Although the Oklahoma City Thunder were forced to tear it down, they pivoted with excellence. Here’s a grade for every move they made.
How proactive the Oklahoma City Thunder are. In a matter of days, they went from a playoff contender to having the best asset collection in the business.
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Without much ability to truly prepare, general manager Sam Presti and his cohorts were able to rebuild on the fly, generating leverage for Paul George in a way no one saw coming.
This opened the floodgates for a Russell Westbrook deal as well, which the Thunder also made out well on. Ditto for the Jerami Grant deal.
Before you could even say “James Harden should have won MVP in 2017,” OKC came out of free agency having 15 total draft picks (their own included) over the next seven years.
Although the franchise no longer have their longest-tenured player in history, they have one hell of a future to move forward with.
Despite being put in a tight spot, the front office found a way to make lemonade out of lemons. Here’s a breakdown of every move, draft pick and signing, and how the team did overall in biting the bullet.