The Beginning of the Rebuild

The Thunder as we have known them for over a decade are changing. The Chesapeake Energy arena has always known Russell Westbrook. Aside from our very first season back in 2008, it has always known winning. Sustaining a level of basketball excellence for over a decade is something the Thunder franchise has always hung it’s hat on, and now it faces a new reality: a rebuild.

On July 6th at 1:34am, ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski reported a trade that sent Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers for “a record-setting collection of draft choices”. This translated to 5 first round picks, and 2 pick swaps, as well as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Danilo Gallinari. This trade stood to be the beginning of what would be a forced rebuild for the Thunder. Paul George wanted the chance to play with top 3 player Kawhi Leonard as well as return to his home in Southern California, so he and his agent approached Thunder GM Sam Presti and requested a trade. Given the circumstances, Presti made the most of a bad situation.

For perspective, the Thunder acquired more assets for Paul George than the Pelicans received for Anthony Davis.

(This has been brought up by people much more qualified than I, but Sam Presti traded Serge Ibaka for Oladipo and Sabonis, which he then turned into Paul George, which he then turned into 5 first round picks. Just an unbelievable trade. We control our draft, the Clippers draft, and partially Miami’s draft for the next 5-7 years.)

The reality for the Thunder post-Paul George is that the team as currently constructed is not good enough to compete in the newly armed western conference, and the face of our franchise is now on the wrong side of 30 and heavily relies on athleticism to be a good basketball player. Oh, and Oklahoma City also owes him $170 million dollars over the next four seasons. The most logical move for the Thunder now is to move on from Russell. Give a man who has given the first decade of his career to this city a chance to win a title elsewhere, and hit the reset button on this team with Shae Gilgeous-Alexander as our new point guard and a massive hoard of draft assets.

Our most recent update on this story comes from Woj again, stating that “Russell Westbrook welcomes the idea of general manager Sam Presti engineering a trade that would bring an end to his illustrious, 11-year career with the franchise.”

The Thunder have also traded F Jerami Grant to the Denver Nuggets for a protected first round pick.