As the NBA world just watched the Boston Celtics roll to one of the most dominant seasons in history and 16-3 playoff run that culminated in a championship, a particular basketball blueprint came into focus. Boston featured five guys who can do everything: Shoot, pass, create, operate on or off the ball, and defend multiple positions, with elite top-end and overall depth.
It's not exactly a revelatory concept. Versatility has been the way of the NBA for a while. Still, almost every team has a hole somewhere. Someone who can't shoot. Someone who can't defend. At least a sliver of a weakness for opponents to attack.
But look up and down the Oklahoma City roster, and tell me, where do you see the hole? By trading for Alex Caruso on Thursday, the Thunder, like the Celtics with Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, now have two of the nastiest on-ball defenders in the league (Caruso alongside Lu Dort). Ball pressure is back, baby. The Celtics just squeezed the life out of Dallas. Caruso and Dort are going to wreak the same on-ball havoc.
Add to that a center in Chet Holmgren, who checks almost all the same boxes as Kristaps Porzingis as an elite, floor-stretching rim protector. There's Jaylen Williams in the Jaylen Brown role (Brown defended Luka Doncic as well as possible, and Williams led the way in holding Kyrie Irving to 15 PPG in the conference semifinal), with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the Jayson Tatum superstar who draws the double teams, and suddenly the mirror starts to reflect a pretty similar basketball image.
Everyone can shoot (Caruso was 40% from 3 on almost five attempts per game last season, and Dort was nearly identical to that). Everyone can defend. Everyone can put the ball on the floor. Williams is an elite isolation scorer next to SGA, and yet, OKC doesn't over-rely on individual creation. The ball moves. So do the players. Did you just watch Holiday feast as a cutter in the Finals? The Thunder can cut you to death.
For most teams, copying the Boston roster is a pipe dream. The Celtics are an all-time unit with homegrown stars who then lucked into Holiday as part of the Damian Lillard fallout. It would be like trying to copy what the Warriors did by drafting Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
Travis Schlenk actually tried to do that with the Hawks after he left Golden State, drafting Trae Young as his Curry before adding DeAndre Hunter and Kevin Huerter as he aimed to put five guys on the floor who could all shoot, pass and dribble.
It was a good idea. But Young is a defensive hole, and Hunter and Huerter, while they fit the mold on paper, just didn't turn out to be good enough. OKC's guys are good enough. SGA is going to be an upper-crust MVP candidate for the next half decade. Williams will be an All-Star soon. Same for Holmgren. All those guys were drafted by the Thunder. This is largely an internally developed contender, just as the Celtics became the second they called the names of Tatum and Brown.
The similarities continue: Marcus Smart was a good player for the Celtics, but his greatest contribution to the 2024 title ended up being his trade value, as it was Smart who facilitated the trade for Porzingis. Josh Giddey, another drafted and developed OKC player, became good enough for the Thunder to flip him into Caruso.
And they're likely not done. How Sam Presti didn't have to give up a draft pick in addition to Giddey to get Caruso is a mystery; OKC still has 13 future first-round picks, including No. 12 overall this year, and over $31 million in cap space to use this summer.
They still need rebounding (Dallas racked up 73 offensive rebounds over six games in their second-round series), and though their 3-point shooting numbers looked great all season, most of these guys -- Dort, Caruso, and maybe even to some degree Holmgren -- feel a bit oversold as actual shooters who are going to hold up over multiple playoff series.
Klay Thompson is sitting there. Paul George is feasible. If they could rip Isaiah Hartenstein from the Knicks they would have a strong case as the favorite in the West. Point being, there's an opportunity for the Thunder to go for it right now, and it would not be surprising to see Presti hit the gas in this 1-2 year window before Williams and Holmgren receive potential max extensions.
The Caruso trade feels like the start of a lot more as the Thunder continue to build themselves in the mold of the team we just watched win a championship.
