Sam Presti Shares Unique OKC Thunder Stat Could Shape Next Season

The Oklahoma City Thunder are fresh off a season that ended with 68 wins, an NBA championship and plenty of historical records.

It will be tough to top the 2024-25 campaign in Thunder history, though Oklahoma City seems destined to compete for championship for the rest of the decade.

At his annual end of season interview last month, Sam Presti brought up an interesting stat during his opening statement.

"I really want to recognize our medical and performance teams. This year was extremely challenging from that point of view. I think we only had our full roster eight and a half percent of the games that we played, and it's very rare that you have players playing more minutes together in the Playoffs than they have the entire regular season." Presti said during his opening statement. "Donnie Strack and Andrew Paul specifically have really just shown great skill in managing us through the year and getting ourselves to a point where we had great availability at the end of the year and into the postseason. That was a remarkable effort by those guys and their teams."

The fact that the Thunder posted the highest win total in franchise history with 68, the best point differential in NBA history, the best cross-conference record in league history and played the season with a healthy roster just 8.5% of the time. A team that was more healthy for its title run than the regular season.

When asked to contextualize that number by Thunder on SI, Presti explained why he brought the stat to the table.

"I have to go back and look at that. I know that I think we were third or fourth in most minutes lost due to injury. It was like Dallas, Philly, and one other team. I think we were right up there," Presti explained. "But it was pretty significant. It wasn't the number one, but we were shorthanded. But I say that not to make an excuse or make it seem like, geez, we just had to walk uphill to school both ways. It actually is what forged us and accelerated our team, because of the way I think we absorbed it and saw it as opportunity for growth, and hey, there's going to be seasons like this, there's going to be weeks like this or months like this."

This was not used as an excuse for Oklahoma City, or a crutch, but instead to illustrate the adversity this young squad fought through to eventually get over the hump. As Presti put it, it forged their team.

"This is the next thing up for us to overcome if we want to be a great team. Even if we fall short, that doesn't mean we won't get that done. It just means we weren't ready to do it yet. So in a lot of ways, those things, as unfortunate as they were, were not seen as complete roadblocks or pitfalls. They were just like, well, I guess this is what we have to figure out how to confront if we're going to be a team that is capable of our true best selves," The Thunder top executive detailed.

Oklahoma City projects to be healthier than they were a year ago –– it would be hard to be much more banged up in the regular season. While the conservative approach to forecasting the Thunder's win total seems like the right approach, could they win more games as the deepest team in the league just by a better bill of health?