The Oklahoma City Thunder won the 2025 NBA championship, marking their first title in 17 years, by defeating the Indiana Pacers 103-91 on Sunday in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. This victory capped off an outstanding year and a remarkable comeback.
The Thunder had tough seasons in 2020-21 and 2021-22, winning only 22 and 24 games. However, they turned things around and secured the top spot in the Western Conference playoffs for the last two years.
After achieving a strong 56-win season last year, they improved to 68 wins in 2024-25, which ranks among the seven best single-season records in NBA history.
They also set a new record for the largest point differential during the regular season, breaking a record that had stood for over fifty years.
Oklahoma City finished the season with a total of 84 wins, counting both the regular season and playoffs.
This ties them with the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls for the third most wins in a single season. Only the Golden State Warriors (88 wins in 2016-17) and the Bulls (87 wins in 2015-16) have more.
Even though the Thunder achieved this milestone, Game 7 might be remembered for a sad reason. Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton suffered a right Achilles injury while trying to score with 4:55 left in the first quarter.
His father confirmed this injury, and soon after, he was ruled out for the rest of the game. This turned what had been an exciting postseason into a disappointing end.
The Pacers fought hard right after Haliburton’s injury and took a slim 48-47 lead into halftime. However, that’s when Oklahoma City, led by the outstanding play of the league’s Most Valuable Player, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, had a strong third quarter, outscoring Indiana 34-20 and moving ahead by 13 points as they entered the fourth quarter.
It wouldn’t be a playoff game for the Pacers without making their opponents nervous about a possible comeback. They managed to cut down what was once a 22-point deficit to just 10 points with Andrew Nembhard’s three-pointer with less than two minutes left. But unlike their previous amazing comebacks in this playoff series, Oklahoma City held on and secured the win.
“It doesn’t feel real,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after the game. “So many hours. So many moments. So many emotions. So many nights of disbelief. So many nights of belief. It’s incredible to know that we’re all here, but this group worked hard for it. This group put in the time, and we deserve this.”
Winning the championship is the result of the vision from the team’s general manager, Sam Presti, who has been leading since the franchise’s last season in Seattle in 2007-08.
Since moving to Oklahoma City in 2008, the Thunder have achieved the second-most regular-season wins, only behind the Boston Celtics, and rank fifth in postseason victories.
However, until this season, the ultimate goal—a championship—had been out of reach for the Thunder. After close calls like losing in five games to the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals in 2012 and then falling short in the Western Conference finals in both 2014 and 2016, it was uncertain if one of the NBA’s smaller-market teams would ever achieve that success.
Ironically, it did on the same day Kevin Durant, the foundational member of that first contending Thunder squad, was traded to the Houston Rockets, potentially making them Oklahoma City’s biggest threat to getting out of the Western Conference playoffs again next season.
But although Durant left in 2016, it wouldn’t be until 2019 that the first era of Thunder basketball officially came to a close when Presti traded Russell Westbrook and Paul George in a dizzying series of moves that laid the foundation for this current roster — most notably by getting Gilgeous-Alexander in the deal that sent George to the LA Clippers that summer.
A couple of weeks later, Presti penned a letter in The Oklahoman, a local Oklahoma City newspaper, laying out his vision for the franchise.
“In saying goodbye to the past, we have begun to chart our future,” Presti wrote. “The next great Thunder team is out there somewhere, but it will take time to seize and discipline to ultimately sustain.”
It turned out that it didn’t take much time at all. Arriving alongside Gilgeous-Alexander in 2019 was Luguentz Dort, an undrafted free agent who has developed into a first-team All-Defense selection. In 2022, Oklahoma City landed its other two foundational players in Chet Holmgren, who went second out of Gonzaga, and Jalen Williams, who was the 12th pick out of Santa Clara.
Holmgren and Williams played massive roles in OKC’s playoff run. Williams, who struggled at times earlier in these playoffs, had a fantastic series in the Finals, including going for a career-high 40 points in Game 5. Holmgren, who missed more than half of the regular season because of a hip injury, didn’t shoot well in the Finals but impacted the game in other ways.
And with both likely to sign long-term contract extensions in the coming weeks — along with Gilgeous-Alexander, who is eligible for a massive one as well — this could be merely the beginning for a team that has just two players on its roster older than 27 and is now the second-youngest champion in NBA history, behind only the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers.
“They behave like champions. They compete like champions,” coach Mark Daigneault said. “They root for each other’s success, which is rare in professional sports. I’ve said it many times, and now I’m going to say it one more time. They are an uncommon team, and now they’re champions.”
Oklahoma City’s win continues an unprecedented run of parity in the NBA. The Thunder are the ninth franchise to win a title in NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s 12 seasons. His predecessor, David Stern, saw eight franchises win titles in his 30 seasons as commissioner.
Gilgeous-Alexander, meanwhile, capped his historic season with 29 points and 12 assists to hit a rare superfecta of honors: regular-season MVP, Finals MVP, NBA champion and scoring champion. Doing all of those things put Gilgeous-Alexander on a variety of short lists, among them becoming the first player to win league MVP award and a championship in the same season since Stephen Curry with the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors.
That season, Curry won his first title with a young, suddenly ascendant Warriors team, one that would go on to make six Finals appearances in an eight-year span and earn four championships as part of the NBA’s most recent dynastic team.
Time will tell whether this will start a similar run for the Thunder. But to have that sort of run, it has to start with a championship.
And, after 17 years, Oklahoma City can finally say it has its first.
