By the Numbers: Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander putting together historic season

The Oklahoma City Thunder have won 11 straight games and are beginning to assemble what may be remembered as one of the best regular seasons in NBA history.

After thrashing the Detroit Pistons 119-103 on Wednesday, the Thunder improved to 64-12, and with six games remaining on the schedule, the team still has a chance to join the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors and 1995-96 Chicago Bulls as the only teams to win 70 games in a regular season.

With great regular season success tends to come great postseason success, as three of the four best regular seasons in NBA history have been capped off with titles.

Three of those teams also had that season's Most Valuable Player on their roster - Steph Curry in 2015-16, Michael Jordan in 1995-96 and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971-72.

Oklahoma City is likely to join the other teams in that category, as Canadian guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continues to polish his MVP resume as the season rolls on.

Gilgeous-Alexander leads the league in scoring (32.8 points per game), averages 5.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game and is ranked fourth in the league in steals per game (1.7), all while missing only three contests to this point.

"The speed on offence, the impact on defence, and then the leadership, and team orientation, it’s like night and day," Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said of Gilgeous-Alexander earlier in March. "He’s really done an impressive job.”

Oklahoma City already earned one distinction this season after defeating the Pistons - they own the best inter-conference record in a single season in NBA history at 29-1.

Their lone loss to an Eastern Conference team came on Jan. 8, when they fell 129-122 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who held the best record in the NBA at the time.

More impressive than the number of wins the Thunder are collecting is the manner by which they're collecting them.

The Thunder have already tied the record for most double-digit wins this season, with 50, and with six games left on the schedule, there is a very high likelihood they set the new record before the end of the season.

On top of that, their average margin of victory so far this year is 13.4, which easily sets a new NBA record. The record before this season belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers, who beat their opponents by an average of 12.2 points per game in their 1971-72 campaign.

The team is hoping to avoid getting too enthralled by the hunt for regular-season records, given that champions can come from anywhere in the league.

“We don’t care not one bit about any of those records,” Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters in March. “They mean something, but in the grand scheme, they don’t. We’re after one thing and one thing only. That’s what’s on our mind. Everything else we don’t care about.”

At the same time, Daigneault wants to instill gratitude in his players for accomplishments - especially after setting a new mark for wins in a single season for the franchise since relocating to Oklahoma City from Seattle in 2007.

“The team deserves to celebrate when it has a special accomplishment," Daigneault said after winning their 61st game earlier in March. "That doesn’t mean you stop there … This is a great organization that’s had a lot of success in a short period. So we honour the players and staff that came before us.”

The Thunder, who hold a 14.5 game lead over the Houston Rockets after winning 17 of their last 18 games, have a chance to surpass the 1975-76 Warriors for largest margin of victory for a conference title in NBA history. The Warriors finished 16 games ahead of the Seattle Supersonics that year to win the Western Conference regular season title.

All of this success has come with Daigneault being forced to navigate multiple injuries to top contributors. Star centre Chet Holmgren has played in just 28 games, largely due to a broken hip suffered in the season opener while his counterpart Isaiah Hartenstein has played in 54. Their injuries have overlapped at times, forcing the Thunder to change their style completely without a centre.

Only three players have started more than 60 games for the Thunder this year, while seven have started at least 20. 

“It’s impressive with all the lineups we’ve had out there,” Holmgren said to reporters from The Athletic. “But you could ask anyone in the locker room: (the historic regular season) is not what we’re focused on. It’s about the bigger picture. Who was the team that held these records before? The only ones you remember are the ones who did something with it.”

The Thunder will have a chance to show what they're capable of when the NBA playoffs begin on April 19.