Stiles Points: OKC Thunder and Kansas City Chiefs Share Media Problem

As the NFL preseason begins and the media machine cranks up with hot takes to preview the football season, it offers a simple reminder to Oklahoma City.

Just Keep Winning.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have finally hoisted the Larry O'Brien trophy for the first time in team history. They did so with a jaw-dropping 2024-25 season that saw the Thunder rip off 68 wins, turn in the best point differential in NBA history and roster the best young core in the NBA with the deepest roster in the league.

All season long, the Thunder were belittled, doubted and outright disrespected. From the media machine spitting out soliloquies about the team being too young, not having enough battle scars and not being "feared" throughout the league.

Just keep winning.

The good news is, the 2024-25 Bricktown ballers were not auditioning for a leading role in an upcoming Michael Myers movie but instead wanted to win basketball games. Fear had nothing to do with it, but Oklahoma City quickly turned championship daydreams into nightmares for Western Conference contenders once the postseason began.

After being crowned champions, the NBA moved on in an instant, less than a month later the Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets revamped their rosters to now be popular picks to dethrone the Thunder in the Western Conference as the league enters a parity era for the first time in NBA history.

The past seven NBA Champions haven't made it out of the second round, much less defended their title. Though none of those seven were set up like Oklahoma City.

It is very similar to what the Kansas City Chiefs have dealt with in the NFL, going up against their year-long media machine. The Thunder's flyover state counterparts have never finished short of an AFC Title game in the Patrick Mahomes era and have gone to three straight Super Bowls with Mahomes winning three out of the five Super Bowls he has been in.

Kansas City has won the AFC West for eight straight seasons, all while still having the tenth youngest roster in the league that continues to reload around its mainstays like the gunslinger and tight end Travis Kelce.

And yet...Every year, those pesky Los Angeles Chargers are coming. Every year is supposed to be Lamar Jackson's time to bust through, finally. Surely Josh Allen won't go 0-5 against the Chiefs in the Playoffs, right? Oh, here comes Bo Nix and the new-look Denver Broncos, just in time to prop up a division rival ahead of the 2025 NFL season.

Just keep winning.

No sport promotes parity like the NFL. It is incredibly hard to string together dynasties like the Kansas City Chiefs have. Even the almighty New England Patriots saw a decade-long gap in the midst of their dominance. Yet, the Chiefs continue to defy the odds.

They also continue to be questioned.

Just keep winning.

The reality of the media machine is, you will always be rewarded for skewing negative for a multitude of reasons. When teams are as good as the Chiefs and Thunder, every other fanbase hates them –– they want to hear about fluke runs, new challenges and bad narratives. And those two fanbases? They list and react too. Sure, it is negative attention, but it is still attention that pays the bills.

The other area in which disrespecting teams at the top helps your case is the fact that only one team can win it each season. If you bash all 30 teams every year in the NBA, count yourself as a non-believer, poke holes in their roster and dismiss them entirely, you will be considered right 29 times and wrong once. A 29-1 record sounds good on paper. Until you realize it is all just a stat-padding shtick.

It is far bolder to proclaim that the Thunder will go back-to-back or that the Los Angeles Clippers' elder statesmen will win the West. Having true risk of falling on your face, without the tight rope of security that is negativity.

None of that matters, though. Just keep winning.

Colin Cowherd can call the Chiefs dynasty over, even as –– to reiterate –– Kansas City has never fallen short of an AFC title game appearance was Mahomes as its signal caller; he does it every year. At some point, he will be right. My bold take? Yeah, KC will not be in every AFC title game for the rest of my life. But that doesn't mean it needs to be declared dead today. I'd place the Chiefs right back in the AFC title game this season. I'll probably be right. Sometimes, not everything needs a hot take or negative narrative. Sometimes, things are exactly as they appear.

The Chiefs are great. So are the Thunder. You don't have to like it, you don't have to respect it and you don't have to predict it to continue. But eventually, you'll have to accept it.

Just keep winning.

So, as the OKC Thunder faithful embark on a title defense season, remind yourself to only respect the opinions of people who command it. If a hot take artist dubs the Thunder a first-round exit, don't write a ten-page dissertation. Just scroll on by.

Just keep winning.

Song of the Day: Fight for your right by Beastie Boys