FRESH OFF BECOMING the second-youngest championship team in NBA history, the Oklahoma City Thunder gathered around a table stocked with celebratory beverages and turned their attention to sage veteran Alex Caruso.
Caruso's voice had carried a lot of weight in the Thunder's locker room since he arrived via a trade the previous summer. At 31, he was the oldest player on Oklahoma City's roster and the only one who owned an NBA championship ring, which he had flashed around the practice facility early in the season as a motivational tactic.
Caruso was also the only player in the room who had a clue about how to pop a champagne bottle.
In fact, for Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams, this would be the first time they had ever taken so much as a sip of alcohol. Their inexperience, as well as that of some of the Thunder's other youngsters, soon became apparent.
After taking a head count, Caruso showed his teammates how to remove the foil from the bottle, undo the metal and get the cork ready -- and then a few corks popped prematurely. There were a couple more false starts on the second attempt before the Thunder managed to pop the corks in sync on their third try, setting off a hilariously tame title celebration.
"It was a good first try," Caruso said on the podium that night, removing his championship cap and rubbing his bald head while smiling wryly. "We'll get some rest, reset, try to go again next year and see if we can do it again.
"We'll be better. We'll be better next year."
That kind of progress probably wasn't quite what Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti had in mind a few months later, when he held his annual preseason meeting with the local media in the interview room down the Paycom Center hallway, but the organization maintaining an "obsession with improvement" was the overarching theme of the session.
How much improvement can be expected after a franchise-record 68-win season and title run? Plenty, according to the face of the franchise and other core players, pointing out that the pair of playoff series in which the Thunder were pushed to seven games provide plenty of opportunity to nitpick.
"I don't think as a group we played our best basketball in that playoff run," Shai Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN. "And I don't think as a player, I played my best basketball for the whole run. Granted, it's basketball, it's going to happen -- but I had droughts, and there's a reason why I had droughts. We had droughts as a team, and there's a reason why we had droughts and meltdowns and things like that.
"We have to learn from those experiences and be better."
There certainly haven't been any signs of a championship hangover, as the Thunder opened the season by winning their first eight games, the best start in the franchise's 18-year Oklahoma City tenure. The Thunder have a league-best 11-1 record entering Wednesday night's game against the Los Angeles Lakers despite All-NBA wing Jalen Williams having yet to return from summer wrist surgery, among other injuries to key players.
A relentless growth mentality fueled the Thunder's rapid ascent from a rebuilding franchise to reigning champions. They are determined not to deviate from that mindset despite what coach Mark Daigneault refers to as the "distraction" of being champions and the "challenges" that come with success.
"Whatever we want, we've had to make happen," Presti said as he was wrapping up his 12-minute opening statement in his late September media availability. "In this case, making it happen means having the discipline and humility to turn the page and push ourselves forward.
"This approach fits us best because in Oklahoma, we are builders. We are not guardians. We're not guarding or defending the past. That's over, and it's ours.
"We are pursuing our future and whatever comes next."
The Thunder want to be greedy as they continue growing.
"The way I see -- obviously it's a different scale -- but it's easy to do one thing one time," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Steph Curry's not the greatest shooter because he made one shot. He made shots over and over and over again.
"I don't want to win just one. I don't want to be known as a winner. So it takes multiple times."
"HOW DO YOU eat an elephant?" Daigneault asks. "One bite at a time."
It's an old proverb the coach often uses to illustrate the importance of committing to a methodical, daily routine in pursuit of big ambitions.
It's the approach that Presti used while patiently constructing a contender, ignoring any temptation to bundle a bunch of the extra first-round picks in his pocket to swing for a superstar in a quick-fix trade. The franchise instead prioritized internal development, overseen by Daigneault since 2020, whose only previous head coach experience was five seasons at the helm of Oklahoma City's G League team.
Daigneault knows the Thunder's core principles of professionalism and hard work aren't unique. Every NBA franchise asks the same things of their players. But precious few have a face of the franchise who epitomizes those principles as well as Gilgeous-Alexander.
"Your players bring those things to life, and your highest gravity players have the largest influence on that," Daigneault said. "Our team collectively has done an unbelievable job of bringing it to life, but he's got the kind of gravity that the minute he's not committed to one of those things, it doesn't have the same upside.
"Fortunately for us, he's been a guy that all along from the beginning and with the ups and downs -- we lost a lot of games early on, and then he's had a very rapid ascent since then -- he's stayed totally in character on those things and committed to those things. And it's empowered all of those things."
Luguentz Dort is the lone player on the Thunder roster whose Oklahoma City tenure is as long as Gilgeous-Alexander's, and he has an incredible developmental success story in his own right, blooming from an undrafted rookie with a bricklaying jump shot in 2019 to an All-Defensive selection who shot 41.2% from 3-point range last season. He's part of a committee of under-the-radar acquisitions who have emerged as core players for Oklahoma City, including second-round picks Aaron Wiggins, Ajay Mitchell and Jaylin Williams, as well as waiver-wire pickup Isaiah Joe. Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein had similar career paths before coming to the Thunder in summer 2024 as established veteran, high-caliber role players who were the final pieces to Oklahoma City's championship puzzle.
They all point to Gilgeous-Alexander's unwavering work ethic as the most important element of the franchise's ethos.
"He still looks like he wants to make the team. That's just his approach," Dort said. "That's how he competes. He's always been like that.
"The fact that he's the leader of our team and still approaching it that way in Year 8 now, it just sets the tone for the rest of us. It's like, man, we got to match that energy."
Gilgeous-Alexander arrived in Oklahoma City as part of the Paul George trade -- though the historic haul of first-round capital was the headliner in the return -- and was considered an intriguing prospect coming off a second-team All-Rookie campaign. He honed his craft in relative anonymity during the rough, early years of the rebuild, when the Thunder finished second to last in the West in consecutive seasons.
Gilgeous-Alexander's status has changed drastically in the past few years as he has been able to display his development in a competitive environment he helped create.
Gilgeous-Alexander made his first All-Star appearance in 2023, his fifth year in the league and fourth in Oklahoma City, and also was a first-team All-NBA selection then. He finished second in MVP voting the following season, when the Thunder became the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history. He swept the MVP awards -- regular season, conference finals and NBA Finals -- and won the scoring title last season while releasing his first signature shoe with Converse.
"One of the special qualities that he has is his amnesia to success," Caruso said. "He constantly wants to be a better version of himself, win more, and the competitiveness of that is contagious."
Perhaps as importantly, Gilgeous-Alexander avoids getting caught up by grandiose possibilities in the future.
For example, with the Thunder coming off a 68-win season and off to an even better pace, questions about whether they can reach the 70-win milestone or even break the 2015-16 Warriors' record of 73 wins will inevitably start swirling. It doesn't merit much more than a shrug from Gilgeous-Alexander.
"Really and truly, all that stuff is cool, but if you don't win [the championship], it doesn't matter," Gilgeous-Alexander said while walking to the bus after a comeback win over the LA Clippers Nov. 4 that improved Oklahoma City to 8-0. "That's all we want.
"The things we want are so complicated and so hard to get. When you just focus on the simple things and the little things, you'll look up and be there one day. But the group makes it so easy. There's no drama around us. Nothing goes on besides us having fun and playing basketball."
GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER PURPOSEFULLY put the Michael Jordan Trophy, awarded to the league's MVP, out of sight and out of mind after receiving it the evening between the first two games of last season's Western Conference finals.
He didn't want the shine of one accomplishment he had dreamed of since childhood to dim his focus on the next lifelong goal within his grasp.
"In its case, in the basement," Gilgeous-Alexander recalled of where he stashed the trophy for the rest of the playoffs. "All the joy and everything that comes with that would've been put on hold had we not won the championship, so that'd be my main goal. I had to put the fun aside for a bit, and then at the end, it was a little bit sweeter."
Gilgeous-Alexander left the Magic Johnson Trophy, awarded to the West finals MVP, hidden in the back of his locker until the offseason.
The Thunder's championship, however, is much harder to hide. The banner hangs over Paycom Center court, having been raised to the rafters before the season-opening double-overtime win over the Houston Rockets. That was one of 34 Thunder games scheduled to be national broadcasts, which matches the New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors and Lakers for the most in the league, proof of how bright the spotlight suddenly is in small-market OKC.
"Honestly, at the end of the day, it's just going to come down to how bad we want to prioritize winning after we've won," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Everyone on the team faces that challenge. When we didn't win, it was how bad do we want to win? And now, it's just how bad do we want to win again?"
The biggest threat to the Thunder, the primary potential distraction, is the uncertainty of what changes might occur in 2026. The collective bargaining agreement's dreaded second apron looms on the horizon as the Thunder's payroll will soar next season.
Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren -- the franchise's three foundational pieces -- aren't going anywhere. They each signed max or supermax contract extensions in the wake of the championship worth almost $800 million combined -- and more if Williams triggers the supermax escalators with another All-NBA selection.
Keeping the core intact would require the Thunder to vault over the second apron, which comes with strict roster-building restrictions and large luxury tax payments. If the franchise decides that avoiding the second apron is a priority, the Thunder could decline the 2026-27 team options in the contracts of valued role players Dort ($18.2 million) and Hartenstein ($28.5 million).
It's a scenario both players accept, as they attempt to not allow their murky futures with the franchise to cloud their minds.
"There's certain [times] where you think, 'I could never imagine being somewhere else,' but for me, it's right now," Hartenstein said, admitting that it can be hard to keep the uncertainty from creeping into the back of his mind. "How can I be focused on the present moment? Then I think everything will figure itself out when it's done. And I think with the second apron, winning always helps.
"So, if we just keep winning, I think we can keep the team together."
Dort has only played for one NBA franchise and hopes that never changes. He accepts that he will have only so much say in that.
"In my head, the way I see it is, control what I can control," Dort said. "I'm in this position now, and I'm really grateful to this team, this organization gave me a great opportunity and really changed my life. The only thing for me is approach this season and approach the game. I'm trying not to think about that.
"So I'm going to just do my job and then whatever comes with it, comes with it."
Presti has been preparing for this possibility for years. That factored into his logic to resist any temptation to make a quick-fix trade by bundling a bunch of picks in a splashy deal for a superstar, opting to patiently construct a hopefully sustainable supporting cast around Gilgeous-Alexander. He also signed multiple players to extensions with descending salaries to help mitigate the impact of the eight-figure extensions being added to the payroll.
"But there's nothing relative to the second apron that would prohibit us from keeping anyone on our team," Presti said in September. "The rules themselves are not prohibitive to our ability to maintain the team. The challenge is obviously for every team that has a sufficient collection of talent is the finances that come with that."
There are several financial factors that play in the Thunder's favor, as Presti points out. With so much talent on rookie contracts, Oklahoma City hasn't paid the luxury tax in years and is positioned to avoid it again this season, a rare position for a team in its third consecutive campaign as a contender. That means that by the time the Thunder would cross into the harsh repeater tax territory, triggering extremely punitive financial penalties, the league will have a new CBA and possibly a different set of rules.
By that point, the Thunder will have a massive influx of revenue, far beyond the millions generated by deep playoff runs. Oklahoma City's new arena, which is being built across the street from the Paycom Center with only a $50 million contribution from the Thunder's ownership group, is scheduled to open for the 2028-29 season. The league's new $77 billion broadcast deal just began, and the NBA is exploring expansion possibilities as well as a league in Europe, both of which would create billions in revenue for the current teams to split.
The Thunder's financial pain threshold has not been predetermined, according to Presti. Nor does it need to be before the summer, especially not at the expense of the franchise's top priority: the present.
"Once you start looking too far ahead, you start tripping over stuff that's in front of you," Jalen Williams said.
"This group's very mature, so we understand that so many things can happen and have to happen between now and winning one championship," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Trying to look that far ahead, it's almost silly. So we don't even really get to those type of talks. This s--- felt good. Let's try to do it again."