OKC Thunder: The Hamidou Diallo trade conspiracy

Perhaps the decision to trade Hamidou Diallo was more than just the OKC Thunder looking to rebuild

Though it’s now been a couple of days since the OKC Thunder opted to trade one of their top players thus far into the 2020-21 season in Hamidou Diallo, we at Thunderous Intentions are still pondering on the reasons as to why such a move was made.

We understand that many are under the impression that the logic points to Sam Presti and co. steering more into their desired franchise rebuild but, at the young age of 22-years-old, the wing actually fits the timeline in which many organizations highly covet when in the midst of such a future-oriented plan.

When discussing my curiosity with Site Co-Expert Tamberlyn Richardson, she encouraged me to dig a little deeper for potential reasons as to why Diallo now finds himself residing in Motor City and, when sifting through the information, a broader story seemingly begins to connect itself.

With this, we present to you the Hamidou Diallo trade conspiracy:

OKC Thunder conspiracy theory No. 1) Hami playing out of Presti’s price range?

As we alluded to earlier, Hamidou Diallo was in the midst of a career year with the OKC Thunder.  Through 32 games played, the third-year pro posted per-game averages of11.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and a steal per game on 48 percent shooting from the field.

With his production coupled with his youthful age, one could certainly argue that Hami should have been seen as a building block for this Oklahoma City squad as they head towards the future.

However, front offices are tasked with viewing all angles of a specific narrative — in other words, perhaps Presti pondered on the future with Diallo in tow and deemed it “too costly” to keep him moving past this season.

Currently in the final year of his rookie-scale contract, the shooting guard will inevitably be hitting the restricted free-agent market come the conclusion of this season. Though on the surface his high-level production this year has been a positive for the team, in the end, what his play is doing is actually shooting up his potential asking price once negotiations start for his next league contract.

Being in charge of the books, Presti very likely could have had a set price he’d be willing to pay come the offseason in order to keep Diallo around but, with his play, he may have been under the impression that the money could easily exceed his range and, instead of playing musical chairs, he just opted to bypass the headache and shipped him off to at least get something in return.