The Oklahoma City Thunder & the Basketball Treble

On May 31, 2025, the streets of Munich, Germany were filled with the red and blue of Paris Saint-Germain fans celebrating the clubs 5-0 rout over Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League Final. It was the French club’s first Champion’s League trophy, but that was not the only piece of history made. They also became the first French men’s side to complete a treble—winning their domestic league, domestic cup, and continental competition.

The concept of the treble is a foreign one to us here in the United States because we simply do not have three competitions that a team can win in a single season. But with the introduction of the NBA Cup three years ago, we are inching closer. And with that wrinkle comes an opportunity for the best team in the NBA: the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The defending champion Thunder have started the season 24-1, tying the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors for the best start to a season in NBA history. They are in the semifinals of the NBA Cup and find themselves trending towards breaking Golden State’s single season win record of 73 games. The Thunder may be creating their own treble in the NBA, and in the process are renewing interest in basketball’s much maligned regular season.

The Unstoppable Force

Through 25 games, the Thunder have an average margin of victory of 17.4 points per game. That is the highest margin of victory average since 1980. The second highest? Last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder with 12.87. The Thunder are not simply beating teams; they are destroying them. 37% of the team’s wins have come by 20 points or more. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played 30 minutes or less in half of their games, simply because they were winning by so much that he wasn’t needed in the fourth quarter.

The truly terrifying part about the start to the Thunder season is that much of this winning has been done without Jalen Williams, the team’s second leading scorer from last season. Defensive specialist Luguentz Dort has also missed games, but it just doesn’t matter. They have 14 players that average more than ten minutes per game, and their entire core is 27 or younger with the exception of Alex Caruso. If there was ever a dynasty in today’s NBA, this is it.

What makes them so fascinating is not only that they are winning and so dominant, but that they have a desire for a dynastic run that seems incredibly rare in today’s league. The Thunder, despite being a young team that reached the mountain top ahead of schedule, have seemed angry at the way they played throughout last year’s playoff. Incredulously they feel that they have something to prove. It is the polar opposite of a championship hangover.

From a pure number’s standpoint, they do indeed have room for improvement as insane as that might sound. Of the 16 teams in the playoffs last season, they ranked 13th in three-point percentage, 9th in effective field goal percentage, second in turnover percentage, and 9th in defensive rebound percentage. As much as a defending champion can actually improve, I suppose that they can improve—much to the dismay of every other team in the NBA.

And so far, they have shown that improvement, ranking in the top five of multiple statistical categories. It is abundantly clear that this is a team with unparalleled chemistry with an unwavering desire to be great. What is in front of them is establishing themselves as the first ever basketball treble team, potentially cementing this group as one of the best we have ever seen.

The Basketball Treble

In European soccer, a treble consists of winning the domestic league, domestic cup, and continental cup (Champions League). This may seem like a far-fetched analogy for the NBA, but the introduction of the NBA Cup makes the parallel more plausible.

The domestic league portion is the regular season in soccer as it would be in the NBA, making the best record in the regular season the first part of the treble. The NBA Cup is similar to the domestic cup, such as the FA Cup in England or the Coupe de France in France. This trophy is still valuable, but it doesn’t hold the same weight as the other two. The NBA Finals then are the equivalent of the Champions League, a competition that features the best of the best and is the competition that everyone tunes in for.

Winning all three, while also breaking the record for wins in a regular season, would be an occurrence of historic proportions. All of that is possible for the Thunder. They would need to finish the season 50-7 or better, which at this point feels well within reach. They are two wins away from securing the NBA Cup and are the prohibitive favorite to win the NBA Championship. Completing this task would be an ultimate test of basketball endurance in an era where players are putting more strain on their bodies than they ever have, with a cap structure that is designed to disassemble teams that build through the draft.

Perhaps that is why the team has such a sense of urgency to win as much as it possibly can. We saw how the Nuggets and Celtics had to make difficult decisions after winning a title due to the second apron tax framework. Oklahoma City has numerous young players like Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell that could be lured by other teams eventually with expanded roles. This means that all that matters for the Thunder is the current season and maximizing upon their opportunities to be the greatest team this league has ever seen.

The Thunder competing for and achieving a treble does more than simply validate their greatness, however. It gives us something to tune in for during the regular season and NBA Cup matchups. It validates both entities in a way that they desperately need.

The Validation of the Season

The running joke surrounding the NBA for a number of years has been that the regular season is irrelevant. That there was no reason to tune in until the playoffs started. Part of this was the prevalence of the load management era and tanking that spurred a race to the bottom. The NBA Cup and the Play-In Tournament were mechanisms that the league introduced to help make the regular season more interesting without reducing the number of games played.

By and large, both have been successful. The Play-In has alleviated some tanking with teams now competing for the ninth and tenth spots in their conference to have a chance to make the playoffs. And the NBA Cup has helped make games before Christmas have more stakes. While these have been steps in the right direction, there is still some apathy when it comes to both the NBA regular season and the NBA Cup.

Podcasters often joke about not remembering who won the NBA Cup in previous years and fans mocked the Lakers for adding an NBA Cup banner in the rafters. The NBA in the early part of its season still struggles mightily for mindshare as it competes against college football and the NFL. But having a team that is chasing history will inevitably make people want to tune in.

By having a team like the Thunder actively seeking something that is unprecedented, there is natural intrigue that occurs. We start wonder, can they make the clean sweep? How long will it be before their next loss? Will they be able to sustain the attrition of another title run?

If the Thunder are able to do that, they will have intrigued a nation while cementing themselves as one of the greatest American sports stories ever. They will have created a new standard for dominance and a new metric by which we will measure greatness moving forward. Their dominance and commitment to winning throughout the NBA calendar could also provide a sea change in the way that teams approach their seasons for decades to come. The Thunder are playing for history, for a championship, and are redefining how we measure dominance in the process.

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