Isaiah Hartenstein's remarks on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander prove he's the ideal signing

This summer, the OKC Thunder set a new franchise record for the most money spent in a free agency signing when they inked Isaiah Hartenstein to a three-year, $87 million deal back in early July.

With such a decision, there automatically seemed to be two schools of thought.

On the one hand, Hartenstein's 7-foot, 249-pound frame packaged together with his traditional center skill-set was seen by some as a tremendous addition to help address the club's lacking size up front that, ultimately, played a role in their semifinals demise against the Dallas Mavericks.

On the other hand, however, shelling out such coin to a career role player with a somewhat limited bag of tricks can easily be viewed as a serious overpay.

However, not everything in the association is a cookie-cutter, black-and-white situation. All of these aforementioned things can be true, and it still doesn't necessarily give a clear indication of how the signing will turn out.

Frankly, with the current lack of on-court activity during these early stages of the preseason, at this point arguably the biggest indicator of how I-Hart might end up fitting in with this Thunder team is what he's been saying regarding his goals and ambitions for his debut campaign.

Based on recent comments, the consensus among Thunder faithful may start to lean toward him being a sensational pick-up afterall.

Isaiah Hartenstein comments show why Thunder were right to sign him

Following his most recent preseason bout against the Houston Rockets, Isaiah Hartenstein discussed how excited he is to play with this Thunder core, but especially the likes of superstar cornerstone Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who he described as being a brand of baller he's never had the luxury of playing with before.

"I feel like I played with a lot of guards in the past that were high-level. He’s definitely something different," Hartenstein said, as transcribed by Clemente Almanza of OKC Thunder Wire. "I feel like he’s one of the best guards in the league, if not the best guards in the league."

Though the Thunder wound up losing this contest against the Rockets, during the first half of action when the primary OKC players were actually being utilized, they actually were dominating on both ends of the floor, especially on the offensive end where they outscored Houston 60-47 while shooting 52.5 percent from the floor and 42.1 percent from distance.

And, yes, Hartenstein played a significant role in this.

From his underrated distribution skills to his rock-wall screen-setting, throughout his 15 minutes of action, he seemed to make things incredibly simple and smooth, which, as he specifically noted, is his main goal heading into 2024-25, especially when it comes to Gilgeous-Alexander.

"I’m just here to make his life easier," Hartenstein said.

So while giving nearly $90 million to a player who rarely spaces the floor, focuses primarily on pulling down rebounds, and defends the rim while having started just 61 total games in his career may seem like a bit of an overcompensation, when it comes to bringing on someone of this type of mentality, one could argue the value they bring to a team is absolutely priceless.