The thief in the night that is .. Sam Presti
It was only this time on June 23rd 2008 that the Thunder had the no.24 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. Sam Presti not know to many as a wizard when it came to scouting for talent, seeing assets far beyond what Chad Ford’s big board would be noting. Having already obtained the furiosos UCLA born and bred Russell Westbrook at no.4, many teams looked at players past the lottery picks as stashes, development players or ‘flyers’. Sam Presti knew what he wanted, the no.24 pick in the 2008 draft was Serge Ibaka.
Sam Presti’s eye for talent went further than just spotting this gem. Flashback to June 2007 where Sam 20 days into his role as GM of the ‘fan’s golden team’ Seattle Supersonics. Traded Ray ‘Jesus Shuttlesworth’ Allen to the Celtics along with the fifth pick in the second round (#35 overall, LSU Tigers’ Glen Davis) in exchange for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West, the 5th overall selection and a future second-round selection. That 5th overall selection turned into Jeff Green.
By the start of the 2009–10 season Sam Presti had given what was now called the Oklahoma City Thunder one of the most intriguing re-builds that anyone had seen. Their average age of 23 years young had pushed them to a franchise (since re-locating to Oklahoma City) record 50–32, becoming the youngest team in NBA history to reach the mark and make the playoffs.
Sam has wheeled and dealed many agreements over the 9 years of franchise existence, but still to this day there is one that sits over him like Daenerys Targarye flying her dragons over Westeros. Trading James Harden to the Houston Rockets in the summer of 2013. At the time the return seemed to be unfathomable, trading debatably your best creator right after your team came so close to knocking off the super best friends Miami Heat in the 2012 NBA Finals.
The return at the time seemed idiotic. A shell of himself Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb who didn’t look like he would freeze every time he received the ball and 3 draft picks…yes 3 draft picks PLUS not going into the luxury tax. I even was one of the 99% of people shouting and screaming, has this guy accidently mistaken his NBA2k dynasty team for a real life team. THERE IS NO RESET BUTTON.
Fast forward to today, James Harden is now the most topical NBA player we’ve seen in the last 4 seasons. He has discovered how to whinge and whine his way into becoming the remix of Steve Francis with a better behind, exited out Kevin Mchale as a coach, destroyed Dwight Howard’s career as the last traditional big man in the NBA and oh dated a Kardashian. Hmm. Maybe Sam Presti knew something we all didn’t know.
One of those 2013 first round draft pick, ended being the no.12 pick in the 2013 draft. “At no.12 the Oklahoma City Thunder selects, Steven Adams from Pittsburgh University”. Steven Adams now has become one of the most wanted big men in today’s NBA. He is a human specimen — powerful, young, can finish around the rim and ironically plays really good defense.
Hindsight is a bitch, right now in this current moment. This has to look like one of the best deals from a basketball business perspective. You relieve a potential AS who is going to put your team into a financial mess to try and acquire more young talent, more cap space and surrendering the keys to the mansion to a young kid named Kevin Durant. Which by working out the math, there is no way Oklahoma City would even be in contention to re-sign Kevin Durant this summer whilst being able to stay under the cap without a bold decision like he made in 2013.
Sam Presti has some freakish skill that no one yet has been able to tap into. His list of draft picks over the course of the last few years have been pretty darn good. From picking Eric Bledsoe (no.18) in 2010, Reggie Jackson (no.24) in 2011, Perry ‘Where the hell is he’ Jones (no.28), Archie Goodwin (no.29) in 2013.
He now has his hands on the no.10 of this year’s draft Domantas Sabonis, who is the son of the HOF Arvydas Sabonis. From the eye test Domantas can play basketball, in fact he has the perfect build for where the current NBA is going — 3’s & pace. Not only did Sam Presti manage to acquire another draft pick that he had surely had his eyes on all season but he was also able to acquire Victor Oladipo and Ersan İlyasova.
All for — Serge Ibaka.
Now many people can argue the fact that Serge Ibaka played an integral part in Oklahoma City’s run these playoffs — Even I sat there and thought maybe Serge shooting all these threes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They showed us that they could out pace the most paciest team we’ve seen in history in the Golden State Warriors. They were able to counter the ‘line -up of death’ that the Warriors put on the court. Gosh they even finally figured out that Kevin Durant is the most ideal stretch four we’ve seen in history.
So why trade a guy that has given you the answer to the biggest monopoly we’ve seen since putting Michael Jordan on a basketball court? Because Sam Hinkie has been playing the largest game of Chess we’ve seen from any GM. This wasn’t just a call-up the night before to his mate Rob Hennigan (who worked with Sam Presti as the Assistant GM at OKC during 2008–12) throwing out potential trades — this was all his plan. Who knows maybe this was planned before between the two former colleagues or maybe this was a friendly good old repaying the favour deal.
Whatever way you look at, Sam Presti has made the Thunder look like they are ready for any type of shift the NBA is ready to make — from small ball lineups, to up and down basketball to being able to switch every defender. He has seemed to have found a solution for any equation that is going to be thrown at him in the coming years, with a squad so deep that it makes teams like the Warriors look normal.
Sam Presti isn’t just a GM of a basketball team, he is helping re-define how people run basketball organisations from drafting right through to selling your assets at the right time, and so far it looks like this may be the finest recipe yet for this dangerous Oklahoma City Thunder team.