The Oklahoma City Thunder’s win on opening night of the new NBA season was a reminder of everything that makes the league’s 2025 champion a prime contender to win again.
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champion → make → everything
Barely one week later, those aspirations have already been damaged.
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aspirations → damage → ?
Thunder star Jalen Williams, the team’s second-leading scorer and best all-around defender during its title run two seasons ago, fractured a fibula and dislocated his left ankle in a gruesome injury Sunday.
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Williams → lead → injury
The same night, Cason Wallace, a hounding defender and accurate shooter in his own right, tore the labrum in his shoulder.
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Wallace → hound → shoulder
Thunder general manager Sam Presti didn’t specify how long both will miss, but they are expected to miss months, at a minimum, putting their availability for any playoff run — especially a deep one — in serious doubt.
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they → specify → doubt
Jeff Stotts, an athletic trainer who runs a site that tracks sports injuries, wrote that since 2005, just one player had sustained a torn labrum like Wallace’s and returned later that season.
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player → run → Wallace
“We’ll get them back, we’ll get them healthy, but we got a lot of basketball to play in front of us,” Presti said Monday.
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Presti → get → us
“We got to put it together, figure out what the next steps are, because this is part of the business that we’re in.”
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we → got → that
Getting Williams back healthy had been central to Oklahoma City’s goal of returning to the NBA Finals.
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Getting → get → Finals
Injuries sidelined Williams for more than half of last season, and he also missed time during last season’s Western Conference finals, which the Thunder lost in seven games to San Antonio.
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Thunder → sideline → Antonio
When San Antonio and Oklahoma City met on opening night, with Oklahoma City winning on the road, it was widely seen as a preview of the spring, when the two teams with loaded rosters featuring superstars still in their 20s were expected again to face off for the right to make the Finals.
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teams → meet → Finals
“It’s obviously going to be tough without a player” like Williams, Thunder guard and two-time league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said.
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Alexander → go → Williams
“But he’s not gone forever.
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he → go → ?
He’ll be back better than ever, and we know it.
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we → know → it
We’ve just got to hold the fort down until he comes back.”
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he → get → fort
The Thunder aren’t the only team whose season has already been upended by injuries.
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season → upend → injuries
Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star guard Anthony Edwards is expected to miss around two months after his right knee required an arthroscopic procedure, ESPN reported.
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ESPN → expect → procedure
A right knee injury will also sideline Utah Jazz star forward Jaren Jackson Jr. for a reported six to eight weeks, while an ankle injury will sideline Orlando Magic star Paolo Banchero at least a month.
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injury → sideline → Banchero
Indiana Pacers All-Star Tyrese Haliburton (hamstring) and Orlando guard Jalen Suggs (right knee) also will miss time.
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Haliburton → miss → time
Drawing a connection between some of the acute injuries, like Williams’ freak fracture, and cumulative injuries such as the knee that has bothered Edwards for months is difficult, said Dr. Tarek Souryal, a former president of the NBA Physicians Association who was the Dallas Mavericks’ team doctor for more than two decades.
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who → draw → decades
“What you’re witnessing is most likely a statistical aberration, not necessarily evidence of a systemic problem,” Souryal said.
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Souryal → witness → problem
“A cluster of injuries, however unusual or alarming, does not by itself establish a causal relationship.”
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cluster → establish → relationship
Wallace and Williams are homegrown talents, drafted and developed by Oklahoma City into centerpieces of the 2025 championship team.
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Wallace → draft → team
The Thunder, under Presti, drafted and traded so well that their depth was often unparalleled around the NBA, with capable emerging contributors backing up more established starters.
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contributors → draft → starters
The current collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players union, however, makes it financially difficult for a team to keep together a core of players for longer than a few seasons once they get old enough, and perform well enough, to command lucrative long-term extensions.
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they → make → extensions
The Thunder are one of the league’s prime examples; last summer, as expensive contracts owed to their star trio of Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Chet Holmgren began to hit their payroll, the team jettisoned some of its key rotation players in financially motivated moves so as not to trigger onerous penalties.
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team → owe → penalties
Wallace, however, wasn’t someone the team felt it could part with; it signed him to a five-year, $139 million extension in mid-October.
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it → feel → October
Those offseason moves, combined with the injuries, have withered the depth that had allowed Presti to be patient in trade negotiations during previous seasons, without feeling a need to make splashy midseason acquisitions.
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Presti → combine → acquisitions
An executive for an NBA team said rivals were quickly monitoring whether the Thunder’s position would change in light of how much their rotation had been depleted only a week into the season.
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rotation → say → season
“It’s tough from a compassion standpoint.
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It → ’ → standpoint
Those are guys that work so hard, they’re such great players, so that was a tough pill,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
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Daigneault → work → ?
“The guys did a great job of appropriately honoring that and also getting themselves ready to compete, ready to play.
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themselves → do → that
They heard from [Williams].
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They → hear → Williams
They saw Cason.
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They → see → Cason
So it allowed them to feel good about going out there and competing for the team.”
Four games into the season, despite the injuries, Oklahoma City was an unbeaten 4-0.
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City → allow → injuries
How long it can remain atop the West, however, has become one of the key stories of the young season.
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remain → remain → season
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