Perhaps more than any other American sports league, the NBA is a league of stars, defined by the so-called “haves” and “have-nots”. For every famed Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics franchise there a handful of small-market teams that simply do not have the seemingly unlimited resources of the perennial NBA powerhouses. In the past 29 years only eight different franchises have combined to win an NBA title, a sobering statistic for fans of the league’s other 22 teams.

In recent years, however, there has been a glimmer of hope for the underdog growing in an unlikely basketball town in the middle of Oklahoma. The Thunder, formerly the Seattle Supersonics, have gone from last place in the West to conference champions, propelled by a cast of homegrown talent that is the envy of nearly every team in the NBA. But how did a relocated franchise end up with one of the most talented teams in the West?

Back in 2007, the then-Seattle Supersonics earned the second overall pick in the NBA draft after finishing 31-51, good for second to last in the Western Conference. The Sonics drafted Kevin Durant out of Texas, who has gone on to become a franchise player and will likely go down as one of the statistically greatest players of all-time. The next year, the franchise’s final in season in Seattle, the team regressed even further, finishing with a record of 20-62. The team then picked Russell Westbrook out of UCLA with the fourth overall pick and also selected Serge Ibaka with the 24^th pick during the following summer as they moved to Oklahoma City.

The 2008-09 season saw the newly-minted Thunder struggle to an awful 4-29 start before rebounding in the second half to finish the remainder of the season 19-30. A third consecutive losing season earned the Thunder another top three pick for the 2009 draft and it was used to select James Harden from Arizona State.

With a core of four top 25 draft picks in place, season four of the Seattle/Oklahoma City rebuild became the turnaround year, as the Thunder improved dramatically to a regular season record of 50-32 before losing in the first round of the playoffs. Since that year the Thunder have only improved, reaching the Western Conference Finals the next season and the losing in the NBA Finals last year, and currently sport the second-best record in the league this season and sit at the top of this week’s APM rankings.

As the old proverb goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Thunder’s success has turned the so-called “Oklahoma City model” into the long-term goal for every other small-market GM in the NBA. But is the Oklahoma City model really something that can be replicated? Building a team organically through the draft may be one thing but collecting the second, fourth, and third overall picks in successive drafts is a feat of sheer luck in today’s NBA lottery system, regardless of how many losing seasons a team strings together. Furthermore, expecting those picks to turn into a franchise cornerstone (Durant), a 3-time All-Star (Westbrook), the Sixth Man of the Year (Harden), and an All-Defensive team player (Ibaka) is next to impossible given volatility of the NBA draft process. Just imagine if the Sonics-turned-Thunder had ended up with Greg Oden instead of Durant after the ’07 draft.

Impossible as it may be, there is currently one small-market NBA team that may have the opportunity to replicate the Oklahoma City model. In the two and a half seasons since the end of the LeBron James era, the Cleveland Cavaliers have limped to a total record of 60-146 and have amassed four first round draft picks and currently have two more selections in the upcoming 2013 NBA draft (a likely lottery pick of their own and another from either the Heat or the Lakers). Stockpiling draft picks, sound familiar?

The Cavaliers’ 2010-2011 season—post-Lebron year one—saw them fall to the Eastern Conference cellar with a record of 19-36. Luckily, however, a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers and a bit of lottery luck earned Cleveland the right to draft Kyrie Irving out of Duke with the number one overall pick and pair him with Tristan Thompson from Texas with the fourth overall pick (drafting a forward out of Texas with a lottery pick worked out for the Thunder didn’t it?).

The next season the Cavs finished 21-45, actually improving upon their overall win total by two games despite the lockout-shortened season. In comparison to the Oklahoma City rebuild, Cleveland’s 31.8 % winning percentage during Irving’s first season is significantly higher than the Supersonics/Thunder’s 24.4 % winning percentage during Durant’s rookie season. In the successive 2012 NBA draft the Cavaliers had two more first round selections, picking Dion Waiters from Syracuse with the fourth overall pick and trading up to the 17^th spot for Tyler Zeller from North Carolina.

Based on the Oklahoma City model, year three of the rebuild—highlighted for both the Cavs and Thunder in the table above—should be the final losing season before the “turnaround year” where the rebuilding team becomes a legitimate playoff contender. The Cavaliers record this season currently stands at 20-38, good for a 34.5 % winning percentage, which is still significantly ahead of the Thunder’s winning percentage of 28 % during year three of their rebuild. A deeper look at the Cavs slate this year reveals that, while they started the season only 7-25 before the New Year, the team has improved to 13-13 since January. As was mentioned earlier, the Thunder were even worse at the beginning of 2008-2009 season, starting 4-29 before the New Year but finishing 19-30 the second half of the season.

Further analysis shows the Cavs certainly have shown marked improvement over the past two months, especially when compared to the dreadful 2011-2012 team that managed to lose 26 straight games the year before. While only sporting a .500 record, Cleveland’s level of play has improved, taking both the Spurs and Heat to the final buzzer and boasting a win over the Thunder—ironically—within the past month.

Statistically speaking, the Cavaliers offensive efficiency—a measure of a team’s points scored per 100 possessions—has exploded from 102.7 before the New Year to 111.2 since January. Over just the past month Cleveland’s offensive efficiency has ballooned to 116.1, surely a large factor in the Cavs 7-5 record in the month of February. For comparison’s sake, Oklahoma City’s offensive efficiency during the 2008-2009 season only improved from 100.7 during the first half of the season to 105.5 after the New Year.

In terms of defensive efficiency—points allowed per 100 possessions—the current Cavaliers and the 2008-2009 Thunder are eerily similar sub-par defensive teams, with respective defensive efficiencies of 108.8 and 109.8 during the first half of the season. In both cases the respective defensive efficiency ratings actually regressed during the season’s second half, despite both teams’ improvements, to 111.6 for the Cavs and 110.2 for the Thunder.

So what do all these numbers truly mean in the long run? Do the Cavaliers apparent strides during this season’s second half mean that they will 50 game winners next season, like the Thunder did in 2009? Sure, there are a number of telling similarities between the rebuilding paths of both franchises but assuming that the Oklahoma City model is anything but a unique scenario is a dangerous slippery slope. The talent development seen over the past few seasons in Oklahoma City is far from the norm.

That being said, this young Cavaliers team does seem poised to take a similar leap next season if their core of young talent is able to develop and improve as the Thunder did. Kyrie Irving seems to have established himself as the cornerstone player that Durant has become to the Oklahoma City franchise but it is up to players such as Waiters and Thompson to elevate their games if Cavs are to make the same incredible strides that the Thunder did in year four of their rebuild.

Cleveland may be following the same trajectory Oklahoma City did—in fact they may be ahead of it based on their efficiency numbers—but next season will be telling if they are able to break through and display similar results during the “turnaround” season. The player or players added to the roster through the draft this summer, as well as the improvements of the young core already in place, will be paramount to the success of the Oklahoma City rebuild 2.0. Either way, the 2013-2014 edition of the Cleveland Cavaliers will be a very interesting and highly anticipated spectacle to watch once next season rolls around.