We’re now a day away from the NBA’s trade deadline and two big trades were made yesterday. Of course…none of them involved the tanking Thunder who are somewhere around $35 million under the NBA’s minimum team payroll allowed by the stipulated salary cap requirements. Who could have thought that possible considering the product on the floor?
In some circles the above would be called frugality, in some it might be called being brilliant creating cap space to acquire a stud free agent, or in others like Oke City it could be called criminal fraud.
The Warriors, who are in a win now mode with the excellent team they have in place, get Kenrich Williams, Lu Dort, Poku and the Thunder in exchange get Johnny Kuminga and one second round pick.
You have to understand where I’m coming from with this trade. I no way think Sam Presti could ever win a championship in Oklahoma City even if he had KD and LeBron, but Oke City’s arena is twenty-five minutes from my front door and if the Thunder could somehow acquire Johnny Kuminga by trade and Jabari Smith in the draft…. that would be hard for me to resist as a passionate NBA fan. That would in a word be…lit.
You have to also consider how much I love and respect what both Lu Dort and Kenrich stand for as NBA players who have both clawed their ways into solid NBA careers. This gives both of these guys a chance to win a ring and live in a woke city.
I have no idea what it would mean for Poku because I have no idea what he is as a player, but maybe he would start to improve some with Steve Kerr as a coach.
So visualize this as the Thunder’s starting five next season if Sam Presti could pull this off…. Shai and Giddy as the guards, Johnny Kuminga at the three, Jabari Smith at the four, and his Auburn teammate Walker Kessler at the five. That would leave a bench unit of Aaron Wiggins, Ty Jerome, Tre Mann, Darius Bazely, and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl.
My eleven and twelve guys would be Mamida Diakite and maybe Theo Maledon if I decide to keep him…. his spot could be upgraded fairly easy.
Tell me that wouldn’t put the Thunder back on TNT and on the Christmas Day NBA package again.
Might need Putin to invade Ukraine to get West Texas Crude up to $130 a barrel to pay for all of this in five years, ‘but if you’re not going to dream big then you might as well play with yourself’ is what Texas oilman Big Ed Bookman always used to say in Dead Solid Perfect.
Nick Collison… you can tell them this was your idea.
Even if Sam Presti can’t pull the Johnny Kuminga part off…I wouldn’t sneeze at the idea of using that Clippers picks to acquire Walker Kessler from Auburn as one of our three bigs. You could keep Mike Muscala around as the 13th guy since his body doesn’t seem to be able to absorb more than 14 minutes every third game and tell the completely nonexistent collection of Thunder scribes his role is that of a player/coach. I like his bullshit smile when he’s talking trash around the free throwline as well.
I like Walker more every time I see him. His three-point shot has been bouncing around between 18-23% and he’s big boy on the boards. Perk, Nick, and Steven combined never shot 23% from the three-point line ever in one Thunder season.
El Prez is bullish on Walker Kessler later in the first round if he’s still around. Jabari Smith is basically just Kevin Durant waiting to happen. No one in the league is going to able to defend that perimeter jumper of his.
What all of this means of course is that all the white fanboy nerds over at the highly dysfunctional Daily Thunder who never played or coached any sport in their lives are probably all Chet from Gonzaga.