I hate all of this intentional losing and my competitive heart is not into tanking. But here’s the thing, the Thunder have to tank because outside of drafting in the top five spots of the lottery Sam Presti hasn’t been anything special with the exception of drafting Serge Ibaka late in a first round.
The college market writers here in Trumpland would never write this, but it’s true and last night’s box score bears out what I write this morning.
In last night’s game the five leading scorers for the Thunder were all acquired via the trade route. SGA had 22 points, Big Gallo had 17 points, Dennis Schroder scored 22 points, CP3 had fifteen points, and Nerlen on an outlier night notched 15 points.
Let’s look at what Sam Presti drafted players did last night scoring the ball. Steven Adams had 6 points, Diallo had 9 points, Darius Bazley scored 3 points, and for the third time in four games Terrance Ferguson did not score a single point. Andre Roberson was a DNP and as we all know he struggles scoring the ball as well.
I know the college market bloggers are enamored with what Presti did this summer in acquiring fifteen first round draft picks, but the hard core truth is Sam Presti needs a top five pick based on his history in Oklahoma City unless you think Reggie Jackson and Serge Ibaka were franchise game changers.
Alex Abrines was a bust. Mitch McGary was an even bigger bust. Josh Huestis was an experiment to show the rest of the league the Thunder don’t believe in shooting and I ‘think’ Cameron Payne is currently on an NBA roster as I blog this morning.
The Thunder don’t need massive amounts of late first round draft picks. They need four or five players around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who can actually play basketball and shoot the ball.
Visualize in your own mind how ugly this would be right now without Big Gallo, CP3, and Dennis Schroder. Who amongst a current Sam Presti draftee on the Thunder roster would you wager could score in double figures two games in a row?
There isn’t one.
So for me as much as I hate the concept of losing by design, I don’t really see any other way out of this for the Thunder except to lose and to lose in a big way as this season moves along. I have no idea whatsoever WTF the Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns are thinking right now, but at 1-3 the Thunder are winning and winning in the only way possible to pull themselves out of the roster hole they find themselves in currently.
Portland comes to town on Thursday night and the Thunder need to win the right way.
- Correction—Portland is in town tomorrow night. The previous entry I had the location of the game in the wrong city. Tanking does not bring out the best in me. If Presti had kept Jerami Grant I’d be okay and see light at the end of the tunnel with this process. If Jerami Grant isn’t a perfect match to be a third core piece with SGA I’m not sure who would be. I wonder if Jerami’s agent just said his player like Paul George wanted out of Trumpland and away from the white angry evangelicals.