Keith Smith reveals his big question for the Thunder’s title pursuit in 2024.

With sweeping changes often come big questions. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the league's most rapidly improving team, and people are on the edge of their seats in anticipation of what this franchise has up its sleeve next.

The star offseason acquisitions of Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein deliver a brand-new look and will subsequently allow the team to try some things they haven’t been able to in the past. While many expect it will take some time for Oklahoma City to mesh the new pieces into the system, the end result must be spectacular for the team to meet its lofty expectations.

The biggest mystery?

While the Thunder are pegged just a hair behind the Boston Celtics as the favorites to win the 2024-25 NBA championship, that doesn’t eliminate them from potential questions. On paper, OKC is sliding in two elite role players to previously vacant roles, particularly with Hartenstein patching a glaring rebounding hole.

However, that hasn’t erased a cause to pause for Keith Smith of the “NBA Front Office” show, who explained his one concern for the Thunder as they pursue a title next season.

“How much do they [the Thunder] play Hartenstein and Holmgren together? What does that look like? … I think there is a good chance Hartenstein comes off the bench. I think with that we’ll see Holmgren will still start at the five [center]. … I don’t think all of a sudden these two are gonna log 30 minutes a night together in the frontcourt. I think it’s probably more gonna be somewhere around the 10 to 15 minute range. … They have pretty good lineup and roster versatility where they can play a lot of different ways. And because they have a Hartenstein, now they can play big. They didn’t have that option in the past,” Smith said.

In addition to assimilating Hartenstein into the lineup and watching him develop chemistry alongside Holmgren, with both bigs sharing the court, the Thunder will be running a two-center lineup. This is something they had zero experience with last season because they simply didn’t have a second center on the roster.

The closest the team got to running a double big-man lineup was Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, who is inherently a small forward. But to compensate for the lack of depth in the front court, “J-Dub” started at power forward in 83% of his minutes a season ago. With the pair on the court together, OKC was moderately impactful, yielding an 8.4 net rating in over 1762 minutes.

Hartenstein and Williams have completely different games, so it is hard to draw a reasonable comparison from last season. As a non-shooter, Isaiah will inevitably force Chet to play a more perimeter-oriented role, which has a two-fold impact, one positive and a potential negative.

Holmgren can aim for a career-year shooting from outside because of the increase in the volume of 3’s and playing in a system that requires more shooting. But that may also mean that he’ll be relegated to playing outside the entire time, taking away his impact from inside.

This dynamic will have to be witnessed before coming to a conclusion on its effectiveness. The good thing is that OKC can run multiple lineups with both centers and now has a good deal of size.

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