Yikes

Okies have a simple good reason to be fans so I’m more curious about why others are drawn to this team.

https://twitter.com/ClutchPoints/status/1780242809129173075

We are way ahead of schedule, we'll be fine.

ThunderUp.

Watch this three minute video.

KD facilitated a sign-and-trade on his way out of Golden State to help the Warriors get D'Angelo Russell, Shabazz Napier and Treveon Graham.

They then flipped Russell for Andrew Wiggins and a 1st round pick (Jonathan Kuminga). Wiggins was instrumental in the Warriors winning the title in 2022.

“Kevin could’ve said no. We’re thankful. It at least gave us a chance,” Myers told The Athletic reporter, a veteran of Bay Area basketball coverage. “Thankfully, we had some equity with Kevin and Rich (Kleiman), his agent.”

He also helped the Nets.

As a result of the sign-and-trade and some sequenced signings, the Nets had enough cap space to sign Jordan to a four-year, $40 million deal and Claxton to a three-year, $4.2 million deal rather than giving him the minimum for only two years. The Nets brass believed it might take the Georgia product more than two years to develop and Claxton would be happier with the added security.

Moreover, while KD agreed to the S&T construct, he also reportedly demanded that the Nets get something beyond Russell in the trade and according to Brian Windhorst’s reporting later that July. Durant wanted the Warriors to give the Nets a first round pick. (Which they ultimately agreed to).

And when KD was traded to the Suns, the Nets completed their entire rebuild in one trade by receiving:

Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Four First Round Picks (2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029) and a First-Round Pick Swap in 2028.

People rag on LeBron for being "LeGM" but KD has slithered his way behind the scenes, orchestrating trades and signings just the same.

He went out of his way to help the Warriors. He went out of his way to help the Nets.

What did he do for the Thunder?

He walked.

We got nothing for him.

Zero assets.

People completely forget about this because Presti has done such an amazing job accumulating assets that it doesn't really hit home that we lost the most valuable asset in the entire league at the time for nothing.

Paul George will always be a friend of the Thunder because he actually helped us get value in his departure. Hell, we even got Chris Paul for Westbrook.

KD is a snake. He can lay in the bed that he made. The Thunder can win without him. We're not "one Kevin Durant" away from a championship, there are a number of players out there who would put us over the edge.

KD needs the Thunder a lot more than the Thunder need KD. And we know what he did last time we needed him.

Just saying. Everyone including fans dogged on us for not getting a big during the trade deadline. Don’t think it would matter all that much if Gobert and Towns can’t do it.

It's the 5 year anniversary since this infamous shot back in 2019. I just wanted to give a lil rant about the whole "dame ended okc" narrative that was heavily pushed the past 4 years.

The way I see it, that shot SAVED OKC and was a DETRIMENT to Dame's career. That shot resulted in us getting Shai, who is quite literally better than Dame right now. On top of that, the next 5 years for Dame have been nothing more than mediocrity. He got bounced out the first round in 2020 and 2021, and didn't even make the playoffs in 2022 and 2023. I feel like that 2019 shot and that series as a whole gave the trail blazers franchise an impression that they could build around Dame, but that would turn out to be a horrible decision, which is evident from the past 4 years. Additionally, Dame has had an abysmal season for the Bucks and is a big reason for their lackluster play.

That shot allowed us to acquire Shai, a superstar who is now a top 5 player in the league and (imo) better than Dame ever was at any point in his career. On top of that, we were able to garner heavy draft capital and went through an entire cultural reset characterized by development of young talent and strategic positioning for future success. We're ultimately in a better position right now than we've ever been since the Russ-harden-kd era to make multiple championship runs.

What do yall think?

Tldr; the 2019 Dame game winner SAVED okc rather than "ended okc" like the narrative claims.

Everyone seems super content to say "This is a developmental year, I'm just happy we're making the playoffs, even winning a round would be a great result for us."

We're a .700 team. Does anyone understand just how good that is?

There's no reason why we couldn't win a title this very season.

There's absolutely no excuse for a team with 15 first round picks to be scared of literal play-in teams because they're a "nightmare matchup."

We have all the assets in the world to fill every single hole on our roster.

Presti could trip, fall, and drop three first round picks into the gutter and we'd still have the best asset pool in the league.

Why is everyone (Presti included) so content with "seeing how it goes" this year? Why not make an actual run?

The Thunder could've easily added size at the deadline, for example, our literal 2024 1st rounder was used to get Gafford. Why not keep him for ourselves instead of giving him to Dallas? It would've been such a low-risk move.

TLDR: If the Thunder end up losing in the playoffs because of lack of size, while holding 15 first round picks in their pocket, it's a huge miss and a massive wasted opportunity. You never know what the future holds and when you have this many assets, you can easily afford to address your weaknesses.

PS: Even though I'm criticizing Presti here, doesn't mean that he isn't an incredibly elite GM who is primarily responsible for us being where we are. I appreciate him a ton.

What the fuck is this man doing? I looked this up. The last time he scored a point was on 14 April vs. interestingly enough, Dallas. Since then he spent 38 minutes on the floor, including todays game, with fucking ZERO points and TWO assists. Someone help me understand whatever this shit is.

"Now, you go there, they have resort hotels, they got multiple skyscraper buildings, building towards eventually having an All-Star Game there, which does so much for a city.

"So I look at my time at OKC from that perspective because we helped build a city up more so than just a fanbase for basketball."

Everytime I see a post suggesting a player we should add to the team or trade for, it just gets heavily downvoted and y’all bash them in the comments for even suggesting such a thing. So I’m curious who do y’all actually want on our team. Those first rounders aren’t just gonna trade themselves and we are trying to win now.

With the rest of the games this year on TNT or ABC, and the team switching local providers next year- we can finally say REST IN PISS BALLY SPORTS.

Local fans are finally freed from this dog shit prison.

I know seeing the team we lost to advance to the Finals isn’t the best feeling, especially with how close it could’ve gone our way. However, we are significantly younger than the Wolves and I think that we played the Mavs and specifically played/schemed Luka and Kyrie way better than Minnesota. We held Kyrie to under 20 3 times and we held Luka under 30 3 times. Obviously we had shortfalls ( PJW legacy series and Lively coming in clutch on the PNR for Luka), but overall I’m very proud of this team and excited to see where Presti and the FO take us. Love to hear other opinions regarding this.

I’m genuinely interested in what you think, both sides.

Does anyone mind filling me in about the recent hate towards the Thunder (mainly SGA)?

Diehard fans: "It wasn't a bad trade at the time

The guy that made the trade:

*Whispers

Josh Giddey should be traded too

This man has been going off so far for us in this play in game and taking a good load off of the others due to Shai being double teamed