OKC Injuries Crush Potential NBA Championship Hopes

And, John, I'll go to you first, this OKC thing, because freak injuries from both guys, J-Dub and Cason Wallace. Wallace. And, obviously, J-Dub fractured his ankle, fractured left fibula. He dislocated his ankle. Really gruesome Gordon Hayward-esque injury. It's just so awful for a guy that was looking incredibly healthy, looking spry, looking very good, making OKC look like that formidable OKC that we remember from before the Spurs series. And then on top of that, the newly extended Cason Wallace, who's expected to be there, one of their top perimeter defenders and a very good role player. He's probably out for the season as well with that. The ink hasn't dried on his contract yet. I mean, my goodness, Josh, you're right. And so, John, let's just focus on OKC first. How does this affect their title odds so far? I think they're dead. I think their title odds are dead. Because what were they missing last year? J-Dub being hurt. Yeah. Because I think that after watching what we saw the Spurs do in the actual championship, not having a healthy J-Dub at that point really now shows you that they could have easily won that series and gone to the finals and gave the Knicks a far better run for their money than the Spurs ended up doing. And now you take away the other guy who they were expecting to come in and add more weight to that. The plan was to have J-Dub, to have Cason Wallace, to have Ajayi Mara, to have all these things as you go into the postseason against the Victor Wembanyama and against these championship contending teams. The recipe was not to have J-Dub miss it. And so he's a very vital part of their success. And will they have a good season still? Absolutely. But their title hopes are done. Their title hopes are done. They needed him to be at the top of his game to compete for a title. As great as Shai is, he does not do the things that J-Dub does. And that hole on their team. Can't be filled by somebody currently on that roster. And the thing is also is, you know, people are saying, well, OKC can just trade for somebody like they can just, you know, go get this big name. They have their own salary issues. I don't think people realize that. Yeah, sure. They do have a lot of assets. They can trade. They have tons of picks. Trust me. I know they have tons of picks, but they just, like I said, they just signed J Dub a few. It was the last year, a few years ago. They just signed Cason Wallace. They have SGA on this big contract. Chet's on a bit like they have a ton of big contracts. J-Dub got a max, dog. Yes, he did. They're a second-apron team. Right. So you can't just go, oh, we'll get Zach Levine or something. It's like, no, I don't think you want to take on the contract. So, Josh, what are your thoughts on this OKC team? Because... I still believe in them to be one of the top teams in the West, but I just don't know over the course of a playoffs if they can sustain that. Now, there are reports that people are saying, well, maybe J-Dub can come back for the playoffs, or maybe he's an April guy, or maybe Cason Wallace can come back before then. I don't know about that. That's really risky if you put them right into playoff action after those. Yeah, it really is. I definitely see them still being regular season-wise. There'll be a top four team in the West. But like you're saying, once the playoffs come again, pending whatever other injuries might happen, you know, in this season, cause we've already lost so many players. We're going to have a, like a 12 point per game guy make all NBA this year because they're going to be so many guys that missed a 65 game requirement and they're just going to, you know, all of a sudden someone like Kyle Kuzma is going to be all NBA 13 for all we know. Please don't let that happen. That's a potential, but yeah, I mean, The question, though, is which other teams in the West are going to be healthy because Ant is gone for who knows how long. And that was one of the guys, as soon as J-Dub and Wallace went down, we have a group text. I said, like, it's now Minnesota's time. And then the next day, Ant goes down. And it's like, well, that was their time. So you have these guys. You want to make sure. Luka is fine. I know he just like sat a little bit. He had a lingering injury last year. Want to make sure he's just good. No nights off, Luka. Yeah, definitely no nights off. And then of course, you know, if you look out East, well, the biggest question, everyone's not asking if, but when is Joel Embiid going to get hurt and what are the Sixers going to do then?