The Thunder raised a Banner, and the Sequel Is Hype

Last month, the long-awaited return of the NBA to NBC took place. After more than two decades, the network that helped define 90s-era basketball brought back its iconic theme as four of the NBA's prolific teams took center stage.

Three of those teams were obvious picks, each featuring a decorated NBA icon. The Lakers and Warriors, featuring Lebron and Steph Curry respectively. Arguably the two most popular teams, led by the two biggest stars in basketball. The Rockets were representing Texas, with Kevin Durant debuting with the red team. Together, these three stars formed the triumvirate that ruled the NBA during the previous decade. NBA royalty, gracing the screens on NBC's big night.

The fourth team featured was not so obvious. The Thunder, from Oklahoma. How did they manage to find themselves invited to this most starry of nights?

The Lakers and Warriors and Rockets got to play courtesy of their popularity and hype generated by the media.

The Thunder got to play because they are the champions.

The NBA and NBC literally had no choice. As the defending champions raise their banner on opening night, the Thunder clinched their spot as NBC's opening act way back on June 22.

The Thunder players getting their rings and raising championship banner #1 on NBC was as sweet an experience as it gets for me. I was of the same mind as Jalen Williams: this night was even cooler than June 22, when the Thunder lifted the trophy.

This Thunder team is a unique bunch; they are a buoyant crew, yet they also seem devoid of egos. They are a young team, yet they are also a mature team, wise beyond their years. Coach Daigneault was at one point the most anonymous coach in sports; even the most hardcore of Thunder fans would have had trouble picking him out from a crowd. Now he sits at the controls of the NBA's newest juggernaut.

Seeing the banner go up was the culmination of a multi-year odyssey. Every Thunder fan has their own experience--for me, it closed the book on 2012. This was the year the Thunder first won the West and played in the Finals. It was an amazing run, where OKC's young guns stood eye-to-eye and sent home the league's sacred cows of back then. Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan; all got beat by that upstart Thunder team.

Sadly, they fell just short that year because the Miami Heat had a superteam led by LeBron, who was just starting to unleash his powers. The Thunder never got back to the Finals. I wondered if the Thunder's legacy would be that of the team that got to the final hurdle, fell, and never got back. A team defined by ifs.

Last year's championship brought this arc to an end, and now a new story has begun. The Thunder now walk the same path the Chiefs walked five years ago. The team is special, everyone knows it, and now the question is how high can they rise.

So far, the sequel is living up to the hype. In fact, it's so good it is sometimes hard to believe. How do you have your second best player, an All-NBA Third Team guy who dropped 40 points in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, miss every game, and you still start 12-1?

How do you shoot 27.9% from 3-point range during your first four games, a historically awful percentage, and still start 4-0?

Two double-overtime games, one against your former MVP on banner night, the other at your Finals rival from last year; missing almost half of your lineup, yet you prevail.

Almost every important Thunder player outside of SGA has missed games. Chet Holmgren, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins have all had their turn wearing street clothes.

The Thunder's two most recent games featured games in OKC against the Warriors and Lakers. These are what the media would call marquee matchups, featuring some of the game's biggest stars. The Lakers game in particular got a lot of hype; it was going to be broadcast on ESPN, and was billed as a showdown between two MVP candidates. The Thunder would be playing on the second night of a back-to-back, which would presumably level the scales a bit.

The Thunder beat the Warriors by 24, and the Lakers by 29.

Stephen Curry got held to 11 points on 4-13 shooting, Luka Doncic had 19 on 7-20 shooting, and LeBron was nowhere to be found in the building. All three, past Thunder villains responsible for authoring some of OKC's most painful playoff failures, now helpless before the seemingly unstoppable Thunder locomotive.

For a Thunder fan like me it made for great entertainment. The sequel has been so good it's starting to feel a little too good to be true. I've been along for the ride of past "run-it-back" campaigns. You never know when it's all going to fall apart. Disaster is always around the corner(just ask the 73-9 Warriors). This is usually how it works in sports, yet maybe this Thunder team really is built different.

Whatever the future may hold, for now I will enjoy what is one of the most immaculate runs the NBA has seen. The Thunder should and need to be greedy. That NBA Cup they fell one win shy of winning last year? Finish the job. Lift the cup in Las Vegas, and maybe later on the Thunder can claim the first ever NBA double: NBA Finals and NBA Cup Champions. When you consider that they fell one win shy of this feat last year, it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Maybe if the pieces fall in line, that 73-win mark the Warriors reached could be in play. For a team whose average margin of victory is 15.5 points, and has the best defensive rating in the league by a country mile, why not? Without the services of Jalen Williams, their defensive rating of 103.0 is six points clear of the #2 team.

So dominant have they been that The New York Times just published an article with the title "Are the Thunder on track to have the best NBA title defense ever?" If the folks at The New York Times are noticing the smoke, there's gotta be fire.

Will this sequel go down as a masterpiece? Who will rise up as a challenger? All you can do is enjoy the show.