Sam Presti is one of the NBA’s best executives and clearly has an incredible eye for talent, both in the draft and via trade. Sam Presti also has an addiction to acquiring draft picks and I believe it is time for an intervention.
After entering a full-fledged rebuild by trading away Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Chris Paul (acquired for Westbrook), and others, the Thunder acquired picks at an alarming rate. Currently, the Thunder either own outright or have swap rights to nine first round picks from other teams and have 12 second round picks from other teams through 2030, while also controlling all of their own first and second round picks in that time period. It is, frankly, outrageous how many future picks they control and they’ve used a ton of them in recent to build out their current roster that is first in the West.
At this point you would think Presti and the Thunder would be done with their pursuit of picks, but he simply cannot help himself as evidenced by the official Sickos Trade of the 2025 Deadline that got done late Monday night between the Thunder and Hornets that will send Oklahoma City the Nuggets’ 2030 second round pick and Charlotte will get the Suns’ 2029 second round pick.
I just want to know how this trade, that features nothing else — no money, players, rights, anything — changing hands, just second round picks belonging to other teams four and five years into the future, even happens. What is that conversation even like? How did it start? What else was discussed? Did one of them have this idea and call to make it happen specifically, or did they just come up with this while discussing other things?
At this point I feel like Presti might just be trolling everyone and coming up with the most ridiculous draft pick swaps he can imagine. I will say, this being the trade the Thunder make after the league-shaking Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade and the three-team De’Aaron Fox-Zach LaVine blockbuster is objectively hilarious.
