TNT got the NBA season going last night and it was an impressive doubleheader with two games of interest.
In the first game the defending champ Milwaukee Bucks easily took care of the Brooklyn Nets. Again you can build a championship team without tanking if your GM has a vision of how to build a team.
Milwaukee did it. The champion before them, the Tornoro Raptors did it when they took a chance on Kawhi and won a ‘ship in a narrow window. The Golden State Warriors did it three times in five Final appearances without tanking. Granted…they took Sam Presti’s lunch money on July 4th, 2016, but they didn’t tank. Instead, they used a loophole of sorts with the salary cap to fit in Kevin Durant on their team.
So it’s very hard for me to sit out here in Deer Creek, Oklahoma and have a ton of patience with Sam Presti given what he has in his war chest to build a competitive NBA team.
Every team in every sport goes thru the cycles of up and down…but it’s how you navigate those cycles which determines the fate of those franchises.
It’s how you navigate the cycles which give your franchise a window here and there.
Oklahoma City basically had a decade window previously for one reason…the reason’s name is Kevin Durant.
Utah and Indiana are both small NBA markets…who made it to an NBA Finals. Portland with the Bill Walton team won an NBA championship. There is precedent that Oklahoma City can right the ship and start to be somewhat relevant next season. Kind of like the current Memphis Grizzles with Ja Morant.
From Presti’s standpoint I would think he would want to start solidifying his team building nucleous this season with these five young guys as his template core moving forward–those being Shai, Giddy, Poku, Bazely, and Dort. Four first round picks and the overacheiving Lu Dort. You need some blue collar guys who are willing to get bloody here and there. Metrics will never change that fact. Ask Nick Collison if you doubt me.
The next sequential core I see are Maledon, Roby, and Jerome. One first round pick and two second round picks. I see the Thunder’s guard group as fairly interesting given what the Thunder are going to expect from Shai and Giddy moving into the future. The team is almost guard heavy if that’s possible. The Thunder need some rim protection and physicality is my take.
The next sequential core are the three vets… Mike Muscala, Kenrich Williams, and Derrick Favors. You need smart seasoned vets to contend for relevancy at some point. You would think Presti has enough in his war chest to make a couple of Thabo or Perk-like trades at some point to start bringing all this youth together as a coherent team with a goal besides losing games intentionally.
Then there’s the other three rookies…DRE, Tre Mann, and Aaron Wiggins. An agile offensive big from Jay Wright and Villanova, a scoring guard from Florida, and the Sixth Man of the Year from the Big 10 Maryland Terps. Interesting selections from a team building standpoint. Wiggins’ intrigues me somewhat. I’m totally okay with what Presti did with his second round picks.
Vegas has the Thunder at around 24-25 wins this season. So call it tanking or whatever you like. Patience. The future. Whatever.
Here’s what I know–I’ll watch the Thunder some, but if I start seeing SGA being sat like he was last season–then my interest will drain pretty quick. The Thunder were actually 16-19 in games in which Shai played last season. They were 6-31 without Shai in the lineup… so we’ll see how this is handled as far as providing a legitimate NBA game experience in Oklahoma City this basketball season.
I would think at some point…Shai and his agent would tire of him playing on a team which isn’t relevant while other young guards in the Western Conference are getting the air time for their brand and their standing in the league.
Remember…the agent gets 10% on all endorsments last time I checked.
Guys like Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray, Ja Morant, and even the Sacramento guards possibly are all ascending in stature while in essence Shai plays on a team which is going to lose games in bunches on purpose for a second straight season.
I wouldn’t vote for Shai to be an NBA All-Star until he proves to me he can be the guy on a team which is at the least relevant enough to at least be contending for a bottom rung playoff spot. I’m not sure I’d buy a sports drink from a guy who loses fifty games a year either…let alone consider his tennis shoe. Truth hurts.
I think he’s a good player, but c’mon at some point he needs to show this dynamic in his game heading towards the playoffs.
On my next NBA Journal entry I’m going to do my entire Top 25 Player Pyramid to show where I have Shai in relation to the other young stars in the league.
My Top Five currently goes… 1 Giannis, 2 Lebron, 3 Kevin Durant, 4 Steph, and 5 Luka.
Hopefully…Sam Presti will give Oklahoma City fans something at least entertaining to watch this NBA season.
Glass half full take–take a deep breath the world isn’t coming to an end. One of America’s two best college basketball conferences is in our own backyard. Learn the college game and embrace the fact you have that option when for the second straight year Sam Presti’s prism for sustainability means losing games by design.
In closing, Pop and the Spurs won their last NBA title in 2014 with this former San Diego State player being the Spurs MVP Finals when they beat LeBron and the Heat in five games. I’ll give you three clues….It wasn’t Timmy, Tony Parker, or Manu.
It was the 15th player taken in his draft class…a guy by the name of Kawhi Leonard. Go figure.
Sam Presti, dude…you need some guys in your basketball orbit with a little less passivity and more aggressive optimism. Surely you tire of the rainbows and buttterflies you get from the writers in this market 24/7. Surely you find that less than stimulating.