The Golden State Warriors currently hold the record for the most wins in a season at 73-9. That record was broken in 2016 with the previous holder being the 72-10 Chicago Bulls in 1996. But the Thunder had started the year 24-1 and were on pace to break the Warriors record. Then they lost 6 of their next 13 games and they currently sit at 31-7. This makes it practically impossible for them to break the current record. This Thunder team had everything stacked up for them to beat the record and they couldn’t do it. So why is it so hard to break this record?
To start, let’s go over how Golden State accomplished their 73-9 season. The Warriors went into that season with the same team that won the championship in the previous year. The Warriors were the clear favorites going into the 2016 season. Even with the roster that they had, people didn’t think they had a good chance of breaking the wins in a season record because how consistent a roster needs to be in the season and they have to sustain little to no injuries throughout the year. With all that being said, the Warriors came out and had the best start to a season in NBA history, starting 24-0. The Warriors were also historically great on the road. They broke the regular season record for most games won on the road with 34 wins. Steph Curry also had his infamous unanimous MVP season where he was the first player to hit over 400 3 pointers in a season. With Curry having a historic season, the Warriors only needed role players to step up, and the Warriors have some of the best in the role player category.
For role players, Klay Thompson is probably one of the best role players you could have on your team. He embraces the 3 and D role and plays it really well. He guards some of the other teams best players while also being one of the best 3 point shooters in the league. The Warriors did not have a lot of size during the 2016 season, but Draymond Green was a 6 foot 6 forward who could play defense against all 5 positions. He could also hit the three back then, as this was before he turned into a strictly in the paint player. They also had other great role players in last year’s Finals MVP Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, and Shaun Livingston. With all these pieces, the Warriors were able to make history, but they would fall short in the playoffs giving up a 3-1 lead to the LeBron led Cavaliers. Now lets see how the current OKC Thunder stack up against the greatest regular season team in NBA history.
The Thunder are one of the most well rounded teams that we’ve seen in a long time. They have their star guy in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who won MVP and Finals MVP last year. They have all-star talent surrounding him in Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. Their role guys are some of the best at defense and hitting threes. Their bench goes 8-9 guys deep with players like Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Lu Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Kenrich Williams. Like the Warriors, they were the clear favorites going into this season and had an almost as good start to the season as that Warriors team did, going 24-1. But with losing to the Spurs 3 times in the stretch of a month and going 5-5 in the next 10 games, their outcome of getting the best record is very unlikely. How much can change in a regular season makes it really hard to be consistently winning games without dropping a couple games here and there. This is the main reason why the Warriors record is so improbable. Also, staying perfectly healthy throughout the whole regular season is also close to impossible, as the Thunder have already had Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Willams sidelined this season.
In conclusion, the Warriors 73-9 season will be next to impossible to beat because of all the odds stacked against you to lose games. Also with teams liking to rest their guys before playoffs in current days, this record will probably not be broken in the near future.
