How to upgrade the Thunder short term and long term?

 Strange as it sounds, part of me thinks for the longterm health of that team, it would’ve made sense to sell Westbrook off to Boston for those Brooklyn picks and maybe a youngster like Brown/Smart. 

Rebuild the thing from the ground up. Bottom out in a year where the draft looks stacked, the PG class looks stacked and you can forcefeed young guys minutes. 

This Thunder team is at its ceiling. Westbrook isn’t going to do more than what he’s doing. And his style of play marginilizes a second potential star because he needs the ball in his hands at all times. Its why KD left. His style of play is incredibly entertaining from a micro perspective but big-picture, he won’t win a title because his style of play puts it all on his shoulders. 

Now the other part of me thinks if you are employed by OKC, you are okay with this. The Thunder will win enough games to get to the playoffs and in a market like that where everything isn’t blown out of proportion, maybe that’s good enough. You just want to keep a job and this core of players is good enough for guys to stay employed. It isn’t winning a title. But that could be said about 27 other NBA orgs right now too so might as well just be okay with a good regular season and a playoff exit. 

 I follow the Thunder heavily, being that I am an OKC native, and Sam Presti stated that he ideally wants to move Roberson back to SG, but most importantly, bring Victor off of the bench as the 6th man.

As for what I’ve observed, the Thunder are lacking 2 things:

Scoring in general, and an athletic big/rim protector

From where they are projected to pick in the draft, I believe players like Luke Kennard, Miles Bridges, Justin Jackson (3-D), and Dwayne Bacon could add that scoring punch, but ideally, Presti is looking for somebody to start in order to bring Victor off the bench and I don’t know if anybody but Miles Bridges could be inserted in the starting line-up right away. I haven’t seen enough of Terrence Ferguson or Rodion Kurucs to consider either one of them just yet.

A couple of bigs I wouldn’t be upset with would be Justin Patton or Isaish Hartensein, if they fell to the Thunder. They both have great upside and are athletic enough to protect the rim and create their own shot. I believe both will be better defenders than Joffrey and Enes, too. 

Wow, that’s the first time I’ve been name dropped on here. Appreciate that man

As much as I love Russ, I’m not so biased to think we can win a championship with this roster, or that other stars would choose to play with him. Unfortunately, with us being the smallest market team in the league (correct me if I’m wrong on that), our only chance of landing stars is via trade or through the draft. I don’t think we have the pieces to land a Paul George or someone like that, so I don’t see us being legit contenders until we land a big star in the draft, but at the same time we won’t be getting top 5 picks until Westbrook is gone (or pulls a David Robinson and doesn’t play one year). I really would like to keep Dipo, Sabonis, Adams, Kanter (on a smaller contract preferably), Abrines, and Payne, because they’re all young and have a lot of development left. I like Roberson a whole lot on defense, hustle plays, and cutting, but nothing else. He’s a free agent this summer and I hope we don’t overspend for him because I think Huestis has potential to be him on defense and better on offense.

It is a very weird spot to be in, though. Gotta reward Russ for his loyalty and sticking with us, but at the same time we’ll never be a contender with him as our best player. I’d love to be proven wrong, but that’s just how I see it as of now

The only thing I know for certain is that we’ll probably end up with a pick in the late teens this summer, and I’d prefer to pick up a shooting wing like Bacon or Kennard. Watching us try to hit 3s is really sad. Also sorry if this post is super disjointed and confusing, I’m doing like 4 different things as I type this

Did I just read right ? Adams is signed up till 20-21 for $27.5 mill.

Unfort the thunder are like the pistons and hawks, maxed out salary, just good enough to make the playoffs but not really do much more – then not really have any high draft picks.

Westbrook turns 29 this year. With the way he plays and total mins, I cannot see him staying injury free long term…

 This team will have a hard time getting back to an elite level, and I’m not saying that because I dislike them, but if you look at this organization from a players perspective, it’s cooked. 

You got amazingly lucky, draft 3 MVP caliber players and future HOF’ers, and another all-star. three of those guys are gone now. 

Your team traded James Harden because you couldn’t pay him because the owners didn’t want to dip too deep into the tax, sat Jackson on the bench, and then traded him because the dude simply wanted the same thing Harden wanted (To get his shot to prove that he could play and start, and of course to be paid what he’s worth)

You let Kevin Martin, the guy you traded James Harden for, walk for nothing. Never gave Jeremy Lamb a legit chance to prove that he could play, and lost him too.

If I’m a max level free agent or even if I’m a really good player, why in the hell would I even take OKC’s phone call?

If I’m a rookie, do you really think I want to go to OKC? 

I love Westbrook like most people, but he’s this generations allen Iverson, and if they aren’t going to trade him, than they need to build a team around him similar to those easrly 2000 76’ers. The problem with that though is that all their good young talent has left, they aren’t trading adams, and who in the world is going to do them the favor of taking Kanter and Olidipo? 

I think they could still make things interesting, but they need to get rid of RoBo, and go all in defensively. I think they should look to make trades like: 

OKC- Avery Bradley

BOS- Nerlen Noel

PHI- Olidipo

Three team trades where they can get players who are solid, and would play well with Westbrook. Bringing in a player like Avery Bradley or even a guy like Wilson Chandler would make them a much better team than they are right now. 

OKC is currently in the dreaded no mans land right now, not good enough to be a legit contender but not bad enough for a high quality draft pick.

Let’s be honest here, Presti is quite possibly the best GM when it comes to drafting, but he’s also probably the worst when it comes to trading and/or resigning players. OKC has very little money to spend in free agency coming up but frankly no good player is going to want to play in Oklahoma or alongside Westbrook. The best we could hope for is a few solid role players with a team-first type of mentality; even then I don’t think that puts OKC over the hump.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think the smartest move is to blow it up and get rid of Westbrook for some young players and some draft picks (especially since the draft is Presti’s specality). That being said I highly doubt this will happen, the casual OKC fan will be absolutely pissed if they got rid of Westbrook after he’s been the only shining light for the Thunder especially after KD bailed. Presti seems to be the type of guy to be swayed by the general fanbase and this is why he rarely attempts to shake things up until his hand is forced.

So this leaves us with the only option being minor trades. As most of you have mentioned the OKC bench is atrocious, quite possibly the most embarassing bench in the league. When Westbrook is out there just simply is no progression on offense other than Kanter and he’s injured and inept on the defensive end.

Abrines has shown some promise, he may have some trade value but I think at this point he should be kept. Christon is garbage and only made the team because Payne was injured during training camp. Speaking of Payne he’s not much better, but he’s probably the biggest wild card of potential which means he has the most trade value. Grant was a decet pick up and I think he should be kept for now. Huestis hasn’t shown much promise, but if Roberson leaves during free agency (hopefully) he can step right in and basicaly fill the void as if Roberson was still there. Lauvergne is better than I expected but I don’t necessarily think he’s a keeper. Morrow is 31 now and at this point has almost zero trade value. Let’s not even talk about Singler. No one wants Kanter and his contract so pretty much stuck with him.

So the only true trade bait is Lauvergne, Oladipo, Payne and Sabonis. I think a package with 3 or all 4 of those could get you something decent in return, but will it be enough? I just don’t know. I’m sure Presti will attempt to unload Kanter as well I just doubt anyone pulls the trigger on him.

Overall, most likely OKC won’t blow it up, they will make a small trade or two and will remain in the dreaded no mans land of mediocrity.

 What a shtshow … I don’t buy the idea that you can’t surround Westbrook with a winning team , but you need a plan and then you need to put it together. Right now OKC is just a bunch of mismatched parts.

I think you can actually win and win big with Westbrook two different ways:

A) Surround him with a 2000 PHI Allen Iverson type team, defensive stoppers, muck up the game and make it a grind and turn him loose at the offensive end. Problem is, OKC has this half aszed. You on the one hand have Roberson and Adams, on the other hand you have Kanter and Sabonis.

B) You surround him with great shooters and play run and gun basketball, spread the floor and use him like Houston is using Harden. Problem with OKC right now is nobody gives a hoot about any of their shooters. Teams are packing the paint and hoping Roberson chucks a 3. Find a catch and shoot stretch 4, a 3 that can make a shot and SG that can shoot from the outside and all of a sudden things open up.

However, if you pair Russ with other guys who need to dribble the ball 19 times before they do something with it, it’s not going to work out. 

I love Sabonis — three years from now. But right now, today, he just runs up and down the court.  Doesn’t rebound and is shooting 40 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3.

As currently constructed, OKC doesn’t have the ability to do much of anything except play out the string because they don’t have an identity. They need to decide on a style of play, then find guys that can make it happen.