Alex Caruso Details The ‘Resilience' Of Oklahoma City Thunder After Winning 2025 NBA Finals

Forbes

a day ago

Alex Caruso details the difference between this championship win with the Oklahoma City Thunder and ... More his win with the Los Angeles Lakers. (Photo by)
The Oklahoma City Thunder are likely just getting started when it comes to celebrating championships.
The Thunder were the youngest team (25.6 years) in 50 years to reach the NBA Finals when they defeated the Indiana Pacers in seven games, winning their first championship since the franchise moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City.
Considering their core group of players, 23-year-old Chet Holmgren, 24-year-old Jalen Williams and 26-year-old Shai-Gilgeous Alexander are all in their primes or just entering it, it's not far-fetched to say the Thunder could potentially be at the beginning of a dynasty.
The 'old man' of the group, 31-year-old Alex Caruso, joined the team before the start of the season after a trade for Josh Giddey. Caruso had spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls.
The veteran guard details his fit on this young Thunder squad, with him and Kenrich Williams being the only players over the age of 30.
'Adjusting to the team was relatively easy once I got here,' says Caruso. 'I just started building those relationships with the guys. I'm pretty unserious off the court as well. I probably don't show it as much as they do, but that part, I fit in pretty well. On the court, it made it easier because we realized everybody was focused on the same thing. Everyone's really competitive. For me, it was pretty seamless once I got here after a month or two.'
The Thunder completed a historic season in which they set an NBA record for average margin of victory (12.9 points per game) while racking up a franchise record 68 wins during the regular season.
Oklahoma City features mostly home-grown products, including reigning MVP Gilgeous-Alexander, with a few veterans such as Caruso sprinkled in. He details the difference between this Thunder team and the veteran-heavy Los Angeles Lakers squad that he won a championship with back in 2020. That Lakers team featured future Hall of Famers in LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Caruso cracked a sarcastic joke following the Thunder's title win that he finally got a 'real one." The joke is in reference to the Lakers winning their title in the championship bubble.
'That's what makes the city, the fan base, the team so special,' says Caruso of Oklahoma City. "It's just from the roots. That Lakers team was more or less picked from who he wanted to take and signed a bunch of veterans that were going to the Hall of Fame, or had won a championship before.
'This one was second round draft picks, a handful of undrafted, traded guys, a couple free agents,' Caruso continues to say of how this Thunder team was put together. 'It was pieced together a little more meticulously. A lot of the guys on this team are just starting the beginning of great careers, whereas the other guys (the Lakers) were on the end runs.'
Caruso played a pivotal role during the team's run to a championship, stepping out of his usual role as a defensive-oriented, high-energy role player into an offensive force. Caruso scored 20 points apiece in Game 3 and Game 5 victories. By comparison, he averaged 7.1 points per game during the regular season and 9.2 points per game during the playoff run.
Although they were heavily favored in the series, it took seven games for the Thunder to put away the pesky Pacers – even despite Tyrese Haliburton playing through injury and eventually suffering a torn Achilles in Game 7. Oklahoma City lost Game 1 after blowing a 15-point lead in the first quarter and trailed the series 2-to-1 at one point.
'For me personally, the amount of effort that I put in and the sacrifice I put in to win it, because it's necessary and I hope that doesn't go unnoticed,' says Caruso of what he hopes people remember from this Finals performance. "For the team, just the resilience. We obviously had a really good regular season, but postseason is different.
'There's ups and downs, and we had the highest highs, won by 50,' Caruso continues to say. 'We lost one game by 40, and then came back and won the next game. Just to be able to battle through the storm and stay together, I think is the biggest thing.'
The Thunder have already opened as overwhelming favorites to win the 2026 NBA Finals at +220 odds, according to ESPN Bet.
Just days after winning the championship and celebrating with the city for the title parade, Caruso soaked in the victory even further with fans while working a 'shift' at an Oklahoma City Raising Cane's.
Caruso talked about the importance of the community in Oklahoma City and how loyal the fans are to the team. The Thunder are only three years removed from finishing with a 24-58 record, the second-worst mark in the Western Conference.
'The importance of coming out and sharing with the community is just because how much of they support us every single game this year, no matter who we were playing, whether it was the worst team in the league or it was a TV game on a Saturday night, they sold out the arena,' says Caruso. 'They're chanting, they're yelling, they're screaming for us. It's tangible, and it's real, and you can feel it. I think all the guys on the team are very, very mature for their age, and understanding of how special that is.'
Alex Caruso while celebrating with fans during "shift" at Raising Cane's following the Oklahoma City ... More Thunder's championship victory. (Photo byfor Raising Cane's)
Caruso – who previously played in big market cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago – explains what makes this small market team in Okalhoma City so special.
'Oklahoma City is going to be a big city,' says Caruso. "We're getting a new building downtown. It's going to be the world's tallest building or something. It's really cool. I've compared it Texas high school football when there's a game, the city shuts down and everyone's just focused on that one thing.
The love and support carries with that," Caruso continues to say. 'That's one of the coolest things, is it's 10 am a couple days after the season's over, and there's a couple hundred people outside of Raising Canes waiting to see me just to say hi because we won a championship. That doesn't go unnoticed.'