The Thunder don't scare anyone. Only the playoffs can change that.

Prince J. Grimes For The Win

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The Boston Celtics host the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight in what can only be described as a potential preview of the NBA Finals. It'll be an incomplete preview with Jalen Williams out with a hip strain and other key players on the injury report, but a preview nonetheless.

These are two of the top three teams in the NBA by record. The reigning champions against the likely back-to-back Western Conference No. 1 seed. The Cleveland Cavaliers and others will have a say in how things ultimately shake out, but as it stand today, Boston and OKC are the two favorites to win the NBA Finals. The Celtics hold leading +220 odds at BetMGM. The Thunder are second at +225.

However, even as the Celtics trail the Thunder in the wins column, they have something OKC doesn't, and I'm not just talking about the hardware they earned last year. No. Not the Larry O, the rings that came with it, or the gold medals their trio of Olympians brought back to the states last summer. The thing I'm talking about is intangible. It's a fear factor.

Outside of maybe the Cavs, I can't imagine many teams are clamoring to play the Celtics if they can avoid it. And that was probably more so the case in 2024 before the Celtics even won anything. The Thunder, though, aren't commanding that same kind of respect. At least that's what ESPN's Brian Windhorst had to say Wednesday on First Take.

"I'm not even arguing that they are a lock or that they're one of the great teams of the last decade, but my God is there an incredible amount of disrespect for this team," Windhorst said. "And Mad Dog, it's not just you. I hear it everyday. I hear it implicitly from other people I talk to in the league. I hear it implicitly from players out there who are like, 'Yeah, yeah, we'll be fine on the same side of the bracket as OKC.' They just don't respect them."

That is a wild thing to hear about a team trending towards more than 60 wins -- especially when that team led the conference in wins the previous year too. Six of the last eight teams to clinch the No. 1 seed in back-to-back years made it to the finals ('20 Bucks, '17 Warriors, '16 Warriors, '12 Spurs, '10 Lakers, '09 Lakers), and five of those teams won it. The only two that didn't make it were the '12 Bulls, who lost Derrick Rose to a torn ACL, and the '10 Cavaliers. Generally, these are the type of teams you avoid if possible.

Now, look, I get it. The Thunder are young. The youngest team in the entire NBA, in fact. You aren't going to find many world-class athletes afraid to play anyone, much less a team of players under 25. And the Thunder haven't won anything, unlike the Denver Nuggets behind them at No. 2 led by three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Or four-time champion LeBron James, with his Los Angeles Lakers sitting at No. 3 and rejuvenated by the arrival of Luka Doncic. Heck, I've been guilty of dismissing the Thunder myself while heaping praise upon the Lakers in a recent recording of For The Hoops.

That said, if there's one team in the West to avoid, it would be the Thunder. They're the most complete team from top to bottom. They defend like crazy, sporting the league's best defensive rating in more than five years, and they're top five in offense too. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the likely scoring champion and league MVP. Not to mention, they're no longer new here -- last year's second-round playoff loss should have lit a fire under them. Their 53-12 record seems to confirm it did.

Which means if you don't respect the Thunder by now, you probably won't... until they win something. That's the last thing for the Thunder to do. Take the respect that wasn't given. And that can't be done in the regular season. A win over the Celtics in March won't help. Until they go on a deep playoff run, they'll be the fun team of youngsters nobody takes seriously.

Shaq only pretends to watch the Pistons

Speaking of fun, young teams, the Detroit Pistons qualify as such this year amid an incredible turnaround from worst team in the NBA last season to a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference. Just don't take Shaquille O'Neal's word for it.

Shaq got exposed giving out false facts about Detroit on two separate occasions before finally admitting last night on Inside the NBA "I don't watch them." Yeah, Shaq, we kinda figured that when you called Chauncey Billups their coach.

Everybody slips up, but that's not what happened here. My colleague Bryan Kalbroksy wrote about why it was so frustrating to see:

"Fans shouldn't expect O'Neal to know every single thing about the NBA. But they deserve a bit better than someone who can't even identify J.B. Bickerstaff, who currently has the second-best odds (+600) to win NBA Coach of the Year in 2025.

This was really frustrating to watch from Shaq, because he is actively using his platform to tell people the Pistons are boring when in fact he essentially knows nothing about them. That sort of energy spreads around the league in a dangerous way, where others may parrot his baseless takes that are rooted in nothingness."

Shootaround

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