The most veteran player on the Oklahoma City Thunder is Nazr Mohammed – by three years. At 6’10”, 250 lbs from Kentucky, Mohammed has been in the NBA for 12 years. In those years he has been with seven teams and won an NBA title.
Still, Mohammed is just 33 years old and is the most veteran player in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City’s undeniable “1-2 punch” is Russell Westbrook and NBA scoring leader Kevin Durant. The experience of these two combined does not even represent half of Mohammed’s time in the National Basketball Association.
In fact, Mohammed is just one of two players on the Thunder over 30-years old (Nick Collison is 30). Obvious conclusion: The Thunder are young, very very young.
And it’s not just the players, how quickly we forget the youth of the Thunder as an organization. Sure, we remember the Seattle SuperSonics, and we even have vague remembrances of Kevin Durant in a green jersey, sinking early-career buckets from the Pacific Northwest.
But undeniably, in this age of short attention spans and ever-changing glimpses of history, we look on the Thunder with new eyes. They are the babies of the Western Conference, with that young roster in those baby blue jerseys.
In the 2010 playoffs The Oklahoma City Thunder nabbed themselves the eighth seed in the Western Conference. This accomplishment earned them the pleasure of facing the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, who would go on to win the title. The Thunder lost that series 4-2, and so ended their first playoff push.
Fast-forward to the 2010 – 2011 season, and the Thunder’s third overall. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are All-Stars, and the Thunder slowly creep into America’s basketball consciousness (“hey, these guys might actually be…..good….”). All of this brought the Thunder to the fourth seed in the NBA playoffs and they find themselves here, facing the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals, after taking care of the Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies.
This is a stage these Thunder have never seen. Led by two 22-year-old stars, the Oklahoma City Thunder haven’t exactly been through much in their short history (save a dismal 3-29 start to their inaugural season). I can certainly attest that when I was 22-years old I didn’t know up from down (although I thought I knew all the world’s answers, of course), so how can we expect these young stars to?
So what will these two 22-year-old leaders of men show us against a much more tried and tested Dallas Mavericks team? And what about their all-important supporting cast (Thabo Sefolosha being the oldest starter at 27-years old)? The extent to which the factor of experience influences series’ of this type is a heavily debated topic which may not have one rule that governs it. but what we know as fact is simple: The Thunder are not an experienced team.
These Thunder, however, are no strangers to overcoming their youthful naivete. Amidst all of the questions surrounding the team, they have, time and time again this season, risen above their competitors and shown us glimpses of a team that could indeed be NBA Champions.
Down now 2-1 in their all-important Western Conference Finals match up versus Dallas, they are asked once again to do more than most think they can. They are asked to rise above their competitors and their critics again. They would like nothing more than show again that their youth is their weapon, not their achilles heel.
And Nazr Muhammed certainly wouldn’t mind adding another ring to his collection, oldest or not.
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