The Thunder lost a third starter this week, and half of Oklahoma City is ready to cancel the season. Slow down. Chet Holmgren's right knee doesn't end a title run while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is walking around as the two-time reigning MVP.
Holmgren had treatment Friday for a small patellar tendon tear and is expected back in eight to 10 weeks. The team called the biological treatment successful, and it was non-surgical, the detail everyone sprinting toward the obituary keeps skipping over. He felt discomfort, met with specialists, and got a fixable thing fixed. That's a long absence, though it's a long way from career-threatening.
He's also the third starter OKC has lost in a matter of days, joining Jalen Williams (fractured fibula, dislocated ankle) and Cason Wallace, who had surgery Friday on a torn labrum. Both are set to be reevaluated before the end of the regular season, a vaguer and scarier window than Holmgren's. Add Caruso's ankle to the pile and the medical report reads like a prank.
Rating
RatingThis is a real blow, and it's rotten luck: three unrelated, freak injuries landing in the same short stretch. Nobody built a championship roster planning for three of their top guys to go down in the opening week. If you want to blame something, blame the roster's thin margin behind its best six. This team leans on continuity and internal growth more than it stockpiles proven two-way depth, and when the dice land like this, that approach leaves you exposed. That's a fair criticism of the roster's design, though calling it negligence overstates it.
The effect showed up fast. OKC opened 4-0, then got run off the floor in Dallas, 120-96, dropping to 4-1. A shorthanded team losing by 24 on the road is exactly what a shorthanded team does. One blowout in October says nothing about June.
RTGThis is where the doom crowd loses me. Gilgeous-Alexander has won MVP in each of the last two seasons. The organization has gone on three straight deep playoff runs, including the 2025 title and a seven-game Western Conference finals in 2026. A franchise with that engine and that track record doesn't get buried in October because of knees and ankles. SGA, healthy, can drag this group to a high seed by himself while everyone else mends. That's why panic now is premature.
Presti probably shouldn't be a buyer at the deadline now, and that's a legitimate shift. But a wounded title window and a closed one are different things. Holmgren's knee bought the Thunder a hard winter, nothing more. Write the eulogy if SGA goes down. Until then, put the shovel away.
