It took the Oklahoma City Thunder three drafts to accumulate the core that propelled them to the 2012 NBA Finals and four Conference Finals in six seasons. Three drafts, countless years of scouting, unknowable hours of coaching and loads of extension money. Yet in one summer, it appears they have found proper replacements for their departed core.
The transition began three seasons ago, when the Thunder traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets ahead of the Halloween rookie extension deadline, which seems to act as a decision deadline for Sam Presti. It continued two seasons ago, when Oklahoma City shipped Reggie Jackson out at the trade deadline. And it ended this summer, when a Serge Ibaka draft night deal, and the loss of Kevin Durant in free agency, sealed the envelope of a wild seven season run.
In return for their summer losses, Oklahoma City nabbed Victor Oladipo, Domantas Sabonis, and Joffrey Lauvergne. Holdovers from the last band include Andre Roberson, Steven Adams, Enes Kanter, and some guy named Russell.
As this year’s apparently-important Halloween extension deadline approached, the Thunder had been rumored to be discussing contract extensions for all three of their eligible players — Roberson, Adams, and Oladipo. However, as the dust cleared Monday night, only Oladipo and Adams emerged with fresh deals. The dynamite combo guard out of Indiana will earn $84 million over the next four seasons, while the mustachioed Kiwi will get $100 million over that same time frame.
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While Adams is certainly a no-brainer as a dominant rim protector, rebounder, and developing offensive player, Victor Oladipo is far from a finished product. Presti just inked him to a contract greater than that of LaMarcus Aldridge, Draymond Green, and even the guy the Thunder shooed away in Reggie Jackson. While that may speak to a larger point about the value of guards in the modern NBA and the new financial climate, it is also startling for a player who has yet to approach 50 percent from the field in any season, or develop a league-average three-point shot.
And why not lock up Roberson? For a team that has long valued in-house development over flashy player acquisition, this rings odd. This summer has been a sea of change for the Thunder, and the odd man out in this bonanza is clearly Roberson, who flashed a reliable three-pointer and held down the fort against a battering ram of Western Conference opponents last May. Like Danny Green or Klay Thompson, there were times where you felt the spacing and length afforded to the Thunder by Roberson’s presence were a defining factor for the team’s success. Those Deathbeater lineups that went punch for punch with Golden State don’t exist without Roberson.
Of course, the cap implications were a dominant force for extension negotiations this fall. Rumors surrounding the NBA and NBAPA’s looming Collective Bargaining Agreement have rookie cap holds rising to 300 or 400 percent of the rooks’ current deals, compared to the 200 or 250 percent chunk they’ve represented in years past. You might remember this scenario from the Spurs “negotiations” with Kawhi Leonard, who skipped the opportunity for security two Halloweens ago and last July to allow the Spurs to finagle their way into enough room to retain their guys and sign LaMarcus Aldridge.
That sort of strategy will be made less practical if rookie cap holds were to become more representative of the contracts such players were set to earn. This idea loomed large on Monday, and was probably a big reason the Thunder looked to lock up their guys. Don’t think of these deals as necessarily representative of OKC’s long-term roster plans, but more as sound business decisions. Young players are assets as much as they are pick-and-rollers or spot-up shooters.
Oklahoma City decision-makers deemed Oladipo and Adams worth the financial obligation and potential long-term promise. On the contrary, perhaps they worried less that Roberson would be snatched away in free agency, content instead to retain matching rights when his contract expires the season after next. All are assets, in their own way.
And as far as assets go, the Thunder did themselves another favor by adding Jerami Grant out of Syracuse by way of the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday afternoon. He’s another guy who fits the mold of this new-look Thunder roster — long, switchy, and with a jumper that operates more as an idea than a reality.
Their means for acquiring Grant similarly fits a trend that we’ve seen from the Oklahoma City front office before; by going all-in on youngsters with upside, still on their first or second contracts, the need to stockpile first-rounders is lessened. The team understands this, and decided that adding Grant to a core — one that includes Alex Abrines, Josh Huestis, and Cameron Payne, in addition to the more starry names mentioned above — made more sense than betting on a draft pick in the twenties.
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In writing about the Thunder over the summer, I worried about the morass of mid-tier development projects on the roster, and the possibility that Russell Westbrook’s trajectory no longer fit the makeup overall. Those fears still remain, to some degree, but in doubling down on the asset-collection and betting that if he throws enough darts, a few of them will hit, Sam Presti has given himself the flexibility to build a winner, with or without Russ, right now or far in the future.