This offseason, all eyes appear to be on the Houston Rockets and, more importantly, the Denver Nuggets as they make moves to thwart the OKC Thunder's repeat title bid in 2025-26.
However, on Monday morning, a multi-team blockbuster may have yet another club entering into the conversation as a serious threat to Oklahoma City.
As reported by ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania, the Clippers, Jazz, and Heat have agreed to a trade that will send Norman Powell to Miami, John Collins to LA, and Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson and a 2027 Clippers second-round pick to the Jazz.
While none of these moves on their own necessarily thrust any of these teams into dangerous competition territory, Los Angeles' loss of Powell could end up pushing them to pursue the likes of Bradley Beal this summer, which, if successful, could wind up being concerning from OKC's perspective.
Possibility of Bradley Beal signing could make Clippers threat to Thunder
Last season, Powell proved to be arguably the Clippers' best scoring weapon after posting career-best averages of 21.8 points on 48.4 percent shooting from the floor and 41.8 percent shooting from distance.
A 50-win team losing such contributions is certainly not a desirable happening, though, with his departure, it could lead Los Angeles to target Beal if and when he's bought out by the Phoenix Suns, which, frankly, has the potential to be even more beneficial for their scoring attack.
We're talking about a three-time All-Star who boasts career averages of 21.5 points on 46.4 percent shooting from the floor and 37.6 percent shooting from deep for his career, joining forces with a two-time Finals MVP in Kawhi Leonard and an established league MVP in James Harden on a win-now team that just brought the top-challenger to the Thunder last season in the Nuggets to seven games.
In many ways, the addition of John Collins to Los Angeles' roster could make them even more of a troubling matchup for Oklahoma City on account of the fact that they've proven susceptible to beefed-up frontcourts over the years.
Adding a 6-foot-9, three-level scoring power forward who just dropped 19.0 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.0 steal, and 1.0 block on 52.7 percent shooting from the floor and 39.9 percent shooting from deep to a frontcourt consisting of bruising 7-footer Ivica Zubac and the 7-foot-1 Brook Lopez could already lead to problems for the Thunder.
Throwing a proven 30-point-per-game scorer like Beal into the mix as their tertiary scoring option would undoubtedly make Los Angeles one of the more menacing threats to a possible OKC repeat.