Oklahoma City Thunder guard Alex Caruso won his second NBA championship on Sunday, but his first came from a truly different world.
Caruso, 31, made a point of reminding everyone about that after a 103–91 win over the Indiana Pacers for Game 7. His first championship came during 2020 when he played for the Los Angeles Lakers at Walt Disney World in Orlando for the bubble tournament in response to COVID-19 at the time.
“Now I got a real one,” Caruso joked with reporters on Sunday. “Now nobody can say anything.”
In 2020, teams all played in Orlando to follow COVID-19 protocols amid regular testing for the virus. No one had a true home court advantage, not even the Orlando Magic, with no fans allowed.
The Lakers beat the Miami Heat 4–2 in that NBA Finals and only lost three games in the Western Conference playoffs. Besides the unique setting, the NBA season paused in March 2020 and resumed at the bubble with the end of the regular season and the playoffs on July 30, 2020.
Somehow, Caruso called a normal title run hard compared to the unusual circumstances of the 2019-2020 Lakers with superstar forward LeBron James and a veteran crew of players. That was quite the opposite for this year’s Thunder team had a young crew with only two players over 30—Caruso and Thunder power forward Kenrich Williams.
“I think just because of the way the team is constructed now versus the team I had in 2020, it was much harder with this team just because of the experience,” Caruso said, “I think through the playoffs, this team grew up and learned on the fly. Most teams have to learn through losses and learn through defeat, and I think this team learned through success. And it’s a unique capability to be able to do that for 21- to 27-year-old kids.”
Thunder star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander notably took home the most hardware as Finals MVP at age 26. Gilgeous-Alexander etched his name among the all-time greats with that MVP, regular season MVP, and the scoring title. Only seven other players, including James, have done that in NBA history.
“For me, I’ve seen greats do it, so I knew the way, I knew the mindset,” Caruso said. “But to see these guys do it, man, it’s really cool to see it in person, and I’m so happy for the guys just to be able to figure it out and be able to get this done.”
Besides Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder have a young core of stars with guard Jalen Williams, 24, and center Chet Holmgren, 23. Williams averaged 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game this season, and Holmgren posted 15 points, eight rebounds, and two assists per game this season.
Caruso did his part as a reserve in the regular season, amid 7.1 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game. He stepped up in the playoffs amid 9.2 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game.
Caruso also helped his team navigate popping champagne bottles since no one else on the team had won a title before.
“We didn’t do it all at the same time until like the third try,” Caruso said. “I tried my best when we got in there, I was like, ‘All right, let’s get a head count, let’s make sure everyone’s here before we do the first one.’ And through the learning experience of taking the foil off, undoing the metal and having the cork ready, there [were] three or four guys that popped their corks.”
“And then it happened again,” Caruso added. “We went through the process a couple times, and eventually we got everybody on the same page. But, yeah, it was a good first try. We’ll get some rest, reset, try to go again next year, and see if we can do it again, and we’ll be better.”
Oklahoma City can return all of its starters and seek to become the first repeat NBA champion since the Golden State Warriors in 2018 before the unusual year of the Orlando COVID bubble. The Thunder will have to end the league’s cycle of parity to do that since there has been a new champion every year since 2019.
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