I feel like I have said this on goEMAW before but this season is the Thunder's make or break season.
Kevin Durant's Contract for OKC will end after this season, his contract being $20,158,622 to be exact is crazy. A lot of people think that he will chase the rings if OKC doesn't win it all this year, I am one of those people. This team means a lot to me and I would hate to see KD leave OKC behind and pull a lebron. He has mentioned that he would like to have his number retired in OKC so if that means anything to the GM at OKC they would do as much as they could to keep one of the founding stars on board.
OKC would have rings if James Harden wouldn't have been traded. The trade occurred in the fall of 2012 right after a preaseason game against the Dallas Mavericks. I was in attendance and it was when I first realized how much I loved the NBA and especially the OKC Thunder. As soon as I returned home that night I turned on SportsCenter to see if my family would have been on TV that night. To my surprise, James Harden had been traded. He was traded along with four other players for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and a 1st round pick from both the Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors. The seasons before the trade with Harden were disappointing needless to say, 09-10 was a loss in the first round in the playoffs, 10-11 a loss in the western conference finals, 11-12 was a loss in the finals to the seemingly unstoppable Miami Heat. The year of the trade, the thunder lost in the western conference semis to you guessed it, the Houston Rockets. Since OKC traded Harden, KD has been MVP and they lost in the western conference finals to the spurs. Last year Westbrook lead the team single-handedly and won the scoring title with the absence of KD.
This year the Thunder have been poised as an underdog against the thought to be juggernauts of the west, Golden State and San Antonio. They routed the Mavericks in the opening round of the 2016 Playoffs 4 to 1, then moved on to the next juggernaut the Spurs who everyone thought it would be game over for the OKC squad and Kevin Durant would be moving out for good. But the OKC Squad returned to Prime-time form to beat the Spurs in a series of 6, 4 to 2. And here we are where the team and the fans have been wanting to be for a long time. Game 7 against one of the greatest teams to be assembled.
IF OKC wins they keep their leader and star Kevin Durant and the team keeps building around him and RUSS
IF OKC loses they lose KD and the team crumbles around him.
A lot is at stake for the forward momentum of this team as well as the town of Oklahoma City, and the game of Basketball