After five straight years of making it to the playoffs, and 11 years of making it out of their 13-year existence, the OKC Thunder opted to give up their efforts to contend and, instead, embarked on a full-fledged franchise rebuild.
Finishing with the fourth-worst record on the year, Oklahoma City comes into the 2021 offseason in possession of the fourth-best odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in this July’s NBA Draft and hold a 52.5 percent chance of having their selection fall within the top-5.
On top of this, thanks to the stupendous wheeling and dealing ways of Sam Presti over the past several years, through 2027 the team will find themselves holding the rights to 34 total picks.
With this, it’s the consensus belief of many that the Thunder will go about selecting and developing talents via the draft to build for a brighter future.
However, with the amount of draft capital they hold, there are those who are under the impression that Presti and co. should strongly consider flipping some of these future assets for an already established star — after all, they can’t feasibly use all of the selections that are in their possession, for a team’s roster is typically only made up of 15 players.
Bleacher Report certainly believes to have an argument for the latter route, and even went about and concocted a deal that would send a few picks coupled with young talents to the Washington Wizards in exchange for All-Star guard, Bradley Beal.
The exact deal reads as follows:
Citing the unbelievably talented tandem that would form with Beal running alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the competitive core that would remain even if this deal were to be executed, writer, Greg Swartz, believes that such a trade could instantly thrust the OKC Thunder back into the legitimate playoff contenders conversation.
Now, of course, this isn’t the first time B/R has gone about and suggested the idea of Beal heading to the Sooner State and, with this, this also doesn’t mark the first time that we suggest that, at least for this year’s draft, Presti may wish to hold on to his current picks, especially if it can turn out to be someone like Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green, or Evan Mobley.