There’s a saying that goes: If you stand still, you lose ground.
Or something like that.
For those of us with a sports IQ, let me dumb it down a little:
If you can’t stop T.J. McConnell, you really shouldn’t be raising any banners.
If we learned anything from the recently completed NBA season, it’s that what happens in the first 82 games really doesn’t matter. It’s all about the postseason.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were about as dominant in meaningless games as any team in NBA history. They were such a big favorite to win the championship, Mattress Mack had to bet a king-size just to win a couple of feathers.
Yeah, the Thunder prevailed and Mack’s daughter can dress as Pocahontas for show-and-tell. But the champs lost more than they won over the course of their surprisingly difficult playoff journey.
Oklahoma City was declared legendary even before the first battle of the postseason had been fought. Twenty-three games later, the dynasty is over.
For one thing, the Thunder didn’t play like the Celtics or Lakers or Celtics or Spurs or Warriors during their championship run. They were, in the end, rather ordinary.
For crying out loud, if Tyrese Haliburton doesn’t blow out his Achilles seven minutes into a tied Game 7 that had the basketball world mumbling, “Oh my goodness, this REALLY could happen,” well … it really could have happened.
The Thunder could have lost to the fourth-best team from the lightweight conference.
It would have ranked as one of the greatest embarrassments in the history of bright lights. Some have gone as far as to suggest the coach would have been fired.
Three weeks later, we now see that the coach wasn’t the problem. It was his boss.
Sam Presti worked 13 years trying to reconstruct the greatness of 2012, when the Thunder were overpowered by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the NBA Finals.
He sold off Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Chris Paul and dozens of others, turning most into the greatest collection of draft picks in the history of mankind. Even Patton had fewer five-stars at his disposal.
The plan worked brilliantly, if slowly. By 2025, Presti created not only a team that won more games in the regular season than any previously in Thunder history, but also one that wound up winning the franchise’s first championship since Seattle.
All while, remarkably, building a war chest of picks that somehow is bigger than ever.
Presti had a chance this offseason to own the draft, to own free agency, to own the fast lane to another championship and, with it, that slippery dynasty thing.
Instead, he fell in love. Fell in love with a great regular-season team that barely made it to the finish line in the playoffs.
And that sets him up for heartbreak.
With a developing superstar, a second star in the making, a fragile big man, some good role players and so little depth that his bench was outscored 291–205 by the Pacers in the Finals, Presti has, as the saying goes, stood still so far this summer.
He had two first-round picks, up to five more next year, at least five on top of that in the next four years, and three first-round swaps that are likely to convey. He could have dangled them all for a real, live superstar co-star, or spread them around three or four at a time among the many teams hoping to use his own roadmap to success, searching for guys better than his own that struggled with the likes of Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin and Aaron Nesmith.
Instead, he threw away his best first-round pick on a guy unlikely to be anything more than a spectator come playoff time and added to the G League Oklahoma City Blue lineup with his second-round selection.
Presti also dealt his other first-round pick for a 2027 first from Sacramento, which just added to his arsenal that could have overpowered every other team in the league in the trade market.
The Thunder have spent most of their time this offseason re-signing their own, assuring they will once again have the deepest roster in the NBA next season.
That’s great … when quantity matters. But in the postseason, as they should be quite aware by now, it’s quality that wins out.
When the Thunder don’t repeat 11 months from now, some will blame Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for not being able to duplicate his remarkable 2025 season. Some will cite yet another Chet Holmgren injury, this at the end of the year rather than the beginning. Others will say they told us that Jalen Williams was overrated, that Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso are considered journeymen for a reason, that Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe predictably couldn’t step up when they got a greater opportunity.
Heck, some will suggest they should have fired their coach, which at that point they probably would.
And they’ll all be wrong.
It’ll be the fault of Sam Presti and his summer vacation.
