Thunder: the offseason so far
the record
The desk keeps a day-by-day record of everything that happens to the Oklahoma City Thunder: results with the players who decided them, injury changes, roster moves, reports, milestones and the schedule ahead. The story of the offseason is written from that record every week; the timeline below is the record itself, each line linked to the page that proves it.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (17.3 wins without him), Chet Holmgren (11.6 wins without him), Ajay Mitchell (6.3 wins without him), Alex Caruso (5.2 wins without him) and Isaiah Hartenstein (3.8 wins without him): on/off from 2025-26, details under Injuries. Computed Thu, Sep 10; the method is on the methods page.
Day by day
the record starts with the first news of the seasonThe franchise today
Updated 2026-09-09Now
Mark Daigneault leads a team built through years of shrewd asset accumulation. General manager Sam Presti turned the exits of Paul George and Russell Westbrook into draft capital and the pieces that mattered: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, acquired in the George trade to the Clippers, and the draft hits Chet Holmgren, taken second overall in 2022, and Jalen Williams, taken twelfth that same year. Last season the Thunder went 64-18, posted the NBA's best net rating at 11.1, and fielded the league's No. 1 defense alongside a No. 7 offense. Presti added scoring punch during last season, bringing in Jared McCain from Philadelphia. Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.1 points, 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds; Holmgren added 17.1 points and 8.9 rebounds; Jalen Williams put up 17.1 points and 5.5 assists in just 33 games. The success now shows up on the books: payroll sits at $214.8 million across 14 contracts, above the $209.0 million first apron and closing in on the $221.7 million second, with Jalen Williams and Holmgren each earning $41.5 million and Gilgeous-Alexander at $40.8 million, plus Isaiah Hartenstein at $23.1 million. Oklahoma City holds pick swaps in 2027 and 2028 and owns its own first- and second-round picks outright in 2029 and 2030.
Identity and rivalries
This is a team built to play as a unit rather than around one ball-dominant star, a young, deep roster — 17 players averaging 24.3 years old — that leaned on the league's best defense last season more than raw shot creation. That identity traces to Presti's rebuild, when the front office turned two straight superstar exits, George out and then Westbrook out for Chris Paul before Paul was moved too, into the draft capital and continuity that let its young players grow up together. Dallas is the rivalry that still stings: Oklahoma City blew a 17-point lead in the deciding Game 6 of the 2024 Western Conference finals and watched Luka Dončić's Mavericks advance instead. Indiana is the rivalry that now defines them, the team they beat in seven games to win the franchise's first championship, with history attached to every meeting since.
Home, owners and numbers
The Thunder play at Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City, an 18,203-seat arena that opened in 2002 as the Ford Center and took the Paycom name after the company acquired naming rights in 2021. The franchise relocated from Seattle in 2008 under an ownership group led by Clay Bennett. Only one number hangs in the rafters: Nick Collison's No. 4, retired March 20, 2019, after he played for the team from 2003 to 2018. The city is already building what comes next: Continental Coliseum, a new downtown arena expected to open in 2028, funded by roughly $850 million in public money against $50 million from an ownership group whose team is valued at $3 billion.
What they are chasing
Having already broken through for the franchise's first championship, Oklahoma City is chasing a second one: the group that posted the NBA's best net rating and record last season returns largely intact, and it has taken the West's top seed for three straight years running. The bigger question is how long the payroll lets this exact group stay together, now that the team sits above the first tax apron with max-level money locked into Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Jalen Williams. Fans argue over whether Presti's stockpile of future picks and swaps gets spent on more depth around that trio or held back to soften the tax bill once extensions come due again.
The Oklahoma City Thunder began life as the Seattle SuperSonics, an expansion team that entered the NBA for the 1967-68 season. The Thunder now play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference, with home games at Paycom Center. The franchise owns its G League affiliate, the Oklahoma City Blue, and is the only major professional sports team based in Oklahoma. Before the Thunder arrived, Oklahoma City hosted the New Orleans Hornets for two seasons after Hurricane Katrina.
In 41 seasons in Seattle, the SuperSonics went 1,745-1,585 (.524) in the regular season and 107-110 (.493) in the playoffs, reaching the NBA Finals three times (1978, 1979, 1996) and winning the 1979 NBA championship. In their final season in Seattle, the franchise drafted Kevin Durant, setting up the team for what came next.
In 2006, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold the SuperSonics and the WNBA's Seattle Storm for $350 million to Professional Basketball Club LLC, an ownership group led by Clay Bennett. NBA owners approved the sale that October, and in 2007 Bennett said the team would relocate to Oklahoma City once its lease at KeyArena expired. Seattle sued in June 2008; a settlement about a month later paid the city $45 million to exit the lease. The SuperSonics name, logo, colors, banners, trophies and records stayed in Seattle for any future franchise, though Oklahoma City kept ownership of those assets. On September 3, 2008, the new identity was unveiled: the Thunder, a name drawn from Oklahoma's place in Tornado Alley and from the Army's 45th Infantry Division, the Thunderbirds. Seattle's final draft pick was point guard Russell Westbrook, taken fourth overall out of UCLA, who became the team's franchise player.
The first Oklahoma City season, 2008-09, opened at the Ford Center with a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks; Earl Watson scored the club's first points. After a 10-game losing streak, the Thunder fired head coach P.J. Carlesimo and assistant Paul Westhead, handing the job to Scott Brooks on an interim basis. A four-game skid afterward tied the franchise's 14-game losing streak from Seattle before the team recovered to finish 23-59. Brooks was later named permanent head coach.
The Thunder drafted James Harden third overall in 2009, and Durant, at 30.1 points per game across all 82 games, became the youngest scoring champion in league history. Oklahoma City went 50-32 to reach the 2009-10 playoffs, then 55-27 in 2010-11 to win its first division title since the move. In 2011-12 the Thunder beat Dallas, the Lakers and San Antonio in the playoffs to reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 1996, losing to the Miami Heat 4-1.
In October 2012, with an extension for Harden unresolved, Oklahoma City traded him, Cole Aldrich, Daequan Cook and Lazar Hayward to the Houston Rockets for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and first-round picks from Toronto and Dallas. The Thunder returned to the Finals in 2025 and beat the Indiana Pacers in seven games for the franchise's first championship since leaving Seattle.