The CHRIS Finals Preview
The NBA Finals start tomorrow, and apparently a preview is obligatory for basketball writers. There are already a million great breakdowns out there, covering the main matchups and storylines, so for my preview I’m going to take a slightly different angle, as I tend to do. I explore the two remaining teams through the lens of all the pieces I’ve written this season. I’ve linked to each of the original stories in the headers if you missed one along the way and want to read more!
Mapping The Finals
What better place to start than with my most popular piece from the year. I focused on WNBA starting lineups originally, but the format extends to these NBA Finals, and highlights some interesting trends among the contenders:
The Thunder have the size advantage, with two seven-footers under the rim. Zach Lowe recently pointed out this may actually be a disadvantage if the Pacers can beat them off the dribble with smaller, quicker Guards. Of course, he also pointed out OKC can just go smaller with any of Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Jaylin Williams … the Thunder depth really isn’t fair.
Three Canadians will be in the starting lineups. Add in Isaiah Hartenstein from Germany and Pascal Siakam from Cameroon, and half the starters are international.
Myles Turner is the most experienced player of the bunch, wrapping up his 10th year, all with the Pacers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the longest tenured player on the (very young) Thunder squad.
Chet Holmgren is the only top-10 pick who will start in the NBA Finals, though a lot of teams who passed on Shai and Tyrese Haliburton in the top-10 are kicking themselves now. This highlights modern NBA roster construction, with teams developing players and building a strong supporting cast, not necessarily seeking out superstars.
Speaking of roster construction, as small market teams both Oklahoma City and Indiana have relied heavily on draft picks and well-timed trades to build their contenders. Isaiah Hartenstein is the only recent free agent in the starting lineups.
The starters have just nine combined All-Star appearances. Shai was the only Thunder player with a nod prior to this season. Siakam was the only Pacers All-Star this year.
Four Factors
As has been well noted, the Thunder had the most dominant defense in the NBA this season, and maybe the most dominant defense of all time. They forced the most turnovers, while taking care of the ball themselves better than anyone else.
Indiana shot the ball at a great clip in the regular season, but that will be hard to replicate against the Thunder defense that held opponents to the lowest effective field goal percentage in the league.
The playoffs have been much of the same:
Predicting Playoff Injuries
Coming into the playoffs, Oklahoma City had the fifth best minutes-weighted probability of staying healthy, while Indiana was second best. That has mostly held, as neither team has suffered a serious injury through the first three rounds, excepting Indiana’s Jarace Walker who sprained his ankle in the final game of the Conference Finals and will miss the first two games of this series.
Who Are We Really Rooting For?
The Thunder and Pacers are both exceptionally well run organizations, with above average continuity in almost every area (except mascots):
After five seasons at the helm in Oklahoma, Mark Daigneault is tied for the third longest tenure with the same team in the NBA. Meanwhile Carlisle is wrapping up his fourth season in Indiana, and has been an NBA head coach for 23 years (and an assistant for 11 before that). Both have been named Coach of the Year - Carlisle in his first season and Daigneault last season.
Both star players, SGA and Tyrese, were acquired via trade, but have been with their club for several years now.
A lot has been written about the masterful work from the two GMs, Kevin Pritchard in Indianapolis and Sam Presti in Oklahoma City. Presti was recently named Executive of the Year, after years of stock-piling draft picks and trade capital that landed his team in the Finals with a roster that would be the second youngest NBA champion of all time.
Herb Simon has owned the Pacers for 42 years, the second longest tenure in the league only behind the Buss Lakers. Clay Bennett has owned the
SonicsThunder since 2006, and was responsible for getting them to Oklahoma.
Kirk Goldsberry recently called continuity “the most underrated thing in this crazy business.” That makes sense when you see these organizations as the last two standing.
The Thunder could use a logo update though. I mean what is this font …
I Got Better
SGA, the MVP, stands out on this chart of career progression in Player Efficiency Rating, which makes sense considering he also stood out on the same chart with Jokić and Giannis.
The veterans Haliburton, Siakam, and Hartenstein all had big jumps in years two or three that took them from average or below average NBA players, to starting in the NBA Finals.
Meanwhile the young guns, Nesmith and Jalen Williams, have also had nice jumps in year three. These teams both have excellent player development systems, so it’ll be exciting to see where they take it from here.
Jordan and James
In case you hadn’t heard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in free throws made. Perhaps lesser known is that he also led the league in field goals made, and field goals attempted:
He is no James Harden, who has made essentially the same number of FTs and FGs in his career:
NBA Finals Lurkers
Obi Toppin is a top-tier lurker, right in the mold shaped by Aaron Gordon. The same way Gordon finishes Jokić passes, Toppin skies high for lobs from Haliburton or TJ McConnell, and throws them down with authority. And like Gordon, he has a Slam Dunk Contest trophy at home.
Just over half of Toppin’s points this year have come from alley oops or catch and shoot threes:
Hartenstein is less flashy, but also fits the lurker identity. He had 88 assisted dunks in the regular season - 24th most in the league - in just 48 games. He’s third in the playoffs, behind Rudy Gobert and his teammate Chet Holmgren (Holmgren’s high scoring and usage rate precludes him from being a true lurker).
Bad Trades
As mentioned, these teams were built on a few key trades, none bigger than the one that landed future MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in Oklahoma City in 2019:
The Clippers traded Shai to the Thunder, along with Danilo Gallinari and a handful of picks, one of whom (Jalen Williams) has already proven to be better than Paul George. So taking SGA out of the equation, the Thunder still won this trade. Oh, and there’s three more first rounders yet to be selected that the Thunder got out of LA. Yeah, that’s a bad trade.
The biggest trade the Pacers made landed them Tyrese Haliburton in 2022. At the time, the trade was deemed a "win-win” as the Kings got back Domantas Sabonis, a two-time All-Star in Indiana. Now however, with the Pacers going to the Finals while the Kings are stuck in mediocrity, Zach Lowe called this transaction a “win and win-a-lot-less trade”. Sabonis is still averaging slightly better win share numbers than Haliburton, but Haliburton’s wins in June are mattering a whole lot more.
All of this is intertwined going back to a 2017 trade between the two teams directly, when the Pacers traded Paul George to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Sabonis. So who won that trade?1
Best Ever
In the original piece, I made the argument that the 2013 Sky had assembled the best collection of talent basketball had ever seen, with the best player ever to play their position at four different positions.
The Thunder may lay claim to the best assemblage of talent in NBA history, back in 2009-2012 when they brought together Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden. It was the only time in NBA history that three future MVPs played together.2
This Thunder team may be even better. They passed the 2012 and 2016 editions in ELO rating earlier this season to hit a new franchise peak. Their end-of-season 1,773 ELO is ninth best in NBA history, and they posted the single best net rating in history.
What makes it even more incredible is that just four years ago, the Thunder were at the lowest point in their history. It’s been quite the rise since.
The Pacers have also had a huge bounce back from a 2022 nadir, and with a championship may surpass the 1998 Reggie Miller team for the best ever in Indianapolis.
Instagram Seasons
Apparently, Instagram isn’t the place the youths hang out anymore. The young Thunder players in particular are known to be TikTok kids. That’s reflected here as the Finals starters 25 or younger (Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams) have posted the least. JDub appears to have set up his Instagram less than a year ago.
Tyrese Haliburton is the exceptional 25-year-old with a healthy Instagram presence, and a following of 1.5M. He also has one of the coolest pictures from the season:
While Tyrese was hanging out with a noted basketball fan, Myles Turner played with built lego (categorized in the chart above, generously, as “Other Sport”) and had a pretty elaborate costumed tunnel walk. But in my opinion, Pascal Siakam won Halloween and Instagram with this performance:
Other learnings: Shai (who posted just one time with an NBA-related cover photo - him holding up the MVP trophy) was a dinosaur and Lu Dort has a Cybertruck.
St. Jimmy
When I first wrote this piece, matching NBA teams to Green Day songs, I gave Oklahoma City Jesus of Suburbia, with Shai playing the Messiah:
And there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be
In a land of make-believe
That don't believe in me
Now though, people believe in the Jesus of Suburbia and his team, and the Thunder want to upgrade to “We are the Champions” (there’s a cover by Billie Joe & Co. on the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of American Idiot - it counts).
I didn’t give the Pacers an anthem originally, but they are, clearly, the song Suffocate:
An Ode to Jalen
All of the other analyses don’t matter. The Thunder have TWO more Jalens than the Pacers. Therefore they should win easily.
The Thunder.
3+ MVPs have played together three other times, but in all those cases at least one of the teammates would not win another MVP.
Loved this analysis. I kept looking up more info on these players.
beautiful graphic 👏🏾