How Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC Thunder took their place atop the NBA as champions

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5 days ago

They deliberated, still unsure what victory tasted like. Chet Holmgren's lanky arm reached for the neck of the Moet bottle, and Jaylin Williams' unraveled the seal like a Hershey's kiss. Across a table littered in neatly lined beer, the centerpiece of this locker room of baby-faced champions, rookie Dillon Jones barbarically shook his bottle like a shake weight.
They cluelessly distributed the champagne, seeking Alex Caruso, the 31-year-old in the room and the only player who knew how to celebrate. You'd chuckle at the ceiling. In the aftermath, the once elegantly illuminated white tiles looked like a Jackson Pollock, painted by bottles handled by eager first timers.
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'We messed up the champagne toast a couple times,' Caruso told The Oklahoman after helping secure the Thunder's first-ever title in a 103-91 Game 7 win. 'Couple guys went early, like two or three times. … All the guys were trying to figure out what to do.'
Dozens of bottles were left unopened on ice. Jaylin Williams' face soured at a sip of Michelob Ultra. Jalen Williams' first-ever drink came Sunday night. This was the second-youngest champion in NBA history's biggest tell.
During a regular season that saw them heralded but questioned, propped but not yet anointed, this was the leading pitfall that left pundits reluctant. Wearing their youth was treated more like a sin than a commandment. The Thunder informed you of its adolescence with TikToks and group postgame scrums, but confused you with the bite of its snaggle-toothed defense and the gut punches it could stomach.
For 68 regular season wins, OKC covered its ears. Unfazed by the outside world's attempts to convince it that its collection of talent wasn't aged enough to be ripe.
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Inside these playoffs, it was consistently challenged. Fight back from down 29 versus the Grizzlies. Rob and rip your way out of a seventh game versus Nikola Jokic's Nuggets. Make quick work of Minnesota, even if it pummeled you by 42.
These Thunder babies were asked to grow into grown men, full-fledged leaders and capable champions so quickly that they never quite learned how to properly pose — or drink — like them.
'It's a unique capability to be able to do that for 21- to 27-year-old kids,' Caruso said. 'For me, I've seen greats do it, so I knew the way. I knew the mindset. But to see these guys do it, man, it's really cool to see it in person. I'm so happy for the guys to be able to figure it out and to be able to get this done.'
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These Indiana Pacers pushed OKC unlike any other. Their insatiable role players, their unwavering offense, their late-game devilry. They were almost never out before the buzzer sounded, and even then, a double-take was necessary to know that it wasn't just a bullhorn.
Tyrese Haliburton's grim first-quarter exit after a leg injury Sunday, reported to be a torn Achilles, wasn't Indiana's instant demise. It grinded out a halftime lead. It still earned crossmatches and seals and drilled 3s with its series-long precision. All the while, OKC's offense clenched up.
The Thunder was faced with that months-long choice. Put up or shut up. Shrivel up or grow up. Appear as youthful and inexperienced as your detractors prefer you to be or be Benjamin Button, wrinkled at heart and whippersnappers in the face.
Its third quarter told the story of its season.
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Five steals, double the 3-point attempts that the trigger-happy Pacers could manage and more points off turnovers than they could handle. Vigor in a bottle.
Oklahoma City technically isn't the youngest to rock the crown. It's the youngest champion since the 1977 Blazers, when cigarette fumes and 70s air normalized Maurice Lucas' scotch-on-the-rocks goatee and aged mug; ask your barber for Lionel Hollins' afro sideburns and beard combo and receive a copy of Marvin Gaye's album.
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Thunder players celebrate after Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Sunday, June 22, 2025.
But the Thunder is the youngest in a modern era whose stone-age ways deem this squad an outlier. A league that requires your stars to be conditioned by bruised ego and immense playoff loss. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, completed one of the most decorated seasons in league history. On Sunday, he tapped into no-look passes and jumping kickouts, adding 12 assists to his 29 points on 27 shots, eventually named the unanimous Finals MVP in just his second postseason run as franchise cornerstone.
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Jalen Williams, his All-NBA co-star, is 24. His shoes are bright and cartoon-inspired. Kobe Bryant is his muse. He doesn't have a redeemable memory of the 2016 NBA Finals.
Only after staring into Sunday's hardware did he uplift his target as scapegoat for a Thunder team living in the space between being expected to do great things and expected to look underage.
Chet Holmgren's series was grueling. Flat 3s, thrusting his hips into an oak tree like Myles Turner. But his hands were made for this. Phalanges like putty. They tipped away Indiana's interior ambition, with his five blocks being a Game 7 Finals record.
Their second-half maturations still came with boyish reactions. The childhood dreams of overgrown children came into focus.
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Holmgen checked out his golden reflection in his first encounter with the Larry O'Brien, polishing its bald head with a T-shirt. When Jalen Williams checked out for a final time this season, he peered into the stands, close enough to see the tears escaping his mother's eyes. He pulled his jersey to wipe his damp eyes, the collar tugging like hotel covers, before taking his seat amid a bench on its feet.
'I looked at my parents,' Williams told The Oklahoman. 'My mom's crying, (so) that made me cry.'
On this night, they couldn't be labeled too young. Their adversity was enough. Their innocence sufficed. Protected by general manager Sam Presti's vision. Affirmed by this tantalizing talent and weaponized in the form of friendship. Young adults who enjoyed playing with one another. Who, perhaps even more rare, almost played not to disappoint each other.
'I think the most impressive part is the group that did it,' SGA said. 'Our togetherness on and off the court, like how much fun we have, it made it so much easier. It made it feel like we were just kids playing basketball. It was so fun.
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'All the achievements and accolades and things, like, they don't even come close to the satisfaction of winning with your brothers and people that you are so close to and want to succeed just as much as you want yourself to succeed. That's been the most impressive and fun part of it, just to know that I have 15 brothers that I just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime experience with. I'll never forget them, they'll never forget me.'
They didn't know what they didn't know. They didn't have so much time shared or enough series losses to be thwarted. Broken down into cliques or conflicting agendas. Presti vets to avoid those qualities. It produced a combination of youthful ignorance and bliss, basketball braun and incubated culture that went the distance.
That's what fueled this AAU energy. The 15-man push to pressure, to chase possessions and a title with reckless abandon. It couldn't be tracked by spreadsheets or DARKO. From 84 wins and four playoff series as a group, these 20-somethings knew both who they were and each other. That proved immeasurable.
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'Great basketball wins, whatever that looks like,' Caruso told The Oklahoman. 'If you're good enough, you earn it. You win it. I thought we were good enough the whole time.'
Inside the Thunder's true locker room, an intimate setup next door to the space that faintly smells of champagne into the morning, where players' jerseys hang and bottles sit idle, Jalen Williams choreographed a photoshoot.
He demands that the Thunder reserves — namely the two-way players and young end-of-benchers — hand over their phone for pictures with the Larry O'Brien.
Pose. Grab the trophy. I got a few of you, don't trip.
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Out on the floor, Jaylin Williams squeezed team reporter Nick Gallo so hard his spine was audible, and his feet dangled mid-air from the embrace.
They flashed their teeth, contagious now. The energy that built and carried this title run. The most difficult intangible Presti ever needed to calculate.
As he went to find his folks, Jaylin Williams wore that signature wide smile as he lugged around a tin bucket of ice, two bottles of Moet and a bevy of Michelob on tap. It's unclear whether he's learned how to enjoy them or if he enjoys them. But Williams, 22, kept them at his hip. Perhaps it's an acquired taste.
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Joel Lorenzi covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at [e-mail] or on X/Twitter at @joelxlorenzi. Sign up for the Thunder Sports Minute newsletter to access more NBA coverage. Support Joel's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC Thunder took place atop NBA as champions