Thunderous Intentions
Fansided

Lessons Sam Presti can learn from counterparts in Thunder rebuild

By Tamberlyn Richardson

OKC Thunder: Russell Westbrook and general manager Sam Presti (Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images)
OKC Thunder: Russell Westbrook and general manager Sam Presti (Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 14
Next
NBA Playoffs, OKC Thunder
Jamal Murray, Damian Lillard, NBA Playoffs (Photo by Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images) /

Northwest teams:

First, let’s scan the history of teams in the Northwest division since it’s arguably the toughest division in the West and the one the OKC Thunder is guaranteed to play each squad four times in season.

Two clubs demonstrated sustained constancy and kept rebuilding phases short. As for the others, one is mired by a period of prolonged losing and the other falls somewhere in between.

Denver Nuggets depth rules:

The Nuggets finished second in the West this past season, but they arrived after five seasons of lottery finishes. The previous decade featured 10 consecutive postseason appearances which followed eight seasons of lottery finishes.

The lesson from the Nuggets patient climb upward is directly related to making wise choices both in the draft (Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray) and capitalizing on trades to build depth as Masai Ujiri did when he was still running the show in Denver. Although credit has to be afforded to Tim Connelly the moves by Ujiri to trade Carmelo Anthony and Nene for players and picks and then flip those assets to improve the team resulted in arguably the deepest squad in the Association.

Home/Thunder News