Thunder general manager Sam Presti recently gave his end-of-season exit interview, covering a wide range of topics. A discussion point that he was unable to avoid was one that followed the team around for much of the season, as well as the playoffs: **Shai Gilgeous-Alexander**‘s foul-drawing.
Presti spent more time defending his star player and fighting against “flopper” accusations than he spent on any other topic, Joe Mussatto writes for The Oklahoman.
“Relative to Shai and the narrative on that, he’s playing against six people,” Presti said. “He’s got five defenders, and the sixth defender is social media.”
Presti also took issue with how coaches used their postgame media availability to try to influence referees and push narratives.
“The postgame press conference has turned into the bully pulpit to create competitive advantage,” he said. “It used to be you’d get up there, you’d talk about your own team. Now everyone gets up there and they talk about the officials and they discredit the other team.”
We have more from around the Northwest Division:
The Nuggets have struggled to maintain their Western Conference dominance since winning the championship in 2023. They have yet to make a conference finals since that run, and while a multitude of factors have been in play, one pressing concern has become inescapable: their ongoing injury woes. At a certain point, the injuries constantly holding the team back become more than just bad luck, writes Mark Kiszla of the Denver Gazette in an interview with Robert Weissfeld, a medical researcher who focuses on injury recovery and kinesiology. “Following trauma, which includes injury, pain and other kinds of stress, some muscles become chronically weak, perhaps as a way to protect the (affected) area from further stress,” Weissfeld said. “*The problem is not in the muscles themselves, which are generally healthy. The deficit is the signals reaching the muscles from the brain. Like turning on a light with its dimmer switch set too low, the muscles receive insufficient current to activate them normally.*” Weissfeld believes that correcting muscle function could help oft-injured players like Aaron Gordon get back on solid ground, as well as help Peyton Watson and Christian Braun overcome the injuries they’ve dealt with and get back on track.
As Karl-Anthony Towns has helped lead the Knicks to a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals, it’s fair to wonder if the Timberwolves made a mistake trading the talented big man, Chris Hine writes for the Star Tribune. The trade was aimed at maximizing the roster flexibility around cornerstone Anthony Edwards on an increasingly expensive roster following their trade for Rudy Gobert. If they hadn’t made the trade, Naz Reid would likely no longer be on the roster, and it’s possible Jaden McDaniels would be gone as well. However, Towns has also shown his value against a player like Victor Wembanyama, whose Spurs suddenly appear to have overtaken the Wolves in the Western Conference’s pecking order. In the end, Hines says that the Gobert trade is likely the move most responsible for Towns’ eventual departure, and he remains unconvinced that ownership would have paid the luxury bills required to keep the three stars together.
The Wolves recently unveiled their new uniforms and courts for the 2026/27 season. The choices made reflect a decision from new owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore to pay fan service and give Minnesotans the nostalgia they had been clamoring for, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “The team is the fans’ team,” Rodriguez said. “This is what the fans wanted.” The uniforms pay tribute to the heyday of Kevin Garnett’s time with the team, an aesthetic that is now considered iconic to the franchise. “We were very thoughtful and diligent throughout the entire process to make sure that we did hit those marks and it was representative of the past, but really drove something new toward the future,” said chief marketing officer Mike Grahl.