Bold predictions can be a tough business to be in. While they can easily blow up in your face, there isn’t a better feeling than seeing one age like fine wine.

Five weeks before the Thunder played their first regular season game, The Ringer’s Michael Pina had one for the ages.

“The Thunder are a trendy title pick for a reason. They could have the best defense in NBA history. (Yes, you read that correctly.),” Pina wrote in a prescient column outlining why the Thunder had a dominant defense on paper.

A quarter of the way into the season, the Thunder have proven Pina right. While their 103.6 defensive rating doesn’t compare to the low numbers of the 1950s, they lead the pack when adjusting for offensive inflation.

PBP Stats lists relative defensive rating, or how much better a team’s defense is than league-average. Using that metric, the Thunder’s defense has dominated their peers more than anyone in the website’s 746-team database dating back to 2000. 

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Where Thunder rank among NBA’s best defenses

PBP Stats doesn’t include data from before 2000, but the Thunder fare well against the defenses considered the best ever.

Another Ringer personality, Bill Simmons, has compared the Thunder to the 1996 Doberman Bulls, a maniacal team that led the NBA in defensive rating en route to a championship. But their defensive rating was only 5.8 points better than the league average, paling in comparison to the Thunder’s 8.7. 

The early 90s Pat Riley Knicks are another of history’s great defenses. Their best season came in 1993 when they were 8.3 points per 100 possessions better than the league average. The Thunder still come up comfortably ahead of them. 

The only defense that the Thunder are competing against right now is the Bill Russell Celtics, whose best group in 1965 was 10.8 points per 100 possessions better than the league average back when the NBA comprised only nine teams. That Boston group is still ahead of Oklahoma City, and its record is probably safe this year.

It might be tempting to discount the Thunder’s success so early in the season, but as NBA data scientist and LEBRON creator Krishna Narsu has previously pointed out, defensive rating starts to stabilize after about 16 games. We are now several games past that mark. This Thunder defense is very real, with a runway to get even better.

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Why the Thunder’s defense is the best since Bill Russell’s Celtics

OKC has the best perimeter defenders in the league

There may never again be another assortment of lockdown perimeter defenders who are this good at wreaking havoc on the floor.

All five of Alex Caruso (2nd), Jalen Williams (9th), Cason Wallace (10th), Lu Dort (37th) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (50th) rank in the top 50 in deflections per game this season. Unsurprisingly, the Thunder as a team lead the league by a mile in deflections. They also lead in various other hustle stats, such as charges drawn, steals and turnovers forced.

That guard group takes pride in their defense. Caruso, Dort, Wallace and Aaron Wiggins have a defensive-themed group chat where they exchange messages, per The Thunder Wire’s Clemente Almanza. They are willing to do all of the dirty work, even playing many of their minutes without anyone standing over 6-6 tall. Jalen Williams has taken on many of the backup center duties and thrived there.

The Thunder have outscored opponents by 68 points when both Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren have been off the floor in those super-small units, per PBP Stats. Those 538 minutes haven’t always come in great matchups — head coach Mark Daigneault has been forced into them due to injuries. They’ve figured out a way to make it work, and they’re going to be even better now that they do have the ability to play with more size. 

Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein are the best rim-protection duo in the league

Hartenstein and Holmgren rank among the best rim protectors in the league, although neither has played enough to qualify for the league’s leaderboards. Holmgren’s 2.6 blocks per game would rank third and Hartenstein’s 1.6 would sneak into a tie for 10th place with elite rim protectors Evan Mobley, Rudy Gobert and Dereck Lively II. 

More than the raw blocks that those two get are the shots they alter at the rim. Opponents are shooting just 43.6 percent against Holmgren within six feet, the third-lowest number of 267 qualified players with at least 35 shots defended. Hartenstein’s 51.3 percent surrendered ranks a still-impressive 37th out of 267. That has led to the Thunder giving up the lowest field goal percentage at the rim of any team in the league, per Cleaning the Glass.

Those two big men have played exactly zero minutes together this year because of injuries. When Holmgren returns from a broken pelvis, playing that double-big lineup gives the Thunder another killer strategy to throw at teams. Great recent defenses like the Wolves and Celtics of last year thrived by using that approach. The Thunder should be able to make it work, too. 

MORE: Isaiah Hartenstein is everything Thunder could have hoped for — and more

The Thunder don’t have a weak link

Sam Presti has stacked a ton of individually great defenders on this roster. That has made advantage generation nearly impossible for offenses. The Thunder can switch across so many positions, and all of them can lock down one-on-one. When teams try to isolate against them, they’ve given up a ludicrous 0.76 points per possession, ranking No. 1 in the league.

When teams get the Thunder in rotation, they still struggle to score. The team is full of such smart defenders that they all know exactly how to cover for each other.

The Thunder are elite at closing openings in the blink of an eye. Dalton Knecht would have had both an open 3 and dunk against many defenses when the Lakers hosted the Thunder in late November. But a perfect X-out by Williams and Wiggins, trap-the-box rotation from Hartenstein and sink onto Anthony Davis by Isaiah Joe took away every sliver of space. 

What a defensive sequence from OKC here

I know Boston would like to have a word, but I’m not sure there’s a better team defending in rotation than them

The urgency they collectively rotate with, on a string & with communication, is genuinely fun to watch pic.twitter.com/NVzFWpKDSh

— Stephen 🏁 | bsky: StephenPG3 (@StephenPG3) November 30, 2024

These types of plays happen on a nightly basis because every player in the Thunder’s rotation can make split-second decisions with incredible accuracy.

Dunks are a decent proxy for mistakes made by a defense. Someone usually screwed up a rotation to allow one to occur. The Thunder’s 62 allowed are tied with the Cavs for the fewest this year. 

What should be terrifying for opponents is that Hartenstein has played in only five of the Thunder’s first 20 games while Holmgren has been in 10 and Caruso has been at 13. Those are three of the team’s best individual defenders. They’re going to get even better, and this is only a quarter of the way through Year One of this group being together.

Caruso is the only member of this core who is hitting free agency this summer, and the Thunder have the means to re-sign him. Not even the Russell Celtics were this good in their first championship year. This is just the beginning of what could become the most special defense of all time.