A decade later, the Oklahoma City Thunder are rewriting NBA history, challenging the Warriors' legendary 73-win mark. Their focus remains on the present, the next win.
The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors are the, ahem, golden standard when it comes to measuring regular season greatness. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green led the Warriors to 73 wins, besting the all-time mark set by none other than Michael Jordan and the 1990's Chicago Bulls. The record has been considered by many to one of the nearly untouchable achievements in the sport.
And exactly 10 years later, the Oklahoma City Thunder may be knocking on the door of history.
After the 138-89 dismantling of the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night, the Thunder tied that Warriors squad for the best record after 25 games at 24-1. It was a milestone night for OKC. In addition to the historical accomplishment, the team also qualified for the NBA Cup Semifinals in Las Vegas. And broke the all-time Oklahoma City record with 16 straight wins. And handed the Suns their worst loss in franchise history.
But don't try to mention any of this all-time historical wins business with the Thunder, or else you'll be greeted with a friendly but firm "no thanks."
"Not focusing on the win streak," Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said when asked what he's noticed about the team's 16 game win streak. "You just gotta play the next possession, get better the next day, win the next quarter and compete the next game. If you do that and you're present in that process, sometimes you look up and you've won a certain amount of games in a row. We certainly need to understand we have a lot of improvement we need to make. We have a lot of things to sustain. And a lot of competitive challenges ahead. There's a lot of season ahead of us. Guys have done a great job of just staying very present in the season so far and competing in the moment. And it's put us in a great position."
Daigneault is, of course, absolutely correct. One of the reasons OKC is in the position to possibly break the Warriors' fabled 73 win mark is precisely because they will not focus on breaking the 73 win mark. The team will focus instead on one win. And that's the next game on the schedule.
There's still a lot of basketball to be played. The schedule gets a bit tougher after the New Year. But joining the exclusive 70 win club or even setting a new NBA record with 74 wins is certainly on the table for this Thunder team.
But ultimately, OKC doesn't hope to be the 2016 Warriors. That team was a regular season juggernaut but lost in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. The Thunder would prefer to emulate a team that goes back another 20 years. The 1996 Bulls won one less regular season game than the 2016 Warriors... but won one more game in the postseason.