30 Teams in 30 Days·Thunder: The champion won’t change lineups?

The winner does not change formations.

Not to mention the defending champion with 68 wins in the regular season and a historical record of 12.9 points per game.

The top 13 Thunder players in terms of playing time last season will all be retained this season: anyway, their average age last season was 24.8, the seventh youngest in the league, and they were collectively less than 26 years older by one year.

Of course there is a price to pay: Alexander, Chet and Jaywe renewed their contracts with a total contract of more than 800 million.

This money can be counted as:

"This city has a population of 700,000. It is neither a big city nor a wealthy club. It cannot sign big-name stars and form a team. It can only rely on young people to work hard... If I don't give you money, I don't know how long it will take for Presti to be elected again. A championship team... When the owner bought this team, it was 350 million, and now it has increased tenfold... With you here, the team's market value can still increase every year... That's it!"

Alexander + Dort + Jaywe + Chet + Harten.

Aja Mitchell + Tobic + Carson + Wiggins + Isiah Joe + Caruso + Kenrich + Jaylin.

No changes can be seen. Carson may be given more ball handling to match his defense; Wiggins becomes a more reliable bench scorer; Joe is strangely popular among local Oklahoma City fans; Tobic may be the new growth point.

What else?

Hatten will continue to serve as the starting center and meat shield. Off-topic: Jokic's No. 41 rookie is grassroots enough, and Harteng's No. 43. But unlike Jokic's unbridled talent, Harten did the ultimate blue-collar job last season: finishing, shooting, protecting the basket, averaging a double-double per game, and protecting the basket. He is a rare long man among centers who can jump, predict, be steady and flexible. He will not look bulky when the Thunder rushes back and forth. He is the Western version of Mitchell Robinson - oh, by the way, Thibodeau also likes Harden very much.

Let Chet save energy: It's a bit like the Lakers using McGee and Dwight to hold out time in 2020, so that the "thick eyebrow stationed at the 5th position" can be saved until the end; the difference is that in the first three games of the finals last season, Coach Ma Dai made a surprise move and substituted Harteng as a substitute, but in the end he was brought back to the starting lineup: he was finally the No. 43 rookie champion center.

One of the most interesting things about last season: Harden, the No. 43 rookie, had the second-highest salary on the team. Presti's drafting and team building is nothing special.

Chet’s road to winning the championship last season had both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is: under the impact of the three long players of Turner, Siakam and Toppin, he is still unable to do what he wants from time to time, just like being pushed by the Dallas Twin Towers in 2024; the advantage is: he is the cornerstone of the Thunder's defense, a perfect space inside. He creates space, sets screens, rushes rebounds, and controls the basket. Tough and hard-working, confident and positive. On certain occasions in the finals, he shone with KG's movement and ferocity + Duncan's solid rim protection.

Especially considering that he is only in the third grade.

Gong Hanlin's famous sketch line, "No matter how thin you are, your bones are full of meat" - this is basically the case for Chet. Compared to other tall men who just let it go when pushed, he would bounce back after being knocked down once, a kind of strange tenacity. And he is quite vindictive. In the Timberwolves series, you will find that every player who has attacked him will try to

and, this is the on-site impression:

During the warm-up before the 2025 Finals, I saw Chet feeling particularly subtle. Compared to other players who shoot like crazy, Chet will do "sink, catch the ball, raise his hand but don't shoot" many times before shooting. He seems to know that shooting starts from the ground and from the knees, so before shooting, he will try to spend time to slowly find the feeling in his knees, starting from the most basic. Sometimes I forget he had a major injury early last season.

As long as he is healthy, he will continue to compete with Bunyama for Defensive Player of the Year and continue to serve as the Thunder's defensive cornerstone. But before he can gain weight, Haten (and Jerlin) still need to carry some other things for him.

When Paul goes to the Suns in 2020, the Thunder are a ruined team with 22 wins. Two pillars that were there then and still are today: Alexander and Dort, two Canadians.

Five years later, Dortmund made the league's defensive first team in the last term and ranked fourth in the Defensive Player of the Year votes. Maybe Caruso is a better defender, but Dortmund's defensive difficulty and burden were almost first in the league last season. He is the most typical defender of this era: he has a low center of gravity of 193 centimeters and can carry nearly 100 kilograms of meat. He can match up with Edwards, Haliburton, and Murray. Then there were the four three-pointers against the Nuggets Tianwangshan last season and the four three-pointers against the Timberwolves. Few people mention that if it weren't for Haliburton's buzzer beater in Game 1 of the Finals, Dortmund - with five three-pointers - would have been the Thunder's top three.

This is the most luxurious thing about the Thunder: Dortmund is on the Defensive Team of the Year, fourth in the Defensive Player of the Year votes, and is not even the team's best defender.

In terms of contribution per unit time, Caruso may have been the best defender in the league last season, or even in the past five years. He won his second ring last season and almost created this pattern: the Thunder's position is stagnant after Alexander goes off the floor, and the points at this time often come from Caruso's (and Carson's) defensive possessions. It sounds weird, but "the team's stable offense actually relies on defense", and only Caruso can do this. Against the Grizzlies last season, Caruso changed the rhythm of the game in at least two games; against the Nuggets in Game 7, Caruso defended Jokic. In 1996, coach George Karl believed that "Rodman directly changed the results of the two Finals" and did not rely on scoring; Caruso was almost close to this terrible influence: 45 steals in 562 minutes in the playoffs last season, not counting the rounds when he switched to Jokic.

Even so, the Thunder's most versatile player last season was still Jaylen Williams.

His single defense is not as good as Dortmund's, and his destructive power is not as good as Caruso's, but he is the chief rebounder outside the Twin Towers, the first stealer outside of Caruso and Alexander, the team's first defender, and he is also the team's second leader.. On the offensive end, he is the most comprehensive player in the league, and then he made a fatal breakthrough in last season's finals:

In front of Tianwang Mountain in last season's finals, Jay Wei revealed more than once in interviews that no matter how precocious he is, he is still a third-year player.

He said he was so nervous before Game 7 against the Nuggets that he couldn't sleep all night. He said that he still remembers when LeBron scored a sky-hook record and he was shocked by the fans, so he repeatedly tried to "be himself."

In the battle of Tianwang Mountain in the finals, Jiewei played the best game of his career. The true character of a hero in the sea, the fire and the gold: 40 points.

His skills are precocious, his center of gravity is low, and his arms are long. When it comes to counterattacks, inside cuts, and open basket drives, his effectiveness is probably better than Alexander's. The advantage of his long arms is that he can easily show off his breakthrough at the top of the arc: when "it seems that he is still a little bit away from the basket, or he should step back and shoot", he can stretch out his arms and find a hitting point. Thirteen years ago, the Thunder had Durant, the scoring champion, in the last Finals, but the only game with 40+ points came from fourth-year secondary attacker Westbrook: 43 points in the fourth game of the Finals.

Thirteen years later, the Thunder had the scoring champion and MVP Alexander in the Finals, but the only game with 40 points or more came from Jaylen Williams, a third-year secondary offensive player who is still receiving a rookie contract until next season.

Another comparison:

Jewish won the playoffs last season despite injuries. The No. 8 he wears is a tribute to Kobe; he was the No. 12 rookie, Kobe was 13; he won the championship last season and averaged 22+5+5 per game. In the playoffs, he had a right wrist injury that required nearly 30 injections to seal it. Jiewei said before that the last time he played Game 7 of the Finals was in 2016, when he was 15 years old. He said that he didn't care about the result of that year's finals at that time: he was a Kobe fan, and Kobe retired that year, so "I don't care." Now, he won the championship in the seventh game of the finals - just like Kobe, his first championship was obtained by defeating the Pacers.

Next season? A champion second-team player who has been in the All-Star, NBA Third Team of the Year, Second Team Defensive, averaged 22+5+5 per game, and scored 40 points in the Finals, his salary is only US$6.58 million.

Presti: Right!

Finally, Alexander.

After he became the Sky Hook, Jordan and Shark last season, he became another scoring champion + regular season mvp + finals mvp in the same year - 1998 Jordan, 2000 Shark and 2025 Alexander, all surpassing the Pacers.

He and Dortmund, two Canadians, built the Thunder from the ashes of 22 wins in 2021. 24 wins in 2022. 40 wins in 2023. 57 wins in 2024. 68 wins in 2025 to win the championship.

In a small city, there are no superstars to vote for. The only top ten rookie is Chet. He relied on cultivating rookies, relying on his own efforts, and finally won a championship.

Alexander himself had 31+ points in 15 of the 23 playoff games, 30+ points in four of the first five games of the finals, 10 assists in the battle of Tianwang Mountain, and 12 assists in the final game. Breakthroughs, mid-range shots, and point shots.

What next?

Another small observation from the warm-up before last season's finals. Alexander - like Haliburton - deliberately adjusted his shooting speed: he would add more fadeaways in his mid-range shots, and try to use a quick-fire shot that was close to a single action for three-pointers. Everyone knows that he is practicing three-pointers.

Next season, the adjustment that coach Ma Dai may want to make is speed + space-increasing speed and three-pointers.

and more defense switches.

He has received a huge contract, won a championship and countless honors. Young Thunder. Definite core.

It is said that 24 of 30 team managers believe that the Thunder will win the 2026 championship.

This is a bet: Alexander can smoothly lead the Thunder to adapt to new roles and complete evolution and adaptation.

The Thunder's final winner had the confidence not to change formations, and the huge bet of an 800 million contract was all due to the belief that he could do it.

He is so stable day after day that sometimes people forget: he is only 27 years old.