What Impresses NBC Sports’ Jamal Crawford Most about the Rolling OKC Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder are 8-0 in the playoffs, are about to be back-to-back MVP territory, and just swept the Los Angeles Lakers. NBC Sports' Jamal Crawford came on the show to explain what is the single most impressive thing about them.

"They're winning the present, they're winning the middle and they're winning the future," Crawford said.

The present, in Crawford's framing, is the visible part.

"They haven't lost a game in the playoffs," Crawford said. "They have everything set up for right now to continue to compete. They have defenders. They have Chet. They're doing this without their second-best player. SGA hasn't even went off, and AJ Mitchell's went off last night. SGA said AJ Mitchell could have been MVP of this series."

Crawford reached for a name most casual fans skip over.

"What a lot of people don't talk about is I feel like they have a true superstar on the sidelines," Crawford said. "Coach Daigneault is unbelievable. He's one of the only coaches that puts himself in the game that I've seen."

Rich asked Crawford to elaborate.

"He coaches and he puts himself literally in the game," Crawford said. "It's almost like he's playing with a remote control on the sideline, an invisible one. He's subbing how he wants to sub, and he's putting people in position, and he's doing it without missing a beat. And the culture he's helped set."

The middle of the Thunder's run is what Crawford sees as the runway.

"All these guys are in the age where they can have this run," Crawford said. "They have a clear-cut runway. Nobody's too old. They all like each other. They all want to play together."

The first time he saw evidence of the closeness, he was skeptical.

"I thought it was corny at first when they were all doing interviews years ago with just one guy," Crawford said. "That's truly the closeness of their team."

The future is built on the picks Sam Presti has stockpiled.

"Sam Presti has done this more than once," Crawford said. "When he had Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, he had all those guys. He's done this before."

The summary was the headline.

"They're going to be a tough out," Crawford said. "It's going to be tough to beat them four times in any series in any future."

Rich brought up the Daigneault late-game sub of putting Hartenstein and Holmgren on the floor together. Two seven-footers. Pick-and-roll math.

"It was that two-man high-low game that gave them the go-ahead bucket for good," Rich said.

The bigger picture Crawford painted was the Spurs-era San Antonio framing, applied here.

"They're not going to beat themselves either," Crawford said. "If they were a fighter, they can fight left hand, right hand, unorthodox. They can press you. They have the jab of skill work. They are heavyweight knockout artists."

The flex point Crawford keeps pointing to is the missing All-NBA player.

"They're doing this without an All-NBA guy," Crawford said. "Their second-best player, and they haven't missed a beat. Shai goes out and at times they get better. Like, how?"

Rich raised the looming horror scenario for the rest of the league. If Yaxel Lindenborg falls to OKC at 12 in the draft.

"If Yaxel Lindenborg goes to that team," Rich said.

Crawford finished the sentence.

"I warn the rest of the association not to let that happen," Crawford said. "If that happens, it's gonna take an alien to beat these guys, because they literally have everything."

Lindenborg measured 6-foot-8-and-change at the combine without shoes. Rich pulled up the comparison.

"Daim Maro was the second-tallest without shoes," Rich said. "The only one ever, Tacko Fall, was the only one barely bigger than him."

The closing image was Crawford's resignation.

"The rich keep getting richer, literally," Crawford said.