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OKC Thunder: 3 things we wish happened at this year’s trade deadline

By Mark Nilon

MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 04: Al Horford #42, Darius Bazley #7, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander #2, Luguentz Dort #5 and George Hill #3 of the Oklahoma City Thunder look on against the Miami Heat during the first quarter at American Airlines Arena on January 04, 2021 in Miami, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA - JANUARY 04: Al Horford #42, Darius Bazley #7, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander #2, Luguentz Dort #5 and George Hill #3 of the Oklahoma City Thunder look on against the Miami Heat during the first quarter at American Airlines Arena on January 04, 2021 in Miami, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /
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“What we wish happened” scenario No. 2) A deal with the Boston Celtics

The months leading up to the trade deadline had a lot of buzz pertaining to the OKC Thunder’s expendable veteran talents in Al Horford, George Hill, and Trevor Ariza and, with this, the media discussed a bevy of different destinations in which these players could wind up.

Perhaps the team most often linked as a potential trade partner for Oklahoma City was the underwhelming Boston Celtics, whose rotation seemingly has more holes in it than a block of Swiss Cheese.

Because of this continuous chatter about how the shamrocks could be desperate enough to bring on one or more of these aforementioned talents, we here at Thunderous Intentions started to get very comfortable with a hypothetical deal between the two parties, with us going as far as to write an entire article discussing why the Cs could be the ideal trade partner for OKC:

"Easily their biggest weakness within the rotation is down low at the pivot and seemingly has been since the departure of former shamrock and current OKC player, Al Horford. With rumors of interest from the fanbase circulating coupled with the C’s obvious need for a big man and their lack of assets to land ones like Nikola Vucevic, John Collins, or Myles Turner, perhaps a reunion with their former All-Star after two-years apart could be an interesting route for General Manager Danny Ainge to take at this year’s deadline. Certainly another weakness that the team must consider addressing is their backup point guard slot, for after Walker in the depth chart is a combination of the past-peak veteran Jeff Teague and the unproven rookie Payton Pritchard. For a championship-hopeful team, this must be improved upon. Hill, who has been linked to the Celtics quite often this season, could be seen as a quality low-cost option for the front office to consider pursuing, as he’d bring stability to the position behind Kemba, veteran experience/ leadership, and sound two-way production."

In our opinion, not only did Boston provide the Thunder as realistic of an opportunity as any team to continue adding to their illustrious treasure trove of draft capital — something they obviously ended up doing anyway in the Sixers deal –, but with the fact that they are in desperation mode, a popular belief was that GM Danny Ainge could have dangled one of their most recent lottery picks in Aaron Nesmith or Romeo Langford in a potential package as well.

In the end, I guess we’ll never know what Presti could have snagged in a deal with the Cs, but the copious amounts of mutually beneficial deals concocted over the weeks leading up to March 25th have us convinced that at the very least the two parties could have come up with a deal as good as the one OKC wound up getting from Philadelphia.

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