OKC Thunder: The 5 early signs the team’s goal of tanking is working

Goal No. 1: Draft high risk – high reward prospects:

This past draft class didn’t contain the type of prospects that fall into the category of generational talents. Nor did the Thunder have a top draft pick.

Their first pick was 25th but Sam Presti utilized his magician skills to move up into the upper tier just outside the lottery selections to get his hands on Aleksej Pokusevski. The youngest player in the draft falls into the realm of unicorn potential given his 6’11” height and a skillset more in line with a point guard.

Poku is big swing selection and with high risk comes the potential for high reward. In five years we’ll look back at the 2020 draft and if Presti made the right call Thunder fans will be reveling in how they nabbed Pokusevski with the 17th pick while the Wolves, Warriors, and Hornets took the top three picks who were nice players but not generational talents.

Yet the piece d’ resistance may well be the addition of Theo Maledon who displayed signs in the preseason he wasn’t accurately positioned in the draft. There were hints his French club’s coach had hurt his draft position. Tony Parker who is one of the owners of the French team fired Zvezdan Mitrovic stating he purposely benched Maledon.

Keep those flower arrangements at the ready to send to the former ASVEL coach as Mitrovic may well be the reason Maledon landed in OKC. And if he blossoms into a lottery-level performer the Thunder will be the prime benefactors.