Sometimes, it's best to be a glass-half-full kind of person. That's who Tulsa World's Berry Tramel is choosing to be when it comes to Utah's highly controversial efforts to prevent the OKC Thunder from acquiring the rights to their protected first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
During a recent appearance on KSL's DJ and PK, the veteran sports columnist couldn't help but put a positive spin on the Jazz's egregious tanking efforts this year, saying that while Sam Presti and company may not be "too crazy about it," ultimately, Oklahoma City has too many draft picks that they even know what to do with as is.
"[The Thunder] have so many draft picks this year, they don't even know what to do with them. In some ways, if the Jazz keep this pick, it keeps a little bit of the load off. Because they've got the Clippers' and the Sixers' pick... If they got Utah, that was just going to be added problems," Tramel said.
In a way, the Jazz landing a top-eight selection and, in turn, having their debt owed to the Thunder expire in the process could help the organization avoid added hoops to jump through.
Remember, for Oklahoma City to bring in any new draft prospects, they will need to part ways with players currently on their championship-winning roster just to make room on the depth chart.
Assuming they use LA and Philadelphia's picks, deciding on which two players to move on from is bound be a heartbreaking task all on its own. Making it three with the Jazz selection, though slated to be more valuable than the others, would make such decisions even more agonizing.
Thunder have too many great talents as is to care about losing Jazz pick
Though the majority of people view the Thunder as being led by the reigning regular season and Finals MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, as well as two other established All-Stars in Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, they are far more than just a three-man show.
Regularly, coach Mark Daigneault dips well into double-digits when rolling out in-game rotations, and, as former NBA veteran-turned-analyst Chandler Parsons recently put it on an episode of FanDuel TV's Run it Back, "the ninth, tenth, eleventh guy on their team" is good enough to push for a starting job on other ball clubs.
Whether it's the high-octane scorer Isaiah Joe, the defensive-minded veteran Alex Caruso, or the legitimate star potential guys like Cason Wallace and Jared McCain, Oklahoma City's depth is filled to the brim with game-changing talents.
Even with the recent announcement that the NBA’s board of governors voted to move forward with expansion plans, the organization is presumably already stressing over how the draft that's set to accompany it will impact their player pool years in advance.
With this, as far as the 2026 draft is concerned, there's a Charmin Ultra-esque argument that less may, in fact, be more for the Thunder.