Key players face re-evaluation, potentially impacting the Thunder's top Western Conference seed and playoff push. Their health status is crucial.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have played impressive team basketball coming out of the All-Star Break without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell.
A blow out home win over the hapless Brooklyn Nets. An inspiring home win over the red hot Cleveland Cavaliers. A gutsy road win over the top 5 East seed Toronto Raptors. And forcing the #1 seed Detroit Pistons to play their main guys the full 48 minutes despite OKC missing arguably their six best players on the second night of a road back to back.
If you polled every Thunder fan before that four game stretch without their three primary shot creators if they'd be happy with a 3-1 record, I'd venture a guess that nearly 100% would happily take that result.
But now the focus for the OKC faithful shifts to the Thursday injury report.
The Thunder announced last Thursday that Gilgeous-Alexander and Mitchell would be re-evaluated in approximately one week. That timeline lines up with today. Isaiah Joe left the Pistons game early due to a glute contusion. The red hot sharpshooter has been a driving force behind OKC's recent success, so his status on the injury report will also be anxiously anticipated by Oklahoma City fans. Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso also missed the nationally televised clash of the #1 seeds, but it's assumed they were sat due to lingering injuries on the second night of a back to back.
After starting the season with a historic 24-1 record, the culmination of injuries began to take their toll on the defending champions. While still winning at a 60% rate since that opening 25 game stretch, the lead for the #1 seed in the Western Conference has dwindled.
The San Antonio Spurs have won 10 straight games and are currently only 2 games behind Oklahoma City. The Spurs only have one less loss than the Thunder. And San Antonio owns the tiebreaker over OKC.
If the Thunder are going to make a push to end the season in hopes of holding onto the top spot in the West, they could use some good news on the health front. Which is why all eyes will be on today's injury report.
Oklahoma City Thunder games missed due to injury so far in 2025-2026.
Thomas Sorber: 60 games
Nikola Topic: 55 games
Jalen Williams: 34 games
Isaiah Hartenstein: 27 games
Alex Caruso: 21 games
Kenrich Williams: 20 games
Ajay Mitchell: 17 games
Jaylin Williams: 15 games
Aaron Wiggins: 15 games
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 11 games
Lu Dort: 11 games
Isaiah Joe: 9 games
Chet Holmgren: 8 games
Cason Wallace: 3 games
Jared McCain: 0 games