Ranking the Oklahoma City Thunder’s rivals

The NBA’s Western Conference is almost always the tougher of the league’s two conferences. So it should not surprise us that so many stacked teams are competing with the Oklahoma City Thunder for dominance out West this season. But when we think of likely contending ball clubs like the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, and Denver Nuggets, are any of those teams actually rivals of the Thunder?

Or is it fair to say that the teams that Oklahoma City has that are closer to rivals are not quite up to contending at the moment, clubs like the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers? Should we be looking back even further to the days of the Seattle Supersonics for an answer?

To get to the bottom of this question, the hosts of the Athletic “Down to Dunk – an OKC Thunder Podcast” show, Andrew Schlecht, Jay Smith, Luke Stephens, Taylor Dickerson, Michele Berra, and Alex Speers, took some time on a recent show to dive into the topic. Check it out below.

This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Ranking the Thunder’s rivals