Are the Thunder a dynasty in the making?

I mean I agree the Thunder could make a run at Giannis and keep a ton of picks or most their starters.

But they're so good right now I'm seriously not even sure they need Giannis - or that they would be better off adding him. He has a massive salary, is going to start declining every year in his 30's, doesn't have the skills of other stars that play well at an older age. Plus they need to give some young guys extensions and with those picks elevate their ceiling 5-10 years from now.

They just won 68 games!

Trading for Giannis could be like the Suns trading for Durant and you take a team with a bright future and totally diminish it.

 

So you include Lively drafted by the Thunder but not the player they trade him for on draft night?

I guess by that definition the Blazers never drafted Roy or Aldridge either.

Bottom line is Thunder have identified all these guys at ages 19-22 and acquired them when the cost was very little - now they are still young but have got that team to 68 wins. One of the great NBA roster building jobs in the history of the NBA. Call it what you want.

 

The Thunder would be in a very different spot if the Clippers hadn't bent over and presented themselves in order to get Paul George.

Now in hindsight, I remember that Leonard wasn't going to sign there if they couldn't get PG so the trade was essentially Leonard and George for SGA and all those picks. But still.... the Thunder got a really good haul for a star that demanded a trade to one team.

 

not with SAS doing what they are. no way. Wemby and co will be silly good from here on out.

 

They're not winning any ring in the next 5 years

 

I can't call a team that has yet to go to the Finals a dynasty.

 

I can easily see them winning this year. And expect to. Also I legitimately thought this was a bump from 15 years ago, on the last iteration of...why bother trying now, OKC has XYZ, and then won nothing.

 

Yeah, regardless of how stacked the Thunder or the Spurs seemingly are, our front office still has to put together the best collection of young talent and draft assets possible. Then once we've seen what they can do, make the necessary adjustments. We can get to a place that is just as good or better than either of these teams... it will take us getting lucky and/or them getting unlucky but that stuff happens all of the time.

 

What was the last dynasty? The Warriors? And they had to trade for Durant to keep it going. OKC has the draft capital to trade for a Giannis but I just don't see Presti doing that (although he did trade for Paul George...)

Dynasties are much harder to do these days than back in Jordan's day. We thought the Celtics were going to be a dynasty. Same with the Bucks and the Nuggets.

 

Whenever that happens it's quickly followed by really terrible luck.

 

Every contender needs it. No team hits on every pick. Most contenders have at least one of their top two players who was underrated in the draft process... and then there's health. Yeah, we'll need to be lucky and obviously that hasn't always happened for us.

I will say despite losing Nurk, we got pretty lucky with the health of our opponents last time we made a conference finals run. Right now it's just about positioning ourselves so that some good luck could equal a championship and we're not close but we could be on a solid path.

 

They tanked two years. We’ve been more patient tanking 3 years before making progress this year.

 

Thunder own #15 + #24 in next month draft. They would have got the 6ers pick at #7 but the 6ers jumped into the top4 so OKC will get it next year instead. Next year they own these picks;

 

2027/2028 Thunder own these picks;