Caruso is currently the only player to win the Thunder, providing valuable experience

On June 18, in the NBA, championship experience is often the scariest asset for a young team. For the Oklahoma City Thunder, the existence of Alex Caruso fills this gap. As the only player in the team who currently has a championship ring, Caruso's experience of reaching the top with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020 has injected an irreplaceable championship gene into this talented but lacking playoff depth. If the Thunder can win the O'Brien Cup in 2025, Caruso's behind-the-scenes contribution will surely be recorded in the team history.

**The inheritor of the championship bloodline**

Caruso's career is a model of grassroots counterattack. After losing the election in 2016, he gradually gained a foothold in the Lakers through the training of the Development League. During the 2020 Bubble Park championship journey, as the "Bald Mamba" on the bench, he became an indispensable puzzle in the Lakers' rotation with accurate three-pointers, tenacious defense and super high basketball IQ. This experience of struggling from the bottom to the peak made him know better how to transform his championship experience into a locker room language. According to a reporter from the Thunder team, Caruso often organizes young players to watch the 2020 finals video after training to analyze the decision-making logic at critical moments. This "learning by example" is far more direct than the tactical manual.

**The defensive system has been the defensive leader**

This season, the Thunder can rank among the top three in the Western Conference, with high defensive efficiency in the league. Caruso's joining is a key turning point. Although his average of 1.8 steals and 0.8 blocks per game is not amazing, his defensive influence is far beyond paper - when he is on the court, his opponent's scores plummeted by 6.3 points in a hundred rounds. What's more valuable is that he implanted the "defensive communication system" of the Lakers era into the Thunder: Chet Holmgren once said that Caruso taught him to "direct the defensive rotation with his voice", which allowed the Thunder's defense switching efficiency to jump from 18th place at the beginning of the season to 4th place at the moment. When playing against the Nuggets in the Western Conference semi-finals, it was Caruso's full-game leadership against Murray, strangling the defending champion's offensive starting point.

**Downtown Room Chemical Reaction Catalyst**

On the Thunder, which has three Under 25 All-Stars (Alexander, Homegren, Javi), Caruso plays a special role as "Binder". He is well aware of the way the champion team gets along: when Alexander blamed himself for a key ball mistake, he shared the story of how James enlightened him after he lost his final shot in the 2020 Western Conference Finals G2; when Jaylen Williams fell into a scoring drought, he organized the whole team to watch the redemption three-point video of Ray Allen's 2013 Finals G6. This way of using stories instead of preaching greatly relieves the psychological pressure of the young core. General Manager Presti admitted in an interview: "Signing Caruso is not only for defense, but also for installing a 'stabilizer ' in the locker room. "

**Invisible MVP at critical moments**

The playoffs are the stage for superstars, but the road to championship is inseparable from the flash of role players. Caruso's performance in the G4 in the Western Conference Finals was textbook: in the last two minutes, he first used a ghostly steal to help Alexander make a quick break, then hit a priceless three-pointer in the bottom corner, and created a Doncic offensive foul at the last moment. This "details of champion players" are exactly what the Thunder lacked in the past - data shows that this season, the Thunder's winning rate reached 68% in the last 5 minutes of the game with a score difference of less than 5 points, an increase of 21 percentage points from last season, and Caruso +42 leads the team.

**Champion puzzle from Los Angeles to Oxford City**

It is interesting to note that Caruso's career resonates with the Thunder's reconstruction trajectory. The Lakers gave up renewing his contract because of their salary space, while the Thunder recruited him with a 2-year contract of 20 million. This contract is now rated as "the most cost-effective operation in the past three years" by Sports Illustrated. When asked about the difference between the two championship teams, Caruso's answer was quite meaningful: "The Lakers have historically-class superstars, but what's special about the Thunder is that everyone believes in the next round. "This ability to integrate personal experience with team culture may be the last puzzle for the Thunder to hit the championship.

In NBA history, role players like Robert Horry and Sean Livingston have repeatedly proved that champion DNA can be passed on across the times. Caruso is continuing this tradition in Oklahoma, and every defensive skating, every side-side reminder, every night of locker room conversation is building the foundation for the championship for this young guard. If Thunder can really realize his dream this summer, the golden cup will surely be engraved with the invisible mark of "Bald Mamba".