When it comes to rebuilding teams in 2021, the OKC Thunder are without a doubt ahead of their cohorts.
Looking at their current roster, it’s evident that the hard work for a typical franchise rebuild is officially over, as Oklahoma City already has their building block in place in third-year combo guard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who, in his first season as top-dog for the team, posted numbers only matched by Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.
Now, while this past year may have appeared to be a challenging one on the surface, as they finished things off with the fourth-worst record in the association, to many fans, things simply went according to plan as the team possesses the fourth-best odds of landing the top pick in this upcoming NBA Draft and, overall, will have two first-rounders at their disposal.
These picks will only wind up adding young talents to their already youthful roster that, throughout the course of this past season, managed to get younger and younger seemingly with every passing day.
Despite their desire to tank, the OKC Thunder were quite active with their player acquisitions, utilizing their two-way deals, 10-day contracts, and, simply, their overall cap-space to perfection.
While many of the players that found themselves brought on as mid-season pickups likely will not remain on the roster come next season — at least, not on the varsity squad –, there are a few who most likely will be logging minutes for the team in 2021-22 and, with said minutes, could wind up shinning.
Today, we present to you 2 mid/ late-season acquisitions that we believe could be rather productive next year: