B/R lists OKC Thunder as winners in 2020 offseason

In Bleacher Reports’ recent article the OKC Thunder landed firmly in the winner’s column for top performers of the offseason.

A wild truncated NBA calendar found the OKC Thunder active making more moves in a week than virtually the entire Western Conference. Sam Presti has earned his keep early in the 2020-21 campaign having made numerous trades while continuing to stockpile draft picks.

In fact, the Thunder front office executive got busy the minute trade restrictions were lifted sending Dennis Schroder to the Lakers in the first deal made of the offseason. The player sent back (Danny Green) was immediately flipped to the 76ers though the deal won’t be finalized until December 8th (aggregation) and will find Al Horford headed to OKC. Accompanying Green is Terrance Ferguson who lost his starting spot in the Thunder rotation when undrafted two-way dynamo Luguentz Dort made him a moot point.

Next, Presti sent Chris Paul to the Phoenix Suns netting a return of four players with Ty Jerome the only player in the group who’ll don a Thunder jersey. Ricky Rubio heads back to the Wolves, Kelly Oubre to the Warriors, and Jalen Lecque to the Pacers for T.J. Leaf.

James Johnson was part of the Wolves deal and was immediately flipped to the Mavericks.  As part of the latter deal Trevor Ariza was sent back (in his fourth trade of the week) and Justin Jackson.

Another deal witnessed the addition of Admiral Schofield while draft night deals netted Aleksej Pokusevski (17), Theo Maledon (34), and Vit Krejci (37).

In addition, Presti continued to fill up the draft coffers adding four first-round and six second-round picks:

• Warriors 2021 (top 20 protected) first round and 2021 second-round picks
• Suns 2022 (top 12 protected) first-round pick
• Nuggets protected 2023 first-round pick
• Mavericks 2023, 2026 second-round picks (2023 is better of Heat/Mavs pick as Dallas owns both)
• 2023 (Wizards), 2024 (Hornets) second-round picks from Pelicans
• 76ers 2025 protected first-round pick
• Pacers 2027 second-round pick

The other major deal was Steven Adams who was jettisoned to the Pelicans and at least initially netted the largest trade exception in league history of $27.5 million along with five players including George Hill. Two of those players (Josh Gray, Zylan Cheatham) have since been waived while Sam Presti wasted no time adding Antonius Cleveland shortly after waiving Cheatham.

These moves have all lead to the immediate next phase of the franchise who for a dozen seasons was one of the most successful in the association. Sam Presti isn’t just easing into this rebuild he’s fully committed having sent out four players who were in the starting lineup in the season opener of 2019-20 as well as their sixth and seventh men, the latter by virtue of letting Nerlens Noel exit in free agency.

In fact, only six players who were on last season’s roster are set to return.  Dan Favale of Bleacher Report is impressed as this excerpt from his article details:

"Yes, the picks. The Thunder have a lot of them, maybe all of them, between now and the 2026 draft. General manager Sam Presti and his staff deserve credit for mining so many first-rounders out of their win-now veterans. They even received one while moving Adams’ $27.5 million salary—and got Hill to boot. He might yield a high-end second, low-end first or prospect at the trade deadline. The Celtics and Clippers should have their eyes peeled.Starting over is tough, particularly in a smaller market. Just this offseason we’ve seen two teams on the rebuilding track—the Hornets and Detroit Pistons—make moves that compromise their draft stock. The Thunder leaned into theirs, stockpiling more picks and opening up the court-time pipeline for their prospects in the process.Really, though, Oklahoma City wins for its gall."

To Favale’s point while other clubs are vying to enter a new phase in their franchises through rebuilding or shoring up resources to be more competitive it’s Presti that’s doing the best job of gaining young talents and draft picks simultaneously.

Hill, Ariza, and Horford could all be flipped before the season ends while the draft picks accumulated will make the OKC Thunder a significant player in each of the next seven drafts. And while there are many who believe tanking is the direction the Thunder should invest in with so many draft picks it’s conceivable OKC could emulate the Celtics template.

To that end, it’s highly plausible Presti could land quality prospects from the assembled picks but also group several picks together to go out and grab a young star from a club desperate to add draft capital to their barren coffers.

More from Thunderous Intentions

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• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

Plus there is are the tax player exceptions that Presti is masterfully utilizing in the trades he’s making so the cap isn’t affected. To wit, the following players were added using existing tax player exceptions:

• Darius Miller ($7M) via Kelly Oubre ($14.3M TPE)
• George Hill ($9.5M) via Paul George ($10.3M TPE)
• Josh Gray ($1.6M) via Chris Paul ($6.6M TPE)
• Kenrich Williams ($1.6M) via Jerami Grant ($2.7M TPE)

Ultimately, there are those who’ll play devil’s advocate and state no draft pick is a guarantee. They’ll point to Zion Williamson and say but “what has he done so far?”

Or – what are the odds the OKC Thunder will ever come close to drafting a quartet resembling the likes of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and James Harden, in the course of a three-year period? In fairness to that question – the odds don’t favor the Thunder.

As TI recently demonstrated following a path of tanking seldom equates to a quick path toward success. The 76ers process years, nor the Wolves and Suns years of tanking didn’t equate to expeditious winning. A generational talent can shift the narrative quickly but those individuals aren’t part of every draft class. With the shift in how the draft occurs now, it’s also not a guarantee tanking will guarantee the top pick.

This is precisely why Sam Presti amassing this ridiculous horde of draft picks should be utilized to land prospects AND to add talent.  In recent years the success of the Raptors, Celtics, Heat, and Nuggets only serves to punctuate why a mixture of picks, development, and savvy trades can produce the best and most rapid path to success.

Any way the pie is sliced, Favale is correct — Sam Presti and the OKC Thunder are definitely winners of the 2020 offseason. And now, we wait to see how quickly the moves the magician made will play out.