Oklahoma City Thunder: Sam Presti has a long road ahead as the rebuild begins

Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder have a long road ahead of them, and plenty of work to do, as the rebuild officially begins

The Oklahoma City Thunder are in a bit of a weird spot, something unusual for this city in terms of its expectations for their team. Since relocating from Seattle and transitioning from the Sonics to the Thunder, they have always had at least one super star-caliber player to admire and galvanize the small-market fan base.

That changes as of this offseason.

Though it has undergone several fluctuations and had different faces play that role throughout the last 10 years, it’s at this point where there’s none to fill that void.

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Wait, stop right there. Don’t continue reading and tell me Chris Paul is a superstar at this point of his career. CP3 has always been a star and probably even borderline superstar at times, but not quite on the level of guys who we know are solidly in that position. On top of that, he’s aging and just got traded to a team that will likely tank and deal him again, so let’s put that one to rest.

The Thunder have been blessed with an abundance of talent within the last 10 years as a franchise. Almost all of these pieces have come through the draft, which is incredible and increasingly rare as we see the freeing up and liberating of player movement lately.

Sam Presti gets a lot of hate for some of the decisions that have led to the departure of some of, and now all, of these star-caliber players, but we can’t overlook the fact that he’s also brought them in too.

Beginning with the James Harden trade, it would surely be naïve to assume the financial aspect of that decision wasn’t influenced by the team owner and the one who cuts the checks…do we really think Sam didn’t see what James could become in light of all the other talent evaluation he’s hit on? It’s surely possible, and maybe they did see him as just an inflated sixth man, but it seems like a rather unlikely case.

Losing Kevin Durant, what could be done about that? Kevin is his own man and made his own choice, whether we agree with the reasons or not. There’s no coercing a grown man to be on your team, specifically one of this caliber. They quickly called an audible after this in acquiring Victor Oladipo, who wasn’t exactly a great fit next to Westbrook but they knew scoring was needed, and the end result was even better.

Sure you gave up Serge Ibaka, but losing him to acquire a guy you expected 20 points per game from and a good prospect in Domantas Sabonis isn’t exactly anything to scoff at. Ultimately, they managed to turn those same two assets into the ones that landed them Paul George, who is probably the closest thing you can get to a KD replacement aside from maybe Kawhi Leonard or LeBron James.

Retaining a guy like Westbrook who had become a fan favorite due to his loyalty and perceived disgust of KD, along with bringing in another all-around superstar in PG13 legitimately sparked a new hope in the franchise. I think anyone looking objectively could see that hey, this team probably won’t ever beat Houston or Golden State to get to the finals. However, that didn’t matter. What was important was that the fans felt like they had a shot, and so did the team.

After much optimism and even undeterred after an unsuccessful playoff attempt against the newly successful Jazz last year, they returned to make amends this season. For much of the year the Thunder contended for top 3-4 seeding in the West, but then…things went awry a bit as they always do over the course of an NBA season. PG had his shoulder issues, the defense struggled, Roberson never returned, and they ended up as the 6th seed.

This put them in position to face the Blazers in the first round, which was, well…a very humbling playoff series to say the least. The Trail Blazers we’re simply playing with confidence and cohesion while OKC had two lone scorers that couldn’t consistently hit. The round ended with one of the more iconic moments of the playoffs and probably Blazers’ fans recent memory, Dame’s 40-foot dagger.

It seemed as if they were content to run it back again even after seemingly having tried everything with this current roster. Apparently though at some point during the off-season PG got in contact with Kawhi and well…we know the rest. With Paul requesting a trade it’s never a great idea to retain a player that isn’t all in, you can’t force loyalty. At this point, the Thunder realized they could get a haul in return for a player like this, as well as Russ considering there’d be no point in keeping him. After completing the PG13 deal and coming to grips with the fact that they’ve no valid trade options to put anyone alongside a Westbrook who is recently on the wrong side of 30, they decided it was time to let go.

So, after bringing in a slew of draft picks as well as one prospect in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder set out on a new course. It’s unclear at this point whether they intend to trade Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, Steven Adams, Dennis Schroder, or anyone else. It’s possible they roll out a lineup of CP3, SGA, Andre Roberson, Gallinari, and Adams in an attempt to “play hard” and appease the loyal attendees. We all know though that this team would be good for roughly maybe…25-35 wins, top-end if Chris stayed healthy.

In all likelihood, they will take a more patient approach to find these guys better homes and may even elect to keep some (like Adams) for the next iteration of the team. I could easily see them taking a Grizzlies like approach as far as being in no rush to let go, considering they’ve acquired assets aplenty through their recent relinquishing.

In the end, I still see Presti as a very competent GM who will utilize the tradable players and picks that they have to bring in the new generation of talent, and it will be some years before they return to their former glory, but intuition tells us they’ll return.