How do OKC Thunder players view their own adversity compared to past NBA champions?

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Chet Holmgren couldn't believe what he was hearing. The 23-year-old, calculated and fluent in Thundernese, stared through the question and stuttered through his attempts to process it.
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He sat upright before an NBA Finals backdrop some months after he couldn't move at all. Even so, he's been served reminders of all the reasons his Oklahoma City squad, a win away from the franchise's first title entering Game 7 Sunday night, was told it couldn't be here.
That it was too young. Too inexperienced. Too bird-chested. Too jovial. Too familial. Too even-keeled. That the adversity it faced was too thin or short-lived; before being crowned, Boston's postseason agony stretched multiple seasons, and Denver's path went from bubble to bumbling to popping bubbly. Even LeBron James' Heat squads, with rings for several fingers, acquired bloody knuckles.
'Are they making it sound like this was easy or something?' Holmgren questioned.
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Not necessarily, Chet. But the prophecy NBA fans and pundits know features a gory rite of passage. Being forced to wait your turn, sat down by a team more deserving, more experienced or both. Asked to better learn the limbs of your growing team over cruel summers. The Celtics know those licks better than anyone, competent enough to take them in conference finals and the 2022 NBA Finals.
'We haven't failed big enough?' Holmgren said, his smirk growing through his bafflement.
Holmgren shifted in his seat in disagreement. He can't argue with the fact that the bulk of this iteration of the Thunder hasn't repeatedly brushed up against championship hopes only to see them ripped away. He will debate the idea that the Thunder's journey here isn't painted by adversity.
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He only needs to think back to the grim night where it seemed his second season could be lost just one year after the first was stolen. When his terrifying fall from shot-blocking height cracked his hip. Holmgren was immobile. Itching, burning inside.
Around him, a team expected to make a run at a title was without a center of any sort. Seven-footers, and at one point even their break-the-glass, my-joints-shouldn't-be-doing-this understudy, Alex Caruso. Not to mention center Isaiah Hartenstein, who'd yet to play, was set to introduce an entirely new playstyle to OKC.
Jalen Williams finally got around to first-world problems this season. To be the star the Thunder needed, he'd need to reconcile with his whistle. His force.
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Thunder players huddle before their 123-107 win over the Pacers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals at Paycom Center on June 8.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander endured the ugliness of adding a pull-up 3 to his arsenal. He watched the goal posts move from 'could he score 50?' to 'could he do this in the playoffs?' OKC's role players lived under the duress of future expectations, part of this evolving juggernaut.
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But even they were hand-selected into this fold. Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins are two-ways turned marks of this team. Dort never heard his name on draft night. Wiggins was a bottom-five pick.
Caruso and Hartenstein chased this dream for years of their professional lives. They grinded out the G League, too, constantly forced to raise the bar until their role player reputations were accepted.
'My whole career has been a Game 7,' Hartenstein said.
This team is the problem child of adverse individual paths. 'No David,' but capable of playing All-NBA defense. If they won't hear your theories on the path to contention as a team, they certainly won't when in the interrogation room alone.
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'When you (put) it like that, you make it sound like there's a threshold where you have to suffer and go through enough before you win,' Caruso said. 'You gotta go out there and win it. You've gotta go out there and earn it. If you're good enough, you're good enough. Whether you're the youngest team in the league, whether you're the oldest team in the league. Whether you've been there before you haven't.'
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Those who've lived to pass along the war stories of the 20-something win seasons best illustrate the path here. They're Dort, SGA and Kenrich Williams, leaders of this group in voice and action.
The habits, the principles, the understanding of winning — and certainly the understanding of losing — were all built then. Passed on by teachings, now shared by blood type. Individual fortitude now hardened by this shared mission: being one of the youngest teams to ever pull it off, and do so their own way.
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'We're a young team but we're a very emotionally mature team,' Caruso said. 'Very smart team, intellectual team. We're able to go through our mistakes without having to go through loss — at least during the regular season and not too much in the postseason. And that's a unique skill. That might be more important than experience, the ability to have self-awareness. Maybe teams in the past haven't had that.'
Holmgren scoffs at luck. Fortune, in his eyes, isn't what worked back from the Lisfranc injury or lying in bed for weeks. It isn't what's pushed this youthful team through 83 wins and 104 games this year.
'I'm not very superstitious,' Holmgren admitted.
If he needs to conjure belief in whether the Thunder's experiences are deserving of winning Sunday's Game 7, he won't need to hold a rabbit's foot. He can hold his hip for good measure.
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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.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How OKC Thunder players view own adversity compared to past champions