A cautionary tale for the OKC Thunder and developing teams

Don’t underestimate the value of developed assets and role players:

Love him or hate him – Patrick Beverley was the emotional leader of the Wolves and had his finger on the pulse of the team keeping everyone dialed into a common goal. His leadership is clearly absent on the 2022-23 iteration with leaks of unrest and separate camps within the locker room.

Jarred Vanderbilt is far from an offensive talent, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a player who’ll bust their tail on every single defensive play doing all the dirty work for rebounds, steals, blocks, deflections, etc.

Malik Beasley is a microwave 3-point shooter who can win you a handful of games and is said to be among the top trade targets of contending teams looking to bolster their depth with sharpshooters. He’s averaging 14.2 points shooting 37.4% from the perimeter on 8.6 attempts.

Danny Ainge turned Beverley into Talen Horton-Tucker and Stanley Johnson — the former a player the Lakers were keen to hang onto and develop as one of their only young assets.

The fifth player who serves as an end-of-bench support player for the Jazz is  Leandro Bolmaro.

Flash forward to this season and again, as the OKC Thunder prepare for their 35th game it’s impossible to ignore a win in Charlotte would tie us with the Wolves in 11th or that the Jazz is the team sitting ninth, 2.0 games up on Minny and 2.5 on the Thunder.

The fact that the Wolves and Thunder are in lockstep with wins and losses speaks to being careful and avoiding the tempting knee-jerk quick-fix moves.