Oklahoma City has weathered the injury stretch and climbed right back into the thick of things, but the real battle in the West is just getting started.
The Thunder head to Portland on Tuesday night to open the first half of a back-to-back on a four-game West Coast road trip. At 8-2, they’ve already shown they can absorb some key absences and still stay among the league’s best.
The problem is that being one of the NBA’s top teams doesn’t buy Oklahoma City much breathing room in the West. The race for the No. 1 seed is already crowded, and one game can reshape the picture this early in the season.
Right now, the conference has three teams sitting with two losses at the top: the Thunder, the 10-2 Los Angeles Lakers and the 9-2 San Antonio Spurs. Both the Lakers and Spurs have the look of teams that could stay in the mix with Oklahoma City for the best record all season.
And the pressure doesn’t stop there. Just behind the Thunder are five teams with only three losses entering Tuesday night’s action, which means the margin for error is tiny across the conference.
That’s why Oklahoma City’s strong start, impressive as it has been, doesn’t carry much weight in the larger picture yet. The West is packed, and the standings are likely to keep shifting as the season unfolds.
For the Thunder, the mission now is simple: keep treading water until Chet Holmgren returns, then make a real push. The standings are not the thing to obsess over right now.
If Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the rest of the group can keep the team winning at an 80% clip, that would be a strong place to be. But there are no promises in the NBA, especially with so many important pieces out.
Still, the Thunder look set to be in a standings fight all the way from now through April. And no matter where they land, as long as the two-time MVP and the championship core get into the postseason, they’ll have a shot to do something special.
In Other News...
Thunder Still Face One Hurdle In The All-Star Host Race
With the NBA closing in on Miami as the 2028 All-Star Game host, the leagues next round of bidding is already drawing attention from cities that have been waiting a long time for another turn. Boston, Detroit, Portland and Oklahoma City all fit into that conversation for different reasons, with each market carrying some combination of history, recent upgrades and the kind of arena-and-event logistics the league weighs when it sorts through future weekends.
For Oklahoma City, the interest is obvious. The city has built a strong case as a basketball market, and its place in the All-Star discussion reflects how much the Thunder and the downtown arena have changed the leagues view of the market over time. Still, the path is not simple, and the final decision will depend on more than just enthusiasm or past success. Several factors can tilt the process one way or another, and the Thunders push to land a future All-Star weekend is still working through one important hurdle. [Read more 🡒]
Nikola Topics Return Comes With One Early Concern For OKC Fans
Nikola Topics return to game action was always going to come with a careful eye on the bigger picture, and Saturdays G League outing offered the first real glimpse of where that process stands. The Thunders affiliate, the OKC Blue, fell 93-76 to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and slipped to 0-3 in the 2026-27 season, with the offense never finding much rhythm around Topics first-half minutes as he continues working back from offseason back surgery.
The broader concern for Oklahoma City is less about the final score than the way the Blue struggled to create clean looks for long stretches. OKC shot 39% from the field and was ice-cold from deep, a rough backdrop for a player the organization is easing back into action and hoping can steadily regain his feel. For now, the return is underway, but the next step in that ramp-up will matter just as much as the first one. [Read more 🡒]
Thunder Face An Early Test With Injuries Piling Up
The Thunder open their 2026-27 regular season matchup with Portland on Tuesday carrying an injury list that already asks plenty of questions of the rotation. Oklahoma City is trying to sort through a patchwork lineup for a game that also comes with the usual early-season uncertainty, as the article lays out probable starters, viewing information and the betting angle around a meeting between two teams already dealing with multiple absences.
Portland brings its own injury concerns into the first head-to-head of the year, but the bigger issue for Oklahoma City is simply getting through the night with enough stability to set a tone. The game has the feel of an early test of depth and adaptability, with both teams on the first night of a road back-to-back and the Thunder still waiting to see how their available pieces fit together when the ball goes up. [Read more 🡒]