The Oklahoma City Thunder are poised to make another classic Sam Presti trade in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Last season may have ended a game shy of the NBA Finals, but the Thunder still had the best record in the league and enter the offseason as the favorites to win the championship next season. They have the league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, All-NBA players in Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, a budding star in Ajay Mitchell and defensive wrecking balls in Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace and Isaiah Hartenstein.
In classic Thunder fashion, they also have two strong first-round picks to further add to the roster. The team with the best record should not be picking at No. 12 and No. 17, but that's where OKC is after years of savvy trades.
Sam Presti has options
Will the Thunder draft two more players to add to their roster? On the one hand, drafting talented players gives the team cost-controlled options to fill in and replace more expensive veteran role players. On the other hand, the Thunder have a packed rotation right now and are trying to find a way to offload salary and avoid an historic tax bill and the second apron team-building penalties that accompany it.
How Presti has operated in the past has been to take current assets, be they players or draft picks, and flip them for long-term assets. Other NBA franchises are impatient and take the less valuable asset in the present, while the Thunder play the long game. Even with a true contender in the present, Presti is keeping a level head.
That makes a trade out of the first round just as possible as a trade up, with Oklahoma City likely canvassing the league for teams who want to trade in at No. 12 or No. 17 and offering to flip that pick for a future one.
Our very own Christopher Kline proposed such a trade in a recent mock draft, with the Chicago Bulls trading an unprotected 2030 first-round pick to the Thunder in exchange for the No. 12 pick.
The Thunder do it again
Why would the Thunder do that? For three reasons. First of all, trading the No. 12 pick for a future pick alleviates the pressure of finding room for that player on the roster and on the cap sheet. The No. 12 pick will likely make around $4.6 million this season, more than a veteran minimum. They also would need one of the team's 15 roster spots.
Would the Thunder rather draft a player at No. 12 and begin developing them, or would they like to decline Kenrich Williams' team option and bring him back at the veteran minimum? This trade would let the Thunder do the latter.
Secondly, it gives Presti more flexibility to trade that asset down the line. He has to make a decision on No. 12 on the night of the draft, and at that point, the pick becomes less valuable as it is converted into a specific player whom teams may or may not like. Turning that pick into a future asset preserves the ability for Presti to include it in a trade down the line.
Finally, this move has more upside. It is very possible that a Bulls team built around Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Caleb Wilson and Keaton Wagler (the latter two being the players Chicago drafts in Kline's mock draft) is a perennial playoff team in four years and the pick coming back to the Thunder is worse than No. 12.
It is also very possible that the Bulls miss the playoffs, or even make the playoffs out of the Play-In Tournament, and their pick leaps up in the lottery and delivers a Top 4 pick to the Thunder. It's not necessarily likely at this point in time, but the upside is there. Presti would almost always rather have a small upside at another franchise player than a confirmed good-not-great pick.
Is this trade a blockbuster home run? Perhaps not; to many, it may seem to be boring trade arbitrage. For Sam Presti, however, it would be another win-win move for the king of such deals. And it could set the Thunder up for years to come.
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