Thunder Roll Out Supersized Starting Lineup Against Clippers
Underdog NBA: 'Lineup alert: Thunder will start Gilgeous-Alexander, Wallace, Jalen Williams, Holmgren, Hartenstein on Sunday.'
The Oklahoma City Thunder are rolling out a starting lineup on Sunday that looks like it was built in a lab to ruin opposing offenses.
According to Underdog NBA, Oklahoma City is officially starting , , Jalen Williams, , and Isaiah Hartenstein against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Starting Holmgren and Hartenstein together is the basketball equivalent of putting two bouncers at the door of a VIP room that nobody is trying to enter. It is a massive, suffocating frontcourt designed to make opposing teams reconsider their life choices in the paint.
The Thunder are already off to a 2-0 start and boasting a terrifying 95.9 defensive rating, which ranks second in the league. They just suffocated the Denver Nuggets 96-84 on Friday, and now Oklahoma City is doubling down on size. Holmgren is already averaging 12.0 rebounds and 4.0 blocks per game, so sliding Hartenstein next to him just feels unfair.
For the prop bettors trying to read the tea leaves, this shifts the entire geometry of the floor. Hartenstein eating up traditional center minutes pushes Holmgren out to the perimeter to hunt blocks and open threes. Then you have the backcourt, where sliding Wallace into the starting group is just cruel. Wallace is averaging 1.9 steals a night, meaning opposing guards are going to be fighting for their lives just to get the ball across halfcourt.
We will see how the Clippers handle this supersized experiment on Sunday night. If this twin-tower lineup clicks, the rest of the is going to have a massive problem on their hands.