Like pretty much any city that has lost its Big Four sports team in, conservatively, the last fifty years, Seattle did not deserve to lose the Seattle SuperSonics. But while several relocated teams went to cities which seemed apathetic to their presence, the same cannot be said for Oklahoma City. Despite its relative lack of size—of the current NBA markets, only Memphis is smaller by primary statistical area—Oklahoma City enthusiastically supported the displaced New Orleans Hornets in the 2005-06 season and carried forward that devotion into the era of the Thunder. In a just world, both Seattle and Oklahoma City would have NBA teams. I understand why Seattleites would root against the Thunder; I do not, for the life of me, understand why otherwise neutral fans hold the sins of Howard Schultz against this lovely one-sport city.
That said, while Seattle didn’t deserve what happened to them, you can easily argue Oklahoma City didn’t deserve the windfall that came to them. A year before they moved to Oklahoma City, the Sonics drafted future inner-circle Hall of Famer Kevin Durant. In 2008, shortly before the Thunder came into existence, the then-technically-still-Sonics drafted future maybe-not-inner-but-certainly-still-in Hall of Famer Russell Westbrook. But sandwiched between those two selections came a lesser-known acquisition that paid dividends, and continues to pay dividends, for the Oklahoma City Thunder—the acquisition of Kurt Thomas.
Kurt Thomas, who last played in an NBA game ten years ago yesterday, never wore an Oklahoma City Thunder jersey. In fact, he only played in 42 total games for the Seattle SuperSonics. But what he was on July 20, 2007 was overpaid. God bless him and anyone who can reach this stage in life, of course, but his employer, the Phoenix Suns, didn’t want to pay him, and they were willing to give up actual assets to avoid doing so. Although the Suns did receive a 2009 second-round draft pick in sending Thomas to the Sonics, the real meat of the trade was the two first round picks they were gifting Seattle to take Thomas off their hands.
Of note, the Phoenix Suns were a good team at this point, which means two things—one, trying to clear out cap space in order to improve in the short term was defensible, and two, they expected the first round picks to be relatively late. They were right—the 2008 first-rounder that the eventual Thunder received was #24 and the 2010 first-round pick was #26. The #26 pick was used on Quincy Pondexter, who more or less had the expected NBA career of a 26th overall pick—48 career starts, a decent off-the-bench scorer, the 24thbest player of the draft by Value Over Replacement Player—though he was parlayed by the Thunder into a trade for moderately useless center Cole Aldrich and an aging Morris Peterson who played four total games for Oklahoma City, before he ever played an NBA game.
The #24 pick in 2008, however, was of tremendous value for the Thunder—Serge Ibaka. Today, Ibaka is a deep bench player for the Milwaukee Bucks, but he went on to start 413 games for the Thunder between 2010 and 2016. Although a secondary or perhaps even tertiary scorer, Ibaka was a terrific defensive player, twice leading the NBA in blocks and being named NBA All-Defensive first team in 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14. By VORP, he was the 10th best player in a fairly deep 2008 draft; Basketball Reference gives him a 0.2% chance of making the Hall of Fame, which is 0.2% higher than it gives to Kurt Thomas.
Once Ibaka arrived, the Thunder took off, improving from 23-59 to 50-32. Over the next seven seasons, the Thunder had a winning record in each. In 2015-16, the 55-27 Thunder took the 73-9 Golden State Warriors to the brink of elimination, taking a 3-1 Western Conference Finals lead before the Warriors rattled off a three-game winning streak. Of course, that the Warriors would blow a 3-1 series lead of their own in the next round also had a material impact on the future of the Thunder, as well.
The biggest domino to fall for the 2016-17 Thunder came on July 4, 2016, when Kevin Durant, by far the greatest player in Oklahoma City Thunder history to that point, signed with the Golden State Warriors—plenty could be written about what unfolded over the next three seasons for them, but very little of that concerns the Thunder. But in the lead-up to Durant’s decision, the Thunder shopped Serge Ibaka, who was growing unsatisfied with his secondary role on the team. What they received, for a player who was a year away from free agency, could be described as a haul—the package was headlined by Victor Oladipo, the second overall pick from three years prior who had been something of a disappointment as far as #2 overall picks go but had established himself as a serviceable NBA shooting guard. The Thunder also received Ersan İlyasova, who spent just three games in OKC before he was flipped with a first-round pick for Jerami Grant. The Thunder also acquired the rights to #11 overall draft pick Domantas Sabonis, who spent one season in Oklahoma City before he emerged as a three-time All-Star and the 2022-23 NBA rebounding champion with the Sacramento Kings. But before you start to think of Sabonis as the one that got away for the Thunder, I ask that you table that thought for now.
Despite the nominal rebuilding taking place, 2016-17 Russell Westbrook was simply a maniac—he became the second player in NBA history to average a triple-double over the course of a season, and he didn’t do so cheaply—he scored the most points, tallied the second most assists, and even pulled down the eighth most rebounds in the NBA that season. But even with their star player going out of his mind on his way to an MVP season, the Thunder finished sixth in the Western Conference and bowed out to the Houston Rockets in the first round of the postseason. As much fun as it was to watch Russ be a one-man show, it wasn’t going to produce title-winning basketball. So the Thunder made a blockbuster.
In one of the most shocking trades in recent NBA history, the Oklahoma City Thunder acquired Paul George, a three-time third-team All-NBA player, and didn’t have to flip a single draft pick in the process. On July 6, 2017, the Thunder sent two-thirds of their Serge Ibaka return, Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis, to the Indiana Pacers straight-up for Paul George. At the time, even with George a pending free agent following the season, it seemed like robbery for the Thunder, but to the credit of Oladipo and Sabonis, they both became All-Stars in Indiana—the Pacers did not lose this trade.
But it paid off for the Thunder—Paul George averaged 21.9 points per game in 2017-18 and earned another third-team All-NBA. But it wasn’t until after the season concluded that the Paul George OKC experiment really paid off. George reached free agency, but ultimately he re-signed with the Thunder. And in 2018-19, Paul George reached a whole new level. He averaged a career-high 28.0 PPG, a career-high 8.2 rebounds per game, and led the NBA in steals per game with 2.2. George finished third in MVP voting and cracked his first first-team all-NBA squad. The Thunder won 49 games, but for the third consecutive season, they lost in the first round of the playoffs.
And this is the part of the story where Oklahoma City Thunder Sam Presti has the greatest month in the history of sports executives.
The Thunder found themselves in a common place among modern pro sports teams—they were undeniably a good team, but they probably weren’t a great team, or at least a team capable of winning a title. Unlike in baseball or hockey, where teams regularly sneak deep into the postseason with rosters barely good enough to make the playoffs at all, the best team (or at least a team with a credible argument of being the best team) usually wins the NBA title. The Thunder had two choices—try to find a difference maker who could elevate the Thunder from good to great or start over. Their decision was made for them by a man who has never been employed by the Oklahoma City Thunder—Kawhi Leonard. In 2019, Leonard won his second NBA Finals MVP award; having helped to rejuvenate the San Antonio Spurs at the beginning of his career, he was the missing piece in the first ever title run for the Toronto Raptors. And now he was a free agent, and an extraordinarily coveted one at that.
Kawhi Leonard had his eyes set not on the Oklahoma City Thunder, but the Los Angeles Clippers—the southern California native was largely boxed out from the Lakers, who already employed LeBron James, but the opportunity to win a first title for LA’s secondary NBA team was very much on the table. But despite a very fun Clippers run in 2018-19, where a team led by Danilo Gallinari and Montrezl Harrell somehow won 48 games and took two road games in the postseason against the Kevin Durant-led Warriors, there wasn’t an obvious second banana for Kawhi. So he sought out Paul George.
Paul George was likewise a SoCal kid, but unlike the free agent Leonard, he was very much under an NBA contract. It was a very open secret that George sought a trade to the Clippers, and that Leonard signing there was contingent upon a deal getting done, and Sam Presti knew it. Because of the NBA’s maximum salary, even paying the max to Kawhi Leonard would be a relative bargain, so the Clippers could reasonably afford to overspend conventional wisdom to land Paul George, since the two transactions were linked, but for the Thunder, the Kawhi Leonard signing didn’t matter—this was a chance for a pure victory for the Thunder. And did they ever secure it. The Thunder acquired so much that I feel like I need to switch to bullet points to properly articulate it. Keep in mind that the Thunder only traded Paul George here; no other pieces went to LA. And George has played well in LA—in four seasons, he has made two All-Star Games, notched a third-team All-NBA in 2020-21, but the Clippers still have never made the NBA Finals and, perhaps more damningly, remain a clear #2 to the Lakers in Los Angeles, even though they have unquestionably been a more consistently strong team over the last decade. Much like the Brooklyn Nets, the Clippers have been built to win now and finally emerge from the shadow of the more popular if less successful other NBA team in their city; Leonard and George, guys who thrived in less prestigious NBA markets, trying to become true superstars in Los Angeles was the perfectly logical extension of this. Anyway, the assets the Thunder collected:
· Danilo Gallinari, the Clippers’ best player in 2018-19 by VORP. He spent one successful individual year in Oklahoma City (more on that season later) before being traded for a 2025 second-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks; even if the Hawks implode by then, the second-round pick shouldn’t be a huge deal.
· Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the 11th overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, started 73 games as a Clippers rookie and made second-team All-Rookie, but started to really take off in Oklahoma City. 2022-23 was his best season yet—his 31.4 points per game were fourth in the NBA, as were his 1.6 steals per game. The guard has become one of the most well-rounded players in the league and has an outside chance of making first-team All-NBA (though I think second team is more likely), and he is undisputedly the best player on the current Thunder team. Oh, and he’s also still just 24 years old.
· A 2021 first-round draft pick via the Miami Heat, a pick traded so many times before it arrived in Oklahoma City that Danny Granger was involved in one of the trades. Simple enough—the Thunder selected Tre Mann, who is presently a backup point guard for the Thunder.
· The Clippers’ 2022 first-round pick, which as it turns out was a lottery pick thanks to the Clippers missing the playoffs. With the #12 pick, the Thunder selected Jalen Williams, who started 62 games and averaged 14.1 points per game as a rookie. By both VORP and Win Shares, he was the second-best rookie in 2022-23. He turns 22 in two days.
· A 2023 first-round pick swap, which allows the Thunder the superior pick between that of them or the Clippers. The Clippers made the non-play-in playoffs, so even in the unlikely event this swap gets used, it won’t be a lottery pick. Oh well, worth a shot!
· A 2024 first-round pick from the Clippers. The Clippers have been largely competent, but Kawhi Leonard and Paul George aren’t getting any younger and they’ve traded away anything resembling a future piece in order to accommodate their star duo. The odds are this winds up being a mid-first round pick, but it’s hardly assured.
· A 2025 first-round pick swap with the Clippers. For reasons I will detail later, I think there’s a very real chance the Thunder use this one.
· A 2025 lottery-protected first-round pick from the Miami Heat which converts to an unprotected 2026 first-round pick if unused in 2025. This only becomes a truly spicy pick if the Heat miss the playoffs in both 2025 and 2026, and they aren’t really an organization inclined to do this too often, but even if the Thunder wind up with a mid-first, a useful piece can be grabbed.
· A 2026 first-round pick from the Clippers. George and Leonard will be in their mid-thirties by this point.
The future assets here were obviously tantalizing for the Thunder in the future; it made sense the day the trade was made. But it also, even with Gallinari and Gilgeous-Alexander coming back, made the Thunder worse in 2019-20. Although, unlike with Durant, they got a healthy return, the Thunder found themselves in a similar situation—Russell Westbrook surrounded by question marks. But this time, Sam Presti was proactive, and six days after the Paul George trade, the Thunder sent Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets.
The trade made sense at the time, even if it was far less of an obvious call than the Paul George trade (either of them, really). In exchange for Westbrook, the Thunder received a 2021 top-four protected pick-swap, a top-four protected first-round pick in 2024, a 2025 top twenty protected pick swap, and a top-four protected first-round pick in 2026. But a huge part of the allure for Houston was also salary relief, as they also sent Chris Paul to Oklahoma City. Paul, though a future Hall of Famer and arguably a top-five point guard of all-time, appeared to be on one of the NBA’s worst contracts in 2019.
Ultimately, the Thunder didn’t get anything from the 2021 pick swap—the Rockets landed in the top four—and it’s impossible to know what the future holds for the later picks. But what I do know is that Chris Paul, in 2019-20, turned his career around. He became a considerably more efficient shooter and was named All-NBA (second team) for the first time in four years. In the postseason, ironically, the Thunder faced Russell Westbrook and nearly humiliated their former star, who was fine in Houston but not nearly as good as Chris Paul had become. Suddenly, Chris Paul had become not only not a trade liability, but a legitimate asset. And in the off-season, the Thunder flipped Paul to the Phoenix Suns.
You could make a case that this trade didn’t work out for OKC, and you could certainly make a case they didn’t get as much as they could have had they waited another year. The key piece for the Thunder was a first-round pick that was later used on Peyton Watson, who was traded for a 2027 first-round pick. But you can’t really argue that, broadly, the Chris Paul experiment was not a resounding success for the Thunder—not only did the Thunder acquire a ton of future pieces, but they improved in the short term as well.
Unlike the losses of Ibaka, Durant, George, and Westbrook, the Thunder could not withstand the loss of Chris Paul, a player they almost certainly never wanted in the first place. The 2020-21 Thunder finished 22-50, though on the bright side, if you’re going to be absolutely awful, it’s hard to pick a much better season than during one without fans. They didn’t hit the lottery, in a manner of speaking, only drafting at #6, but they selected Josh Giddey, an Australian wing who averaged 16.6 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 6.2 assists a night in his sophomore 2022-23 campaign—by VORP, he ranks fourth in the 2021 draft class so far. In 2022, however, their lottery luck turned around and the Thunder picked second; although Chet Holmgren missed the entire 2022-23 season, the Thunder still managed to get a legitimate Rookie of the Year campaign via Jalen Williams and, despite constant and largely unfair commentary about their supposedly egregious tanking (I would never claim they didn’t tank a little bit, merely that their recent rebuild was entirely normal by NBA standards, far less insidious than the Trust The Process-era Philadelphia 76ers, for instance), will play postseason basketball tonight.
The three best players on the 2022-23 Oklahoma City Thunder by any advanced metric (or non-advanced metric, really) were Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey, and Jalen Williams. Two of these players were acquired directly via the Paul George trade, and the third was acquired in the immediate aftermath of the rebuild that said trade precipitated. The Thunder probably aren’t going to win the 2022-23 NBA title, but they will have a fresh Chet Holmgren to add to a young core and should surely be a real player in the Western Conference as soon as next year. And it’s all thanks to the Kurt Thomas trade.
