OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA – MARCH 9: Chet Holmgren #7 of the Oklahoma City Thunder celebrates after a slam dunk during the first half against the Denver Nuggets at Paycom Center on March 9, 2025 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Joshua Gateley/Getty Images)
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The NBA is back. On Tuesday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder will raise a banner at Paycom Center, the first in franchise history, as the team takes on the Houston Rockets in Game 1 of the 2025–26 campaign.
The Thunder will look to go back-to-back and win another championship this season, and is the favorite to do so. But nothing is a given. This team is not perfect. There are still questions that need to be answered and factors that need to be considered.
With that in mind, looking ahead to this upcoming campaign, what are biggest questions for the Thunder?
Injury Timelines
Oklahoma City will be without a third of its 15-man roster on opening night, as Jalen Williams, Isaiah Joe, Kenrich Williams, Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber are all sidelined. Sorber, of course, is out for the season with an ACL injury, but the other four cases carry more uncertainty.
Jalen Williams is obviously the one that moves the needle most. He’s the Thunder’s second-best player, an All-NBA caliber piece, and is still recovering from offseason wrist surgery. His status beyond opening night remains unclear, but we already know he won’t be active to start the season. The question now is how many games he’ll miss.
Isaiah Joe’s injury doesn’t appear to be long-term, but it was serious enough that he was ruled out a full day before Monday’s matchup. That indicates he wasn’t close enough to be considered a game-time decision.
Meanwhile, Kenrich Williams and Nikola Topic are both expected to miss several more weeks, with returns likely coming sometime in the first half of the season.
Getting these players back to full strength will be one of the team’s biggest early-season storylines.
Chet Holmgren’s Healthy Upside
Chet Holmgren’s ability to take a leap this season will be a major X-factor in determining whether Oklahoma City can go back-to-back. That’s especially true early in the 2025–26 campaign with Williams sidelined with the wrist injury. On opening night, Holmgren will be the team’s second option behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
He finished last season as a clear top-five defender in the NBA, but his offense left something to be desired at times. Before his hip injury, he was moving well and appeared to have taken a legitimate step forward on that end. After returning, though, he never fully regained his rhythm, mobility or burst.
During the recent preseason, he looked like a different player than he was in the playoffs. The way he moved in the one game he played this month suggested he’s back to full form, and the same place he seemed to be before last year’s setback. If he truly takes that next step offensively, it could not only earn him an NBA All-Star nod but also determine just how far the Thunder can go.
Ability to Chase Greatness
When you’re coming off an NBA championship, having already reached the pinnacle of success, everything about the next season feels different. The Thunder enters the 2025–26 campaign as clear favorites to repeat, which means the team has shifted from being the hunters, to the hunted. This is now the team with the target on its back, the one carrying the highest expectations, and that changes everything.
Instead of chasing other contenders, OKC now has to learn how to chase itself and how to pursue greatness when already at the top. Going back-to-back in today’s NBA is incredibly difficult, but the Thunder is now chasing history and the rare company of teams that have built dynasties. For such a young roster, handling that pressure and maintaining the same relentless drive, even while leading the standings, will be one of the defining challenges of the season.
Officiating Style
The officiating style that sets the tone early in the season, and how it potentially changes as the year goes on, will be a significant storyline for Oklahoma City. This is a team that, last season, led the league in drives and put together a shot diet that should’ve resulted in plenty of trips to the free throw line, yet didn’t. The Thunder often didn’t get the calls you’d expect based on the type of shots the team was taking and the amount of contact being drawn.
Conversely, on the defensive end, Oklahoma City played an extremely physical brand of basketball — one that was disruptive, aggressive and frustrating for opposing offenses. Several teams around the league complained last season that the Thunder wasn’t being called for enough fouls defensively. That conversation hasn’t gone away. Even throughout the preseason and at media day, several players around the league have mentioned that they plan to ramp up the physicality and intensity of their defense even further this season, calling out OKC as the model.
If that’s the case, and the Thunder continue to play its same style while the league begins to pay closer attention, it’ll be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out. It almost feels like a message has been sent to the league about the way Oklahoma City defends. Whether that leads to tighter whistles or the same level of leniency will be something to watch.
To be clear, the Thunder isn’t breaking any rules. The NBA hasn’t changed its rulebook, so in theory, Oklahoma City should be able to continue playing this same brand of defense with the same level of success as last season.
But with how much attention this storyline has gained heading into the season, it’s worth monitoring how officiating evolves as the year unfolds.
There will, of course, be unexpected storylines and trends that emerge as the season unfolds. There are always countless factors that shape how an NBA season ultimately plays out. But for the Oklahoma City Thunder specifically, these are the primary questions entering the 2025–26 campaign, as the reigning champions look to go back-to-back and defend the title.