On the Woj Podcast this week, Adrian Wojnarowski and Mike Schmitz discussed the draft lottery and spent some time focusing on the OKC Thunder.
Not surprisingly, they felt the two main winners of the lottery were the Orlando Magic with the number one pick but felt the OKC Thunder nabbing the second pick was equally important.
Woj stated he felt there was a tremendous amount of pressure on the OKC Thunder organization to land in the top three of this year’s draft lottery. The reason for the added duress is all these draft picks in Presti’s clutches are only valuable if they translate into generational talents or franchise changers.
"‘Sam Presti took on this grand experiment really. They’ve got 17 first-round picks over the next five years. You don’t do that so you can keep picking fifth, and sixth, and seventh or eighth or 10th – – you know they’ve got 12 this year too. You do it because you figure you get enough cracks at it that you get to one or two and that’s where you find your franchise changer.” and they got it – they got it at two.” – Wojnarowski"
The ESPN Insider opined having a talent in-house like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander carries a certain timetable. SGA is only going to be patient for a specific window of time of constant losing and not having his own star rise.
It’s a fair point considering the Thunder don’t get much national exposure and if we look back over this season even prior to the team shutting him down he didn’t get the nod for the All-Star Game and wasn’t close in the voting by fans despite how well he was playing.
Woj pod confirms OKC Thunder tried to move up for Evan Mobley
While Woj is known for dropping Woj bombs outing trades or unknown information the one he confirmed in this podcast was how hard Sam Presti worked to move up to the third spot in last season’s draft in order to acquire Evan Mobley.
I say “confirmed” because it wasn’t a very well-kept secret that Presti was actively trying to move up. TI felt he was focused on Evan Mobley although we also surmised Scottie Barnes was the other prospect he was interested in moving up to get.
In hindsight, that only offers credence to how great the OKC Thunder organization and Presti are at scouting and assessing talent. In the end, as Woj notes, Presti wasn’t able to move up to the third spot since Koby Altman knew what he had in Mobley and OKC remained seeded sixth selecting the sublime Josh Giddey.
The duo discussed on the podcast how every team at the top will offer the typical statement of being open to hearing from other teams on acquiring their picks. They also stated how rare that occurs.
Considering the last decade-plus of NBA Drafts, teams seldom move into the top three. The best two examples happened in back-to-back drafts. In 2017 the Sixers moved up to the top of the ladder to select Markelle Fultz while the Celtics took Jayson Tatum with the swapped third pick. The next season (2018) the Mavericks swapped picks with the Hawks to land Luka Doncic for Trae Young.
In both cases, an additional first-round pick was attached to the team trading down. But last season when Presti was aiming to move up it was rumored teams were asking for as many as six first-round picks. The word gluttony comes to mind here or perhaps jealousy but suffice to say teams locked in on the copious draft picks the OKC Thunder possesses and weren’t going to give up a generational talent at a discount.
In truth, it’s likely Altman wouldn’t even have moved with that haul of picks and it was more about testing the waters to see what Presti’s threshold was.
Even picks outside the top three can draw some big hauls like what the Pelicans finagled from the Hawks in 2019 to land DeAndre Hunter. Atlanta coughed up four picks including three first-round picks. The Hawks got Hunter with the 4th pick but it cost them their 8th, 17th, and 35th picks in 2019 as well as their 2020 first-round pick
Those picks translated into Jaxson Hayes, SGA’s cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Didi Louzada, and Herbert Jones this past season as the original 2020 pick was highly protected.
It’s untenable to imagine Sam Presti would trade the second pick this year right? Well, there is the outside chance the GM would have to consider it if a team offered an established young star. Yet, even that scenario seems unlikely given the mandate of building the team via the draft and developing those talents to fit the Thunder system.
Trading for more picks is out of the question given Presti already has more picks than any franchise and eventually there is such a thing as having too many picks. There are only 17 spots (with the two 2-way contracts) on a roster and as the Thunder add draft picks each season spots will need to be available for them.
As Woj and Schmitz noted landing in one of the top positions was essential for the Thunder and hopefully, this pick will accomplish Presti’s goal of nabbing a generational talent. How quickly it translates into success is the unknown, but if we consider what happened in Cleveland and Toronto this past year they both participated in the postseason.
Albeit, those squads have more depth and experienced assets. However, SGA and Giddey are among the better backcourt tandems in the NBA. Lu Dort is a top defender but will become even more valuable as the quality of talent around him improves.
The area OKC needs to add that quality is primarily in the frontcourt, on the wings, and specialists who are adept on the perimeter. When we consider the Thunder had to shut down most of the core in back-to-back seasons it offers evidence this team may not be that far off becoming the next team who’ll vie for a play-in seed.
Ultimately, the 2023 offseason is the more likely target for the team to push in that direction, but vying for a play-in seed is a great motivational goal for Mark Daigneault to dangle to next season’s squad.