Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even Sam Presti.
While so many of his draft picks have hit that it seems like Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder never miss, the reality is that his high-upside home run swings sometimes result in foul balls. The most prominent such miss in recent years was drafting Ousmane Dieng. Unfortunately for Presti, the pain of his failure is still haunting him as another draft pick is used by another team.
Sam Presti whiffed drafting Ousmane Dieng
Dieng was an intriguing mystery box player from France, a 6'9" forward with incredible length and a skill set that suggested he could put everything together as a massive point forward. Names like Giannis Antetokounmpo were tossed around. The hype around Dieng was real, even if the downside was talked about regularly by draft analysts.
The Thunder couldn't help themselves on draft night in 2022. Already armed with the No. 2 pick and the No. 12 pick, which they used on future All-NBA players Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, respectively, they made a trade with the New York Knicks to add the No. 11 pick and take Dieng, one spot ahead of where they would draft Jalen Williams.
Dieng didn't pan out with the Thunder, averaging 4.2 points per game in 136 games with OKC over four seasons. They had to attach a second-round draft pick to him to dump his salary at February's trade deadline. He finished the season with the Milwaukee Bucks.
While Dieng is long gone, the opportunity cost for taking him still hangs over the Thunder. There is, first of all, the reality that players such as Jalen Duren, Tari Eason and Walker Kessler were still on the board when they chose Dieng.
The Thunder paid a steep price for their mistake
Worse, though, is that the Thunder did not merely waste a pick on Dieng; they traded three first-round picks to buy the pick from the New York Knicks. It was an expensive swing that merely clipped the ball back into the net.
Those picks had some protection on them and have been split up over the last few years. Those picks have turned into current Lakers guard Nick Smith Jr. (27th pick in 2023), Timberwolves center Joan Beringer (17th pick in 2025) and two Washington Wizards second-round picks, one of which was the 31st pick in this year's draft.
The very first pick of the second round was supposed to belong to the Thunder, a pick that has increased in value until many draft analysts would suggest that it is more valuable than the last few picks of the first round. Second-round picks are less expensive, an important facotr in the two-apron era, and the 31st in particular generates a lot of trade interest with the league's new two-day draft format.
While the Knicks held onto that 31st pick for a long time, they traded it on draft night Wednesday to the Houston Rockets, who moved up to take Ohio State scoring guard Bruce Thornton. Other players such as Isaiah Evans, Meleek Thomas and Richie Saunders were also sitting on the board.
The Thunder are deep and extremely talented; they didn't necessarily need this second-round pick. But it was an asset that Sam Presti could have woven into gold, except that they no longer owned it.
All because of one of Presti's rare misses. It happens to everyone, and he remains the league's best basketball decision-maker. But Ousmane Dieng hangs over him as one of his failures, and he is still being reminded of it even today.
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