NBA fans mock ESPN for James Harden-OKC Thunder gaffe with Sportscenter graphic: “Worldwide leader of Sports”

NBA fans brought the brickbats out for ESPN after a Sportscenter graphic mistakenly linked the 60-win OKC Thunder team to James Harden.

NBA fans mock ESPN for James Harden-OKC Thunder gaffe with Sportscenter graphic: “Worldwide leader of Sports”

Sportscenter messed up a graphic on the OKC Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder secured the best record in the franchise’s 17-year history in the state of Oklahoma with a 125-104 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. The win moved the youngest team in the NBA to a record of 61-12, giving them a win percentage of 83.5%. OKC is currently on the longest winning streak in the NBA with an eight-game run of wins.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander furthered his MVP claim with another immaculate 37-point scoring outburst, making 15 of his 25 shot attempts. The Thunder were able to score freely against the shorthanded Memphis Grizzlies, who are missing Ja Morant and would later fire head coach Taylor Jenkins with only nine games left ahead of the NBA playoffs.

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To commemorate their franchise record, ESPN’s Sportscenter shared a graphic on Instagram comparing the 2012-13 team to the current roster. However, their lack of attention to detail as a network shone through in one glaring error. Instead of using a graphic with their 12-13 roster, ESPN used a picture of James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.

This mistake is egregious because OKC had traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets during the 2012 offseason in order to save cap space from an extension for him. The brickbats came out fast and ugly for the worldwide leaders in sports, whose haste in posting a graphic first drove them to share a factual inaccuracy and seriously impact the credibility of their brand. The reactions were scathing, to say the least.

A fan remarked, “The disrespect to the city crazy. They could quote all the Westbrook narratives and years right though.”

Another fan remarked how it would be better to have been born in this era since one would be completely removed from having experienced the glory days of sports media, when facts would always be checked before being reported.

How does the current OKC Thunder compare to their Kevin Durant days?

A common element between the OKC Thunder teams that made noise in the Western Conference playoffs during the early 2010s and their current iteration is that both rosters are heavily loaded with young and athletically gifted players. The Thunder team that beat the Spurs 4-2 and made it to the 2012 NBA Finals had 3 future MVPs, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha. All 3 of Harden, Durant and Westbrook would go on to represent Team USA at the London Olympics.

The 2012-13 iteration of the team, despite losing James Harden, continued to retain its athletic, fast-paced identity. However, they were not nearly as well-rounded as the current OKC Thunder team is. This team has talent from the top to the bottom at every position. The tenth men in the rotation from the 2011-12 or 2012-13 rosters were never close to being NBA starters. Meanwhile, there are a handful of current OKC players who would be starters on teams like Washington, Charlotte, Utah, or Brooklyn.

At the same time, NBA teams are judged historically on the way they perform during the postseason. The 2011-12 OKC team had three legitimate offensive hubs who could take over any game in the playoffs. While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is undoubtedly MVP-worthy and has been for two years, he does not have that kind of support. It would be interesting to see an AI simulation seeing the two iterations of OKC pitted against each other.