As a result of his wheeling and dealing ways over the better part of the past decade, GM Sam Presti has positioned this OKC Thunder team to become the league's next great dynasty.
However, per recent rumblings, it appears the NBA would strongly entertain the idea of blocking off the ball club's clearest path toward achieving such a status.
According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, an anonymous league official believes the association would give "serious consideration" to eliminating the NBA Draft altogether and, instead, have rookie prospects come in as free agents if Adam Silver and his advisers decided it was the only way to stop teams from tanking.
Though there are a slew of problems that would arise from such a hypothetical scenario being put into action, for the Thunder, the biggest is that all the future draft capital they've compiled throughout the years would end up becoming absolutely worthless, which, in turn, would crush their current plans for long-term dominance.
Abolishment of NBA Draft would be disastrous for Thunder dynasty
Through the early stages of the 2030s, the Thunder are slated to have north of 30 total picks coming their way, with roughly half of which holding first-round value.
In this new age of tax aprons and crippling penalties thanks to the recently updated CBA, the long-term aim for Oklahoma City's front office is rather simple -- continue staking this roster with young, highly talented draft prospects on affordable contracts, while coughing up large sums of money to keep their star-studded Big Three of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren in tow.
So far, such a plan has already proven to work wonders for the franchise, as they just won their first championship of the Sooner State era in 2025, are positioned to run things back yet again in 2026, and are widely expected to evade the dreaded second apron moving forward because of it.
Through these means, they've also managed to secure true draft-day gems in the likes of Aaron Wiggins and Ajay Mitchell.
Unfortunately, due to the egregious tanking dilemma that's currently taking the league by storm, it appears that the NBA's higher-ups could consider a solution in eighty-sixing the draft altogether, which, yes, would presumably lessen a team's incentive to lose, but also would send the Thunder back to the drawing board when it comes to ways for them to become a true dynasty.