Oklahoma City Thunder: nba FUTURES & BETTING ODDS

From 1967 until 2008, the franchise now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder was the Seattle SuperSonics. The franchise, which started slow, not making the playoffs until their eight NBA season, would become a power in the 1970’s, losing the 1977 NBA Finals in seven games to the Bullets, before winning the remwatch for the 1978 NBA title. That still stands as the only title in franchise history. 

The Sonics consistently made the playoffs in the 1980’s but never got back to the NBA Finals. In the 1990’s, the Sonics were one of the best teams in the Western conference, behind star point guard Gary Payton and the ferocious-dunking power forward Shawn Kemp. The Suns would lose the 1992 Western conference finals in seven games to the Suns, and would make it back to the NBA Finals in 1996, only to lose in six games to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. 

Seattle would only win one more playoff series after the Payton-Kemp era ended, bottoming out at 20-62 in 2007-08. During this period, Sonics owner Howard Schultz sold the team for $350 million to an Oklahoma City group led by Clay Bennett. Unhappy with the arena situatiion in Seattle, where the Sonics sitll played in Key Arena where they had started play in 1967, the group signed a legal agreement allowing them to leave Seattle for Oklahoma City, where they would start play as the Thunder for the 2008-09 season. 

The Thunder kept their roster from the Seattle years, including Kevin Durant, and then added UCLA point guard Russell Westbrook with the fourth pick of the 2008 NBA draft. If you bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder in their early days you would have been sorely disappointed, as they opened their first season 3-29, and while the Oklahoma City Thunder odds of having the worst record of all time were extremely strong, they managed to recover and finish 23-59. 

After the 2008-09 season, the Oklahoma City Thunder odds immediately improved when they drafted James Harden out of Arizona State with the third overall pick of the 2009 draft. The team also hired Scott Brooks as head coach, who would win Coach of the Year in his first season. Some fans even bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the NBA title behind their young trio of stars but OKC fell to the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. 

The Oklahoma City Thunder odds were as good as any team’s entering 2010-11, and the team lived up to the hype in the regular season going 55-27. However after beating the Nuggets and Grizzlies, they fell to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks in the Western conference finals. 

By 2011-12, the Oklahoma City Thunder odds made them Western conference favorites, and the Thunder proceeded to go 47-19 in a lockout shortened NBA season, before dispatching the Mavs and Lakers while only losing one game in the procss. Not many fans bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the conference finals after they trailed the red-hot Spurs 2-0, but the Thunder stormed back to win four straight behind their trio of stars and big man Serge Ibaka. 

While many experts bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder to beat Lebron James and Dwyane Wade in the NBA Finals, the more experienced Heat were the better team and knocked off the Thunder in five games. 

Before the 2012-13 season, the team was unable to come to terms on a contract with James Harden and traded him to Houston for a package of players and draft picks. Immediately, the Oklahoma City Thunder odds were downgraded from title favorite to just another very good team. The Thunder managed to win 60 games in their first post-Harden season, after which Kevin Durant would be named league MVP,  but they fell to the Grizzlies in the 2014 postseason. 

They would follow up by winning 59 games in 2014-15, but fans who bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder to finally win it all would come up short as the Thunder would lose to the eventual Spurs in the 2015 conference finals. In 2015-16 both Durant and Westbrook would miss significant time due to injuries and the team failed to make the playoffs for the first time since their debut season in OKC.

Once again, experts bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the title in 2015-16, but the team would fall to the Golden State Warriors in the seventh game of the Western finals. To add insult to injury, Kevin Durant would leave Oklahoma City to play for the Warriors after the 2016 playoffs. 

Now, down to one star the Oklahoma City Thunder odds of winning it all appeared to be close to zero, and the team lost in the first round of the playoffs in four straight seasons from 2017 through 2020, despite historically great stats from Russell Westbrook, which won him the MVP after the 2016-17 season. Eventually, the team would trade stars Westbrook and Paul George, trying to rebuild, and after a one year experiment with legendary point guard Chris Paul in 2019-20, they fully embraced the rebuild going with a team of young players and unknowns heading into the 2020-21 season. 

Championships: 1979 (as Sonics)

Retired Numbers: 

1: Gus Williams

4: Nick Collison

10: Nate McMillan

19: Lenny Wilkens

24: Spencey Haywood

32: Fred Brown

43: Jack Sikma