pelicans