Winning for the Future: The productive rebuild of the Oklahoma City Thunder

The rebuild for the Oklahoma City Thunder is starting off better than expected, but could they really earn a playoff spot in the West?

Being a competitor for a playoff berth this year was probably far from what Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder organization had in mind before the start of the season.

Last season was an act of definite failure and a potent dose of truth serum for the Thunder organization as a whole; their All-Star duo of Russell Westbrook and Paul George wasn’t competent enough playstyle-wise to challenge their opponents in the playoffs as Western Conference competitors.

With Westbrook’s Jekyll and Hyde offensive efficiency numbers and George’s ineptitude to be the lead dog consistently in the clutch, the Thunder cut the cord by trading their two stars for a bevy of productive players and an array of future draft picks to the Houston Rockets and LA Clippers respectively to jumpstart the organization’s basketball future.

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The later of the transaction sequence is what Presti and the Thunder campaigned to their fans last summer on how they were going to address their future as a franchise. The goal was to compete in the present but in essence, still be bad in a loaded Western Conference for probably the next three to four years.

Then, they could stock up on their own lottery picks as well as draft picks the Clippers and Rockets gave to them respectively to remodel and reshape their whole roster. The only dilemma they faced was off-loading their newly acquired players who possessed massive contracts to other teams for even more picks and other young promising players. Two of those three acquired players who possessed lucrative and stringent deals were Danilo Gallinari and Chris Paul.

Gallinari came to the Thunder with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from the Clippers who mortgaged one of their leading scorers on the team and their promising lottery draft pick to OKC for Paul George. Oklahoma City was gifted the great reward of five future first-round draft picks in the deal, but Gallinari’s contract was a major issue they realized they’d have to off-load.

The same situation arose when the Thunder swapped point guards with the Rockets to get an aging but talented Chris Paul and his contract. The benefit from that deal was being given two more first-round picks, but the fact still remained. Oklahoma City couldn’t truly begin their rebuild until their two talented and aging players they received from two separate deals were off their books for the foreseeable future.

Gallinari only has around $22 million left on his three-year deal that the Clippers signed him to for $64 million dollars. The feeling from other teams around the league is that they could get Gallinari’s services at 32 years of age when he can be placed on a way cheaper deal next year as a free agent.

Paul’s contract at 34 years of age is way more daunting the next three years increasing at price ranges of $41 to $44 million dollars the next two years compounding on the $38 million he’s making this year. While Paul is a Hall of Famer and is playing at a productive level currently this year, the fall from grace is imminent with due time and probably not worth the risk of any team investing in his payroll in the near future.

These dilemmas have left Presti to basically hold his self-dealt cards in tack and wait for a trade opening to formulate itself on the NBA black-market. For now, OKC as a team and coaching staff are left to do the two things that they’re being paid to do; coach to compete and coach to win games.

OKC heads into the new year as the seventh-best team in the daunting Western conference at 19-15. They’ve won eight of their last 10 games and have a 4.5 game lead on the San Antonio Spurs who are the 8th seed with a sub .500 record of 14-19. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is having a breakout season that Clippers executive Jerry West envisioned his career of being when he was just an unsung rookie on the Clippers playoff squad a year ago.

SGA leads the team in scoring (19.8) while shooting 45.5 percent from the field and 35 percent from the 3-point line. His former Clipper teammate Danilo Gallinari is also playing at a productive level averaging 18 points, five rebounds and two assists while having a 3-point shooting percentage that’s just peaking towards 40 percent.

However, the team is being driven by their guard play in general and the triple backcourt option of Shai, Paul, and sixth man Dennis Schroder has won them quite a few matchups this season. Schroder is second on the team with points (18.4) assists (3.7) and shooting an above-average league percentage from 3 (34.3) doing so off the bench being a spark plug for the Thunder’s second unit. Then, there is Paul being the floor general he is the opposite of Gilgeous-Alexander leading the team in assists (6.5) and is the team’s fourth-leading scorer (16.6).

The team as a whole isn’t the most analytically driven considering their rankings statistically are in the upper to mid-20s in many offensive and defensive categories. Yet, OKC lead by head coach Billy Donovan, who’s been given flak by the media alike in the past for being a porous coach with All-Star talent, is treading water and making noise as a team in the West. The benefits from it have been the players on the roster forming a bond and kinship with each other. Such is the case with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who commented to The Undefeated on the importance Paul has to him on the roster.

"“He’s been great. He’s like a big brother,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He is teaching me things every day. Always talking and trying to help too.”"

Oklahoma City still has a window to rid of their players with tumultuous contracts before the trade deadline in mid-February. Yet, for now, Sam Presti and OKC have a chance to enjoy a competitive and winning brand of basketball before them encrypting a winning culture that can continue to be their organizational identity in the near future.