OKC Thunder: Wing scoring viewed as team’s top draft need

The OKC Thunder are quite possibly the most enviable tanking teams the league has to offer heading into the 2021 offseason.

Despite boasting the NBA’s fifth-worst record this season, Oklahoma City looks to be well on its way towards greener pastures, and the journey up starts this summer at July’s draft where Sam Presti and co. will more than likely have their choice of many of this year’s top available talents.

Due to the fact that the franchise already has their building block in place in third-year guard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and that they have various holes found within the rotation, the Thunder have the opportunity to go the route of “best player available” come draft night rather than targeting specific positions of need.

While they could stand to benefit from seemingly every top player listed on big boards, recently Bleacher Report came out with the claim that perhaps the team’s biggest need come draft day is scoring at the two or three spots.

B/R claims biggest draft need for OKC Thunder is scoring at the wing position

Citing the team’s lack of depth when it comes to players aside from SGA who can go out a buy a bucket, should they miss out on this year’s top choice, Cade Cunningham, writer Grant Hughes believes targeting one at the wing position should be high up on the front office’s wishlist:

"The team that plays in Oklahoma will obviously have its eyes on Cunningham, the Oklahoma State product. We already discussed how he belongs atop everyone’s draft board, and he’d fit OKC’s needs perfectly.If the Thunder slide further down the draft order, they should be thinking about upside and embrace some risk. That’s the luxury of having (carries the two, multiplies by five) roughly a million incoming first-round picks over the next seven years. OKC can afford to miss on a big swing or two."

Hughes would later go on to mention names such as Jonathan Kuminga and Jalen Green as being two players the OKC Thunder could wind up pursuing, with the latter being one we at TI are personally high on.

Like we said in the beginning, the franchise can seemingly go in a multitude of directions and still come away from the draft with a highly useful player added to their rotation. While they can seemingly get away with going after any specific position, B/R believes it would be in the team’s best interest to add to the wing rotation.