10 best NBA front offices
By John Buhler
149. . West. Northwest. Oklahoma City Thunder. 4. player
In eight short years, the team in the smallest market in the NBA with the Oklahoma City Thunder have emerged as one of the league’s top flight organizations. Yes, losing superstar Kevin Durant to rival Golden State in 2016 NBA free agency stinks, but the Thunder are about as well run of a small market basketball organization as anybody in the NBA, outside of one team in Texas.
Though majority owner Clay Bennett and coaches Scott Brooks and Billy Donovan have been key to the Thunder’s overall success since leaving Seattle after the 2007-08 NBA season, without outstanding general manager Sam Presti, what are the Thunder?
Presti has done remarkable work in NBA Drafts, selecting players like Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Serge Ibaka, and Steven Adams with first round picks. Given that Oklahoma City shouldn’t normally be a marquee free agent destination because of market size, the Thunder have to win every NBA Draft, instill a culture of player development to second-tier free agents, and orchestrate the occasional lopsided trade.
Presti is the Thunder’s front office maestro. He is cut from the cloth of the San Antonio Spurs and knows exactly what it takes to make a small market team one of the most competitive in all of basketball.
A few examples of Presti’s brilliance is reaching for Westbrook at No. 4 in the 2008 NBA Draft, trading Harden to the Houston Rockets before he walked in free agency, using one of the picks Oklahoma City received in the Harden trade on Adams, and most recently trading Ibaka to the Orlando Magic for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova, and the draft rights to Domantas Sabonis.
If Westbrook has no inclination to re-sign with the Thunder in 2017 NBA free agency, Presti will wisely be proactive and trade his star point guard to the highest bidder. Oklahoma City is rapidly building a small market basketball culture similar to that of San Antonio.
It’ll take a bit longer to achieve that kind of credibility among the NBA elite, but through eight years, it’s hard to criticize all that Presti has done to make the Thunder one of the best teams in the NBA.
Next: 3. Golden State Warriors.