The Golden State Warriors put together a respectable fight without either of their best players down the stretch in Tuesday’s 124-112 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. However, as all great teams do, the Thunder remained poised and pulled out a double-digit victory despite trailing at times in the fourth quarter.

Now 21-1 to start the season, it’s clear the Thunder are capable of posing a legitimate challenge to the Warriors’ NBA record 73 regular-season wins that the franchise achieved. They enter this season as reigning NBA champions just like that Warriors team did.

They also have an adversary in the Western Conference in Denver that’s as dangerous as the 2016 KD Thunder and Kawhi Leonard’s 67-win Spurs that season. Oh, and the Eastern Conference’s top threat is the Cavs. 

While history is repeating itself with a different franchise this time around, nobody knows the toll going for the win record takes on a team like Draymond Green and the other Warriors players who were on that 2016.

Green also knows how insanely tough it is to play against those teams every night, and that there’s a reason they rarely drop games. If ever.

“It's hard man, but I do think they're capable,” Green said. “You just need so many things to go right though. The health, which they kind of plow right through health, it really don't matter it seems.”

As tough as it is, Green does clearly have some level of belief that this Thunder team is a realistic threat to the 73-win mark that for better or worse has been one of the defining achievements of the Warriors' dynasty.

“You need a lot of breaks to go your way,” Green continued. “They're on the right track, and like I said, they're more than capable. I think 73 wins took some years off my life, but like I said, they're capable of a lot.”