Kevin Durant's Thunder Will Roll Through Western Conference for Years to Come

OKC’s storm has just begun.

Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder will have their hands full this season fighting off the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks for the Western Conference crown, but they have absolutely zero big-picture competition. 

OKC sits atop the West now, and if you don’t like what’s going on, you better get used to it, because they’ll maintain that spot thanks to their fountain of youth.

Durant and Russell Westbrook are 23 years old.  Serge Ibaka and James Harden are 22. 

What kind of a sick joke is this?

One of the most talented cores in the NBA is made up of players that are nearly young enough to be Grant Hill’s children.  Not only are these studs not going away, but they’re not done growing.

Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd are all on the wrong side of 30.  As dominant as their franchises have been, to quote Charles Barkley, father time is undefeated.  Rebuilding will be necessary for each squad.

The Los Angeles Clippers are being labeled as a young team on the rise. But following a couple more years of failure, which happens to be extremely realistic, Blake Griffin will potentially close the door on such a threat and leave via free agency in 2014.  Even if the Clippers do survive, they still lack the talent on the wings to slow down Durantula and The Bearded Wonder from Down Under (Harden’s new nickname…"The Beard..." Arizona State Sun Devils—start the petition) over a seven-game series.

And Durant and Westbrook recently signed five-year extensions, so only the Thunder themselves possess the power to break up this dynamic duo.

Oklahoma City is too long, too athletic and too hungry to fade away.  This team wasn’t put together overnight like the Big Threes of the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.  They were built up through the draft—gasp—something absolutely unheard of in today’s game.

And because of that, OKC won’t just be a flash in the pan, they’ll run the West and compete for multiple championships.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

Follow @TheRealDDaniels