“Win now,” are two words Sam Presti has probably never grouped together except in jest.
The Oklahoma City Thunder general manager is the gardener obsessed with every stage of the crop leading to bloom, and at this moment, he doesn’t seem willing to obstruct that process.
Retaining a strong defense while willingly forfeiting some rebounding, building a contender with the most responsible parts being built from within. Those are the grounds Presti has established for this iteration of the Thunder.
OKC’s summer — which begins in earnest with next week’s NBA Draft, in which the Thunder owns the No. 12 overall pick — seems meant for moves at the margins. Addressing needs but not overcorrecting them, giving its core ample time (well beyond next season) to build on any exposure to this recent postseason.
There are things the team will surely want to see play out — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander‘s playmaking growth, the things Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams will need to build on, Josh Giddey’s role if he remains — but surely there are needs that can’t be addressed solely by continuity and progression.
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It feels like the kind of player best suited for OKC’s timeline and desired needs, above all, is a some sort of combo-forward that provides a combination of spacing, defense, and the fluidity and IQ that allows effortless drive-and-kicks.
A player that keeps Holmgren at center but also doesn’t leave the defense helpless once Holmgren is out of a play. One that won’t take drives (or shots, really) from Gilgeous-Alexander or Jalen Williams. One that would make it difficult for defenses to make business decisions like they did with Giddey this past season.
Knicks forward OG Anunoby, while lobbying for a notable payday, could check plenty of boxes and move the needle — all without being a demanding star and casting shade over Presti’s precious garden.
He defends wings and smalls similarly well, still equipped to somehow defend a remarkable big man like Joel Embiid. He shot 39.4% from 3 this season on 4.5 attempts per game. He has championship experience.
Even if Anunoby is far-fetched as a target, a similar player to place next to Holmgren is probably the least subtractive role Presti can fill while still delivering an impactful player. But perhaps only Presti and the Thunder’s front office know which parts of their identity and proficiencies they’re willing to cut loose in hopes of a promising spring.
Here are three more questions for the Thunder this offseason:
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How will Thunder approach Josh Giddey’s extension?
Presti, historically proactive with extensions, seemingly sang a different tune ahead of the final year of Josh Giddey’s rookie deal.
“We’ll sit down and have those conversations relative to his contract when those are appropriate,” Presti said of Giddey’s rookie extension back in May, “but we also don’t have to do anything right now, either, because he has another year.”
Throughout his near-three hour interview, Presti pointed toward Giddey’s youth and the remaining room for development, leaving little impression that he thought Giddey couldn’t be part of the Thunder’s path forward.
Later on, Presti detailed how his thought process changed following the Gordon Hayward trade at the deadline. If OKC truly is to let things fold organically while also hoping to build upon a 57-win season with a similar blueprint, it likely means a reluctance toward trading at the deadline — even if the move for Hayward was multi-layered and not solely designed to move the midseason, on-court needle.
In that reality, a decision on Giddey’s future is best slated for this summer or next.
For starters, it’ll need to consider the optics of kicking extension talks down the road for Giddey’s camp. And if OKC chooses to embrace him once more, it has to consider what his role might be.
There’s a chance to enhance his market value in a different role, but if that doesn’t yield much fruit, the Thunder will need to consider what’ll happen to his value, the potential difficulty of pivoting midseason, and what a shrinking asset (especially one that’s had a large role for so long) does for next season’s aspirations.
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What should Sam Presti, Thunder do with cap space?
The Thunder is projected to have more than $30 million in cap space this offseason. The financial room has left fans salivating at the possibilities.
Those that believe OKC is a star-level player away have been to OKC reaching for a proven one, whether that’s a reunion with Clippers forward Paul George or a trade involving Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen.
It’s unclear how likely those scenarios actually are considering Presti’s monologues about organic development and young stars, like the three OKC is building around, needing room to blossom.
With rumors swirling of Anunoby being unhappy with his initial offer, the Thunder could potentially spend more money in the interim on a player who checks plenty boxes without being too subtractive toward blooming stars.
The Thunder could also simply pivot toward bulking up the depth chart, looking to split this summer’s cap space between several free agents in reserve roles. Big men like Isaiah Hartenstein or Nic Claxton, wings like Derrick Jones Jr. or Klay Thompson, a guard like Malik Monk — just a few of the names that’ve been mocked into roles with the Thunder.
It could also make a trade to fill any of its needs; Patrick Williams to try and develop a player that could possibly fit the mold of an Anunoby with time, Collin Sexton if it feels strongly about secondary creation in multiple lineups.
All require different levels of commitment to money and time, with some being more short sighted moves than others. It ties into multiple questions that the Thunder will need to answer this summer, but namely two: How close does the team feel it is to making a serious playoff run, and how much of that answer is attributed to development and experience versus pieces OKC can go get?
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How close is the Thunder to competing for the NBA title?
The external view of the Thunder’s status in its pursuit for a championship — by way of factors like league parity and shift, of health and luck, of roster foundation and promise — probably differs from what the team’s brass thinks it is.
Presti used phrases like “good start” and “good base” during his exit interview, each rational phrases for such a young team. He acknowledged that there isn’t a way to accelerate the development of the team’s stars.
He also acknowledged the unique circumstances that allowed for the Thunder to become the youngest team to ever win the Western Conference, making it difficult to compare its path (and arrival) to contention with previous teams.
It’s an interesting position to be in. To have such a young, promising core that it won a rigorous West, lost to the eventual conference champion in the postseason and still isn’t facing as many major internal decisions as it could be with its existing core.
Still, the game isn’t as simple as plugging in what the Thunder could’ve used in its series with the Mavericks, or (at times) in its pursuit for the No. 1 seed. It took Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown years of exhausting postseason shortcomings before finally climbing the mountaintop — which only came after coaching changes, overwhelming talent and savvy team building, a suitable window, and equal parts success and agony.
It’s a critical juncture for the Thunder’s future, maybe more so than its members will let on, in that this summer could help determine how much agony OKC might endure before it reaches the mountaintop.
But so many of the team’s moves, both this summer and leading up to any major extensions down the line, feel tied to the overarching question: How close (or far) does the Thunder feel it to being true contenders?
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NBA Draft
- When: June 26-27
- Where: Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
- First round: 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 26 (ABC, ESPN)
- Second round: 3 p.m. Thursday, June 27 (ESPN)