OKC Thunder lose Poku to Cs in recent 2020 NBA Re-Draft

The OKC Thunder are a team in the early stages of a full-fledged franchise rebuild and, though they already have a building block in place in third-year guard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, they are still very much set on adding pieces around him via the draft rather than any other avenue.

Thanks to the impressive wheeling and dealing from General Manager, Sam Presti, over the past several seasons, Oklahoma City finds itself in possession of 34 total picks through the year 2027. This year alone, the front office will be holding the rights to two first-rounders and, despite their shocking victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, still have a 45.1 percent chance of landing a top-four pick.

This, following up the 2020 draft where they also found themselves in possession of two first-rounders (though they went on to trade their later selection to the New York Knicks), is a nice turn of events for the Thunder.

Of course, last year’s festivities didn’t see as high of a selection as the one they’re likely to get this season, for their lone survivor from the night was selected 17th overall.

As we’re sure you’re aware, that pick wound up turning into the 7-0 wunderkind, Aleksej Pokuševski.

Coming into the draft as a relative mystery to most ball clubs, the 7-0 Serbian-born baller wound up having quite a solid rookie campaign for the OKC Thunder.

Though his per-game stats of 8.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and just shy of a block may not blow anyone away, it was his fluidity on the court and impressive, almost guard-like skill set that has people believing Oklahoma City found themselves a super high-potential prospect outside of the lottery.

In fact, due to his flashes of potential during his rookie campaign, some believe that if there were to be a do-over of the night, the man known as Poku would easily find himself being snatched up before the Thunder got onto the board.

In a recent 2020 NBA Re-Draft by Bleacher Report, this turned out to be exactly the case, as writer Jonathan Wasserman believes, with the 14th overall pick, the Boston Celtics would opt to take a chance on the lanky big.

Luckily for OKC fans, time travel has yet to be invented — at least, not at the time of this writing –, so there’s obviously no chance of a draft re-do.

However, when looking back on the night, it is fun to think about how Aleksej Pokuševski stacks up in comparison to his classmates.

In the case of B/R’s re-draft, the OKC Thunder fanbase should take it as a compliment, knowing that their team was able to snatch up a player many other teams in front of them wish they had taken.