The Oklahoma City Thunder entered the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline with a number of potential paths ahead of them. Armed with a seemingly endless collection of draft picks and both young prospects and matching salaries, the Thunder could stand pat, add talent or swing for the fences.
Many Thunder fans and NBA analysts wanted the Thunder to make a huge deal to add another star, but there wasn't a player on the trade market who moved the needle enough to justify the cost, especially when factoring in their fit with OKC's core and system. Yet the Thunder weren't quiet, either, trading for a former All-Star to bolster their rotation.
The Thunder traded for Gordon Hayward
The Thunder traded Davis Bertans, Tre Mann, Vasilije Micic and a pair of second-round picks to the Charlotte Hornets for forward Gordon Hayward. Given that there were no All-Stars moved at the deadline, former All-Star Hayward is among the best players to change teams, particularly if he can stay healthy for the stretch run.
Did the Thunder win the deadline? Was this the right move to make? Let's dig into this trade from all angles and "grade the trade" to see if the Thunder come out looking wise or like a team not ready to go all-in. We'll start with the on-court fit of Gordon Hayward on one of the best teams in the Western Conference.
Evaluating Hayward's on-court fit
Gordon Hayward's best season in the NBA was likely the 2016-17 season, when he lead the Utah Jazz to 51 wins and made his only All-Star appearance. His career was then tragically derailed when he broke his leg in the season opener the following year and never got back to his previous levels of athleticism.
To Hayward's credit he has developed other areas of his game and continued to be a positive offensive player over the six seasons since his return from that leg injury. He has improved as a passer and playmaker, maintained a solid level of perimeter shooting, and has a big of craft finishes to compensate for a lack of dunks in traffic or isolation showdowns.
Hayward is a seamless fit with the Thunder on offense. He is a good enough shooter, especially from the corners, to not take anything off the table when playing alongside the Thunder's best players. His playmaking makes him an excellent fit with bench lineups as well; he's not the level of passer that Josh Giddey is, but his floor-spacing makes him arguably a better fit in most lineups.
Defensively Hayward has fallen off the most, but he has quick hands and plays solid team defense. He can get cooked individually, but he will be asked to take on the least threating defensive matchup in most lineups. He should help the team continue to generate steals and has the size to defend either forward position.
If Hayward can't stay healthy, his shot abandons him or he proves to be too weak of an option defensively, the Thunder can simply limit his minutes or not play him at all. Yet his skillset truly does look like an ideal fit with the lineups that the Thunder have in place now.
Grade: A-
Evaluating the cost
The Oklahoma City Thunder have the most draft capital of any team in the league and certainly of any other contenders. Many teams likely lean on the Thunder to overpay because of that fact, but Sam Presti has worked hard not to let their deep pockets lead to wasting assets in trades.
He did so again in this deal, not moving a single first-round pick to bring back Gordon Hayward. The pessimistic view would say that they sent draft capital, an intriguing young guard and a necessary point guard for an injury-prone forward who could walk this summer. All of that is technically true, but it's a narrow obfuscation of what actually happened.
Let's try another angle. The Oklahoma City Thunder are jostling for first place in a loaded Western Conference and added a former All-Star for a pair of second-round picks and three players outside of their full-strength rotation.
Tre Mann showed potential but he was never able to bring it together consistently and was immediately passed by rookie Cason Wallace in the rotation this season. Vasilije Micic was instantly beloved by Thunder fans, but ultimately he was averaging 3.3 points, 2.5 assists and shooting 40.7 percent from the field and 24.4 percent from 3-point range. He wasn't factoring into the playoff rotation.
The Thunder will have at least one other first-round draft pick coming in this summer, likely a lottery pick, and they will want to be active in free agency and on the trade market (more on that in a moment). They didn't have room to develop Mann any further, and Micic wasn't going to factor on the team now or moving forward. This was an incredibly inexpensive cost for a player who has a lot of upside balancing out his injury-risk downside.
A
Evaluating the future opportunities
The Oklahoma City Thunder entered Trade Deadline week expecting to have a solid amount of cap space next summer. They then proceeded to move off of $7.23 million of Micic's salary, $5.25 million of Davis Bertans' salary and $4.9 million of Tre Mann's salary. Add it all up, and the Thunder cleared $17.38 million off of the books ahead of this offseason.
Gordon Hayward is on an expiring deal, giving the Thunder a ton of flexibility for this summer. They could easily operate with $35 million in cap space, allowing them to add multiple rotation players or take a big swing at a near-max star; they would also be a minor move away from opening up enough space to sign a max free agent or be in position to execute a sign-and-trade.
They also have the option of bringing Hayward back if he does turn out to be a great fit. He will surely command a much lower salary than this year's $31.5 million. Would he return for a two-year, $30 million deal with the second year partially-guaranteed?
There's one final door that the Thunder could open, and that's using him as a sign-and-trade salary chip to bring in another player. Two years ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers re-signed Collin Sexton to a new contract that allowed him to serve as matching salary in the Donovan Mitchell deal. The Thunder could do the same, using cap space to sign other players and then using Hayward in a deal. It's a less likely path to take, but it's part of the greater flexibility moving forward they now have by moving off of the salaries of Mann, Micic and Bertans.
That future flexibility should be weighed against the value of those three players to the Thunder. Bertans was not playing and around simply to facillitate a trade. Tre Mann could take a step forward, but to this point was nothing more than a longshot to be a rotation player on a good team. Micic is a steady hand as a backup point guard, but the Thunder already have better options in-house.
The Thunder gave up shockingly little future value (the two second-round picks need to be mentioned, but the Thunder had 21 to work with this week and a stocked roster, so their value to OKC was low). In return, they got an inside track on re-signing a veteran contributor or singificantly more cap space this summer. That was an excellent tradeoff.
Grade: A
Final Grade
The Thunder got a player who can help now and is a great fit in their rotation. They did so by giving up paltry draft assets and three players outside of their rotation. In the process, they opened up another $17 million in cap space next summer to have even more flexibility to add to the team, potentially with a star-level swing.
Was there another trade that would have been better? Perhaps, but it's not clear what that deal would have been. This was about as good of a deadline as they could have had.
Grade: A