The Oklahoma City Thunder are no longer a team of promise but a team of purpose after winning the championship last season.

It’s not too early to start your power rankings for the 2026 championship race. The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will enter the season as the title favorite again, but there’s a strong group of contenders behind them who loaded up this summer.

"Three draft deals reflect Presti's all-too-human fallibility," Kram wrote. "In 2020, he dealt the No. 25 and 28 picks for No. 17, thereby giving away future starters Immanuel Quickley and Jaden McDaniels, while bringing Aleksej Pokusevski to Oklahoma City."

The rush to judgment is a huge part of evaluating NBA transactions, a fact made plain by all the grades and winner-loser analysis already applied to this offseason's moves.

Grading the Oklahoma City Thunder's Free Agency So Far originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Oklahoma City Thunder entered the NBA offseason not needing to make many moves as their roster was almost full already entering next season.

Without question and rightfully so, the Oklahoma City Thunder are heavy favorites to repeat as NBA champions in 2025-26. They return all their key players, including regular-season and Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

There hasn’t been much of an “offseason” for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Such is life for the NBA champs. Still cleaning up the confetti from its championship parade, the draft, free agency and summer league have followed in quick succession.

Oklahoma City is fresh off a title, but after Denver and Houston made big moves over the offseason, is Mark Daigneault's team still the frontrunner?

Both are big forwards who are elite marksmen. Porter is a slightly better pure shooter, but Johnson — far from a lockdown defender — is much better defensively than Porter. Why does this move affect the Thunder? Because the Nuggets, as they proved in taking the Thunder to seven games, remain OKC’s biggest threat in the West.