Bearing in mind hindsight, it’s easy to see why the 2013 Los Angeles Lakers’ experiment would fail. Grouping up four aging stars – three of whom possessed bones made of twigs – was obviously sorely misguided. It took winning eight of their final nine games just to scrounge into the playoffs before being swept by the Spurs.
It’s hard not to look at this Thunder team and see the parallels; they’re built around three injury-prone stars whose playing styles clash, with few other offensive contributors, under a coach who is very much under the hot seat.