The Oklahoma City Thunder are NBA champions, and they haven't looked anywhere close to content with simply holding that accomplishment and resting on their laurels. Perhaps one of the most intelligent and forward-thinking moves Sam Presti continues to make as General Manager of this team is retaining his draft picks and continuing to bring young talent into the locker room.
We all know what the outside view of the Thunder from fans of other NBA teams is. The general consensus is that Presti is a genius, and his ability to stack draft picks is unrivaled around the league. And frankly, I think just about every Thunder fan would agree with that assessment.
But saying that Presti's tactic of obtaining picks accurately represents the totality of why he's great at his job sells him short in my opinion. It's one thing to be able to get a whole lot of draft picks in your possession, and it's another to be able to use them in a way that maximizes your team's achievement.
Plenty of GMs have stacked up draft capital only to blow it on a blockbuster trade that ended up being a net negative and putting the team in an unfavorable position long-term. But that's not been the case with Presti at all.
Presti is using the Thunder's picks extremely wisely
Most of what Presti has done with the Thunder's insane collection of picks has involved a conservative approach. Rather than pushing all his chips to the center of the table and trying to get some sort of big roster upgrade, he's instead relied more on his scouting department to use those picks properly and select talented players in the draft.
This approach is twofold. It works in one way because Oklahoma City's scouts have proven themselves to be among the best in the association. The rest of the front office has righteous confidence in them to bring in good players.
But the second way it works is by keeping the Thunder's roster stacked with contracts that are affordable and won't bog down the team's payroll over time. This is quite a hack to get around the first and second tax aprons and essentially keep OKC's window open longer.
So by taking an approach that most other GMs wouldn't, Sam Presti is helping the Thunder build what could amount to a dynasty in due time. Oklahoma City is going to continue to thrive in part because of the master strategist they have at the helm.