Though fans and pundits alike came into the 2026 NBA offseason believing the OKC Thunder would be hell-bent on ducking under the dreaded second apron and, in turn, need to move on from a number of key players in order to do so, it appears the front office has a completely different goal in mind: Keep the vast majority of their core rotation intact.
Over the past few weeks, Oklahoma City has certainly shed some significant coin from their payroll. Between the Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins trades alone, Sam Presti and company reduced their luxury tax penalty by a whopping $140 million.
However, with the re-signing of Isaiah Hartenstein, the decision to opt into Lu Dort's 2026-27 contract, and, most recently, the agreement to have free agent Kenrich Williams return on a one-year deal, the Thunder are still roughly $13 million over the second apron threshold.
And they seem to be completely content with it.
If anything, the Thunder are proving to the rest of the league that, while entering this particular tax bracket may be quite expensive (luxury tax bill is now north of $100 million), it doesn't restrict teams from keeping their own free agents, meaning that all the fears over possibly seeing this team undergo serious roster changes this summer may have been a bit overblown.
Thunder were able to re-sign Kenrich Williams through Bird rights
As noted, the Thunder chose to re-sign veteran wing Kenrich Williams to a new one-year, $5 million deal. This decision came just days after the organization chose to decline his $7.2 million club option for the 2026-27 season.
Oklahoma City was able to re-up with Williams' services thanks to the league's Bird rights rule, which is a luxury teams have that allow them to re-sign a player, particularly one who has spent three or more consecutive seasons with the club, despite exceeding the salary cap.
Despite not being an upper-echelon player in the rotation, Williams has established himself as a three-and-D hustle guy who, throughout his six seasons with the Thunder, finds himself sporting averages of 6.7 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.8 assists while shooting 49.2 percent from the floor and 38.7 percent from deep.
Prior to the re-signing of the 31-year-old, OKC had just one vacant spot left on their 15-man roster, which, barring any unforeseen trade-offs, should make him the final addition this front office will make.
Add us as a preferred source on Google