Apricot's Rooting Guide: (4) IND vs (1) OKC; plus open thread

finalists duel after their foes flame out with injuries

See the master index at Apricot’s Rooting Guide For Other Teams.

The 2025 Finals

Indiana Pacers

Ex-Warriors

• None.

Friends

• None.

Unrequited Love

• Tyrese Haliburton is famously Dub Nation HQ's choice in the 2020 Draft. No really, this isn’t some 20-20-hindsight yapping, we did a whole pre-draft tournament and the group vote was for Haliburton.
  
  I wrote: Tyrese Haliburton just seems like the most Warriors player in the draft, with his high character, shooting, defensive effort and smart playmaking, and his weakness of poor shot creation seems less urgent in Kerr’s motion O and with Steph Curry passing to you. This season revealed that without Steph and Klay Thompson, the Warriors were the worst shooting team in the league, so Dub Nation is pining for players who can hit an open shot.
  
  I had Haliburton as my 1A with Okongwu, but I also wrote: Haliburton over Edwards. Edwards could be the next Oladipo, but Oladipo look a long time to become Dipo and Steph isn’t getting younger. The Haliburton dream is that his flaws (not explosive creator) aren’t relevant in Kerrball.
  
  Before we get too high on ourselves, I note that Haliburton beat Wiseman in our semifinals by only 1 vote.

• Myles Turner is on the all-time list of Dub Nation Unrequited Love. He’s been mock traded endlessly as a tough shot blocking big who can hit a three. It’s part of the DNA of Dub Nation to be endlessly pining for a great big man and being endlessly disappointed.

• Obi Toppin, Aaron Nesmith, Ben Sheppard and Andrew Nembhard are all sleeper draft crushes at DNHQ.

• Pascal Siakam was a target of GSW trade interest at the 2024 Trade Deadline.

Warriors Villains

• None

Petty Rivalries

• Pascal Siakam. Key player on the TOR team that beat GSW in the 2019 Finals. Has not to my knowledge done anything particularly objectionable, but he’ll always be associated with the Dynasty going down in a fireball of injuries.

• Pacers have been thoroughly off the GSW radar for a while now except maybe when Monta Ellis landed there, except to serve as foils for highlights.

Team Grudges

• There was a hint of friction after the 2021 Draft when Indiana sources claimed that GSW was crushed when IND drafted Chris Duarte one spot ahead of GSW’s pick (which ended up being Moses Moody), and that GSW was phoning IND with tears in their eyes to trade for CD. If this is the best I can dredge up, it’s been a pretty drama-free relationship.

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Oklahoma City Thunder

Ex-Warriors

• None.

Friends

• None.

Unrequited Love

• Jalen Williams was the runner-up in our 2022 Apricot Draft Tournament, barely losing. There wasn’t a good chance that he’d drop to #28, but OKC took no chances by grabbing him unexpectedly high at #12.

• Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Isaiah Joe.

• They snarfed up my darlings from the 2024 Apricot Draft Tournament, Dillon Jones (#7 final vote) and Branden Carlson (#10).

Warriors Villains

• The whole OKC franchise, which was born out of oil fracking moguls defrauding Seattle out of their Supersonics team.

• Also, the OKC fans were the ones going nuts in the KD GSW days with the dancing cupcakes (which were actually kind of cute) and other spurned vengeance.

Petty Rivalries

• They’ve all barely been in the league, no time to build up rivalries…

Team Grudges

• OKC was the best team in the early GSW dynasty and an outstanding foil to bring out the best from Game 6 Klay Thompson and Steph Curry. Also thanks to OKC for alienating Kevin Durant, and hosting Russell Westbrook's peak petulant stat-padding seasons. But now OKC went through a long rebuild and collected a zillion draft picks, so who can really be too mad today. The current group of players seem likable enough.

• And yet, I admit I find it tiring to hear how OKC did the rebuild right and everyone else is a bunch of idiots. Yes, they put themselves in great position by hitting on draft picks (but missing on plenty of others) and ripping desperate teams off for picks in trading their stars (so many picks… and yet, we’re still waiting for them to cash in big). So, plenty of respect, but people overrate the rebuild. They had three straight years of missing the playoffs, preceded by four straight years of losing in the first round.