The Oklahoma City Thunder have finished off a 40-42 season, falling a game shy of the NBA Playoffs. All while not seeing a single top-five pick step on the hardwood. Their lone top pick from the rebuild, Chet Holmgren, has been on the shelf since August. This has allowed OKC Thunder fans’ minds to run wild. With top ten in the league cap space and a treasure trove of draft picks, what is the outlook for this offseason? Sam Presti debriefed the situation.
At his annual exit interview following the Oklahoma City Thunder season, Sam Presti recapped season 15 in Oklahoma City, a remarkable run in Bricktown. Then, Presti transitioned into looking ahead to this summer and the expectations for next year.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have capped off a fantastic 2022-23 season, what should you expect from the team this offseason? Sam Presti discussed this very topic.
The OKC Thunder have ample cap space, an embarrassment of riches in the draft pick department, and a thriving young core that will see two top-12 picks join them next season (Chet Holmgren and the 2023 NBA Draft pick). This leads to an impatient fanbase that wants to see an all-in move this summer.
Sam Presti was questioned about that closet full of first-round picks, including four in a perceived weak 2024 NBA Draft. Presti started by saying, “Yeah, fair question. I think the first thing I would say is that that’s a long time away. Obviously we’ve got to get through this draft, get to the next draft, and we don’t even know if all those picks will convey, but I certainly would probably want to know where they would be. Houston, Utah, Clippers, ours.”
The General Manager continued, “The way I would look at this is if you think one day you want to buy a house, okay. You don’t know where it’s going to be, but you want to buy a house. You don’t go out and buy the paint for it now. You’d rather wait to see where is the house? How much paint do I need? What color? I’m going to have blue paint. I’m going to buy 10 cans — we need to know what the house looks like before we start thinking about, like, the cosmetics in my opinion.”
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s top executive is in no rush to push all the chips into the middle of the table this offseason. When asked about using their cap space this summer, he replied, “we look at everything. We’ll look at everything. But we’re not — we’ve generally been pretty conservative with how we’ve approached that and looked at ways to use it that may not be as orthodox. I think that’s for us, like that’s probably the way that we always look through the cap space, with that kind of a lens, because you want to get maximum value out of whatever assets you’re deploying, and space is an asset.”
The OKC Thunder only have one impending free agent, Dario Saric, and three incoming draft picks. Sam Presti will have plenty of decisions to make this Summer, so do not expect him to nab the next disgruntled star that hits the market in July.
Though, Presti has pulled off plenty of surprises in the past. It does not seem like the right time for the OKC Thunder.