OKC Thunder Notebook: Vit Krejci in Eurobasket, Poku blocked, Micic saga

Ah, another Monday. Another week closer to the NBA Season. As I brew my coffee this morning, I was wondering what today’s Monday notebook would be about as we hit the dead of the offseason around the NBA. Front office members, scouts, players, coaches, and equipment staff, are all on vacation, what is there to discuss? Well for the OKC Thunder, a lot of meat is left on the bone.

We are just six weeks away from NBA Training camp, with Preseason tipping off around the league on the 2nd of October. The day before training camp, teams will host their media day where all of the media gathers to talk to every player on the roster and produce content. Then, we will be thrown into another NBA season.

The dry spell of NBA news will soon end, as Marc Stein reports the NBA will hold off on announcing the 2022-23 regular season schedule until after this week which is the typical announcement time frame. This gives NBA teams an additional week to make a splash in trading for Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, or Kyrie Irving. Why does that matter in releasing the schedule? All three of those players would shift who the NBA wants to market in their National TV slots and their marquee dates such as opening night, Christmas, and Martin Luther King Jr day.

While the OKC Thunder have not even announced their full preseason schedule yet, we do know of three games on the upcoming docket. It sounds as though next week, we will have the entire slate.

Let’s dive into the weekly notebook

OKC Thunder blocks Aleksej Pokusevski from Team Serbia, Vit Krejci is playing in Eurobasket, and Micic speaks out about coming to the NBA

It was reported last week by Team Serbia that the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat have barred Aleksej Pokusevski and Nikola Jovic respectively from Eurobasket this fall. Each organization cited preparing for the NBA season as the reason why.

It adds up that the OKC Thunder want their third-year wing focused on preparing for the NBA season in a prove-it year for the 2020 First-Round pick.

Another player on the Thunder roster, Vit Krejci, who finds himself on the roster bubble in our first roster projection of the season, will be taking part in Eurobasket for the Czech Republic. Krejci will be in the FIBA Qualifiers on August 24th and 27th before Eurobasket begins on September 1st.

Vit Krejci got some burn at the NBA Summer League where he showed a lot of improvement on the defensive end of the floor. Throw in EuroBasket before he comes right back to OKC for training camp, and it will be an offseason full of organized basketball for the second-year wing.

The Oklahoma City Thunder possess the draft rights to two-time Euroleague MVP Vasilije Micic, who has flirted with coming stateside to play in the NBA each of the last two offseasons. Though, his flirtatious come with demands, Micic wants to play on a contender, on a sizeable contract, with starting level minutes. All things the Thunder could not promise him. Ultimately, Micic did not make the leap to the NBA and instead re-upped with Anadolu Efes in Turkey.

According to Rada Nikolic August of Sport Klub, Vasilije Micic said I felt a slight mistrust from the direction of the strongest league in the world, which they have towards many, not only me.” Micic went on to say “I really do not think I am going there to prove what and how much I can do, It’s nice like this for me, so if I go to America one day, It will happen.”

The last note from the week is that the OKC Blue has received permission from the NBA G-League to remain at Paycom Center. They remain the lone team to play in an NBA arena, and this gives Sam Presti more flexibility to shuffle young players up and down to and from the NBA G-League adding another developmental resource to this young roster.

Song of the Week: American Spirits, Drumming Bird