The Thunder are officially CURSED...

At this point, the Thunder are on a speed run for the most cursed season in league history. Down three starters from the opening night lineup. One week has completely turned the tides on what was seen as a slam dunk title run for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Shams Charania has given us an update that nobody has looked for, but at this point, I think that we're all numb to it. This has got to be some kind of sick joke at this point. Kaysen Wallace and J-Dub both leave the Clippers game with catastrophic injuries, and it gets announced on Monday of this past week that they are done for pretty much the entire year. And during that time, since that injury, the post-Dub and Kaysen injury era, Chet Holmgren has been nowhere to be seen either with what was initially called Right knee tendinitis, but now we know, is much more significant than that. I mean, just brace yourselves. It's DEFCON 1 now in Oklahoma City. We've got a new update on Chet Holmgren that just deepens the Thunder despair, and it comes from Shams Charania tweeting this out late last night. I was actually busy calling a high school football game. I get to my car, and I see this update, and I mean, you just kind of bust into a joker Maniacal laugh at this point. Chet Holmgren has a small patellar tendon tear and he is expected to miss 8-10 weeks. Boys and girls, that means he is done until after Christmas. And, I mean, how does this happen in eight days' time, right? I mean, literally last weekend, you beat the Denver Nuggets, holding them to just 84 points. You get that sequence of events where Chet gets the big two-handed block on one end. You get it to J-Dub on an alley-oop on the other end. And all three players that were a part of that play are done for foreseeable time. J-Dub and Kaysen go down. Caruso sprains his ankle in the game following that, you get your first loss of the year, and now Chet is sidelined for eight to ten weeks. I mean, this is just a ridiculous stretch of bad luck that's unprecedented around this league. And so now the Thunder are officially down two all-NBA players for the long term. Holmgren at least will have the prognosis to come back at some point within the next two to three months. I don't know how you get through this, guys, like genuinely. The injury luck that this team has had this year is even worse than last year, and I think it's pretty safe to say that last year's bad injury luck cost this team a title. After you win one two years ago, you end up being without J-Dub and without A.J. Mitchell in the most important games of the season. You lose Game 7 at home, you come back, you're healthy, and then immediately... It's like Satan has just taken his hand and crushed this team in a fist. And you know what's even more outrageous? There is not much available from last year's team to this year. I mean, I did some number digging, and the Thunder literally have only 46% of their points available from last year's roster, 44% of their rebounds, 37% of steals, 35% of blocks, and 33% of made threes. When you roll over last year's numbers. Into this year's team, the players that you had to trade in the offseason, and then all the players that are injured. I mean, the Thunder are literally down 5,000 plus points, 1,500 plus rebounds, 400 plus steals, 300 nearly blocks, and nearly 800 made threes. It is just outrageous what this team doesn't have right now. Your production is just straight up gone at this point in time, and you're going to have to play a game here tonight. Down in Houston against the 5-1 Rockets, and then after that, you're going to have to go against the Cavaliers, and I mean, it's not going to be easy at all for this team now going forward, so you go from being the resounding title favorite, the market has dramatically flipped in the time being. You see right here on Kalshi, the Thunder are down 11% on their title odds over this rolling window, and just look at how much it has dipped. They're in the late month of October, just absolutely insane. So, I mean, if you've got the optimism that the Thunder can come back from this, right now would be the best time ever to go trade that on Kalshi. Go click the link in the description, put in code DIGESTNBA, and you'll be trading against other users. The market shifts based on what users are buying and selling, and it's not against the house like what you would see with a traditional sportsbook. Kalshi, you know, the official partner of the NBA now as well, and a partner of us here on Digest. So go click that link down below. $55 is what you will get in bonus funds on your first $25 trade. So that is the incentive. You can trade on stuff like this around the NBA, across all other sports, across pop culture, music, the weather, all sorts of things. So appreciate I appreciate Kalshi for sponsoring the video, but... Chet Holmgren leaves a sizable gap on both ends of the floor with his absence now that you really can't even come close to trying to replicate at this point in time. This is just for this season, a sample size that essentially means nothing. The defensive rating, you see how much better it's been with Chet Holmgren out there. But really, the cause and effect here is the rim protection and the transition offense that you're losing. This is from last season, where you see that he kept opponents to 45% within six feet, which was the best in the league. He shot 65% in the true shooting department, which was top 15% in the league, nearly one and a half points per pick and roll possession. I mean, the dude was off the charts in all of the impact numbers that you could ever hope for. For a stretch four, a five, however you want to play him in this lineup, I mean, he just has a unicorn type of impact, and the injuries multiply each other now. So you're down four, four. All NBA defensive players, Kason Wallace, done. J-Dub, done. Chet, done for the long term. And Alex Caruso with his ankle sprain. The quality depth is gone. The defense is depleted. There's so much offensive adversity, and there is little help for SGA. So how did the Thunder get through this, and where does it end? I mean... If you know, if you can hire an Etsy witch out there on this Halloween and try to reverse the Thunder's misfortunes. Please, more power to you, but these four dudes are done for the long term, and you see the points that they have added to the table just this season alone, and last year, or maybe even the year before, would probably be a better indicator as to just the impact that these guys can have, and honestly, this isn't even just a one-year issue for OKC. Like, you overcame some injury luck in your title run season, and then you had your year derailed with injuries last year. And now this season, I mean, there's derailed and then there is just completely thrown off its chart and into the moon, right? And that's what this season is. And a stat that reflects this the most is since the 2022-23 season, your big three of Shea, Chet, and J-Dub, they could have played in 381 games together. They have only played in 162 of those 381 games. Where all three of them are available. That is 43% of the team's games in the last four years where your big three has all played. And on top of it, the longest streak that they have all played together is 31 games. And the reserve safety net that is the most valued Bench unit in the league is also hurt right now. Caruso, who would be your best on-ball defender at this point in time, he is done with an ankle sprain. Thomas Sorber and Nikola Topić have never played basketball before in the history of mankind, and they continue to be out. This is a tweet from J-Dub or an Instagram post from J-Dub the other day. He had his surgery that was confirmed by Thunder PR. He was hanging out with his brother Cody as you can see right there and he had a caption even steps backwards we're still part of the dance. Love it and you know what I guess we're all dancing right now because what's disappeared with this team and just the Just the complete despair that us Thunder fans are feeling right now is second to none. SGA now, I mean, at this point, he needs a survival plan with what he has left and what is no longer available, and it comes down to guys like A.J. Mitchell and a potential emergence into becoming a Jalen Brunson-esque breakout player. I think if this has to continue, A.J. Mitchell may be a 20-plus points per game player when this season is done, which will obviously heavily rise his value. And make it harder for the Thunder to keep him in the years to come. But honestly, none of that matters right now. The Thunder need him right now. And so he, hopefully, can continue to bring that. And then suddenly, a shift of your attention to Adai Mara. Who, all of a sudden, has become very important at work now. With all of the injuries that this team has going on. And the offense beyond these guys. I mean, you're going to have to really get some steps up from Jared McCain. Isaiah Hartenstein, his importance becomes that much more. And someone has to relieve the double teams that Shea will inevitably see and be a reliable shooting threat for the Thunder to somehow navigate through this. And then defensively... It's going to be really tough, you guys. I mean, the strengths that this team has are now your weaknesses. Transition offense from defense is now a weakness. Chaos defense is a weakness. On-ball defense, especially against big, skilled scorers right now, is a weakness for this team. And we saw it against the Mavericks a couple of nights ago when Cooper Flagg... Went crazy. And the Thunder now, you kind of have to reset your expectations a little bit at the very least. And the floor for this team, I mean, obviously is still higher than most that are in this situation, which I don't think there's any team that's ever been in a situation like this, but your floor is still higher than any other team would be because you have the back-to-back MVP at least trying to steer the ship away from the iceberg, and you've got to try to survive the potential return window to at least get Chet back for this team, which obviously would be no earlier than Christmas. And you would hope would be no later than mid-January. And so you may need to kind of reset the thought on this team in terms of what they are capable of this season because of the extraneous circumstances. Best case scenario is that you stay afloat in the eight weeks that are going to follow from right now, and you get enough back to be able to fight for a top four seed. I think that the middle scenario is that you pull things together just enough to be a five or a six and avoid the play-in, and I think the worst case is that you just see a complete collapse and this team is fighting for its play in life. It changes the outlook entirely. There's variables in here that the Thunder will hopefully get back that can make this thing better, and we'll wait to see if there's any additional Sam Presti moves. I would hate for him to make any hasty decisions to just try to lessen a blow for this year. I'd almost rather you just treat this season as a throwaway. Your guys are still young enough that they're going to be in their prime for several, several, several more years. You've got your big three locked down for the long term. If this has to be a punt year and you come back for next year, I'd rather that than you just empty the tanks, get rid of your young players, get rid of all your draft picks, just to try to remedy the situation for this season. And this is what Sam Presti said in his press conference on Monday. reacting with emotion can feel good in the short term, but it's never going to get you very far. Sam knows this. He's going to stay the course the best he can. Obviously, going out and signing Ochai Abaji yesterday was him in response to knowing that Chet's going to be out for a while. You're going to be without a lot of your rotation players. Tell me down below in the comments your expectations for a potential goal for this season now after all of this. Do you like an idea of staying in the top four race? Do you think this team survives and avoids the play-in? Or do you think it's play-in or worse for OKC? Shout out to our comment spotlight of the day from Michael. Sturt steps into a backup role. Mara gets more time. Barnheiser, I'm going to add Dixon here as well. Not ready for major minutes. That's why you go out and you get Abaji yesterday. We've got the players to do well. Wallace can come back soon. Have faith, Thunder Nation. I like that last sentence right there of having faith and trusting this process and trusting that the better powers at be will eventually bless this team for the complete detriment that it has done in a very short amount of time. So yeah, Chet Holmgren is done until the new year on top of all of the misfortunes that this team has got going on. Thunder fans, Hug one another here today with just how crazy things have been. If you're a neutral fan listening and you've got a Thunder fan friend, go hug that friend today because it has been a brutal week for Thunder Nation. Talk about some trade candidates because there's some real stuff developing on that front, but this kind of takes precedent, of course, with a big injury update here today. So be on the lookout for more content over the weekend, and we'll see you guys next time here on the channel.