Interestingly, Perkins compares Durant and Alexander s Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder are only six games away from winning its first NBA championship since moving from Seattle to its new club before the 2008-09 season.

Nevertheless, they are still one of the most successful teams of this period. Since moving to their new owners, they ranked fifth in number of wins, with a total of 813 wins, second only to the Golden State Warriors, the Boston Celtics, the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs.

The Thunder will make their second NBA Finals in this period. Their first broke into the 2011-12 season, led by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden. In the end, they lost in five games to the Miami Heat, led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

Oklahoma City Thunders is starting center Kendrick Perkins, now an NBA commentator for ESPN. Perkins was interviewed by a local TV station during the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

In an interview, he was asked how the Oklahoma City Thunder were different from the current team when he was playing for. Perkins pointed out that in the Durant era, some players had personal purposes. By contrast, he believes that the current team players support each other, resulting in a better team chemistry.

"The difference is that you can't find a group of young people who really play basketball without any purpose, because a lot of the time, young players are eager for personal honors," Perkins said. "I didn't see this in this young team. What I saw was a team full of pride, support each other, even if things weren't good."

Perkins cited two examples of how the Thunder built a strong team vitality. The first example is substitute center Jaylin Williams. Although Williams made a appearance in the series against the Denver Nuggets, he has not received any playing time in the current series. Despite this, he was actively involved and cheered for the team on the bench.

The second example is three-pointer expert Isaiah Joe, who did not play in the series against the Denver Nuggets but gained playing time in this series. Perkins believes the players are satisfied with each other's success, which he believes makes the team very different from the Durant-led team.

Perkins and Durant have complained about each other on social media in the past and expressed their differences. Recently, Perkins called Shay Gilgers-Alexander the best player in the history of the Thunder if he could win the championship. He pointed out that Gilgers Alexander has averaged 30 points per game for three consecutive seasons, shooting more than 50% from the field, and has become one of the top players.

Perkins also mentioned that Gilgers Alexander is a potential candidate for the MVP, and both Durant and Westbrook received this honor during their time at Oklahoma City. However, Perkins believes that Gilgers Alexander is the one who leads the Thunder to win the NBA championship and win the Finals MVP, and neither Durant nor Westbrook has achieved this goal.

Oklahoma City will play Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against the Timberwolves on Saturday at 8:30 PM ET.