When the NBA ratified its new collective bargaining agreement in the spring of 2023, it was seemingly designed to promote more parity across the league. The introduction of the punitive second apron effectively forced teams into making tough choices, as the Minnesota Timberwolves encountered with their trade of Karl-Anthony Towns right before training camp this past season and the Boston Celtics are poised to learn this coming offseason.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, who just booked their first trip to the NBA Finals since 2012 with a resounding 124-94 victory over the Timberwolves in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, might prove to be the exception to the NBA's new parity rule.
A number of teams are facing such difficult decisions because they were built under the previous CBA, when there weren't nearly as many restrictions on the highest payrolls in the league. Sure, they couldn't acquire players via sign-and-trade and only had access to the taxpayer mid-level exception rather than the larger non-taxpayer MLE, but that pales in comparison to what teams above the second apron have to deal with now.
It's fair to wonder whether players such as Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. would have received a full maximum contract extension under this new paradigm. Any team with three max contracts on its books, which the Nuggets have with Porter, Jamal Murray and three-time MVP Nikola Jokić, effectively have to cut corners elsewhere and hit more on the margins. In theory, that should lead to shorter championship windows around the league.
The NBA is about to crown its seventh different champion over a seven-year span for the first time in league history. Regardless of whether the Thunder win this year's Finals—they are a massive favorite to do so at the moment—they're set up to remain in contention for years to come thanks to their long-term planning and fortuitous timing.
Process 2.0
When Paul George requested a trade from the Thunder in 2019, it set forth a series of dominoes that led to their current ascent.
The Thunder sent George to the Los Angeles Clippers for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, five future first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps. Gilgeous-Alexander has since made the All-NBA first team for each of the past three years and won his first league MVP award this season.
The Thunder spent one of those first-round picks—the Clippers' unprotected first-rounder in 2022—on Santa Clara forward Jalen Williams, who was a steady riser throughout the predraft process. Williams received both his first All-Star and All-NBA nods this season after averaging a career-high 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists in only 32.4 minutes per game throughout the regular season.
Although the Thunder stayed afloat in their first season after trading away George—in fact, they went 44-28 and made the playoffs that year—the wheels quickly came off from there. They traded Chris Paul to the Phoenix Suns and sent Dennis Schröder to the Los Angeles Lakers in November 2020, which caused them to win only 46 combined games over the next two seasons.
As a result, the Thunder landed the No. 6 overall pick in the 2021 draft, which they used on Josh Giddey, and the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft, which they used on Chet Holmgren. This past offseason, once it became clear that Giddey was the odd man out of their long-term core, the Thunder traded him to the Chicago Bulls for Alex Caruso, a defensive menace of a role player who fit perfectly with their team ethos.
Caruso wasn't the only on-the-margins move that the Thunder nailed in recent years, though. They unearthed Aaron Wiggins with the No. 55 overall pick in the 2021 draft, signed Lu Dort as an undrafted free agent in 2019 and scooped up Isaiah Joe after the Philadelphia 76ers waived him as part of their final roster cuts in 2022. They also signed Isaiah Hartenstein to a massive contract this past summer in free agency because they had the financial flexibility to do so without batting an eye.
Tough Decisions Ahead
In recent years, most title contenders have been in the upper tiers of spending leaguewide. The Thunder, however, will finish this season $5.2 million below the luxury-tax line. They currently have the sixth-cheapest roster in the NBA.
That won't be the case for long, as both Williams and Holmgren are eligible for rookie-scale extensions this offseason. Gilgeous-Alexander will also be eligible for a massive four-year, $293.4 million supermax extension this summer or a five-year, $379.9 million supermax next offseason, although that wouldn't take effect until the 2027-28 season.
Either way, the Thunder will soon have to begin making the difficult choices that other teams around the NBA are already confronting. However, they've wisely structured their cap sheet with that in mind. Both Hartenstein ($28.5 million) and Dort ($17.7 million) have team options for the 2026-27 season, which is when Holmgren and Williams will begin their new deals.
As of now, the only guaranteed salaries that the Thunder have on their books in 2026-27 are Gilgeous-Alexander ($40.8 million), Caruso, ($19.6 million), Joe ($11.3 million) and Wiggins ($8.8 million). Max deals for Williams and Holmgren would start at $42.5 million if neither makes an All-NBA team next year or $51.0 million if they do, so that alone would push the Thunder close to the projected $170.1 million salary cap for 2026-27. Picking up the team options on Hartenstein and Dort would send them soaring over the $206.7 million luxury-tax line and dangerously close to the $215.5 million first apron.
If the Thunder are able to negotiate Williams or Holmgren into taking slightly less than a max extension, that would improve their long-term financial outlook drastically. Otherwise, Hartenstein and/or Dort might wind up being cap casualties during the 2026 offseason. However, the real pain won't begin until 2027-28.
The Thunder also have team options on Cason Wallace ($7.4 million), Kenrich Williams ($7.2 million) and 2024 No. 12 overall pick Nikola Topić ($5.4 million) in 2026-27. Williams is then set to become an unrestricted free agent during the 2027 offseason, while Wallace will be a restricted free agent if he doesn't agree to an extension ahead of time. (OKC will have a $7.5 million team option for Topić ahead of the 2027-28 campaign.)
If their Big Three of Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Williams are prohibitively expensive, the Thunder might have to start parting ways with key role players such as Holmgren, Dort and Wallace over the coming years. In that sense, they’ll be like the Nuggets, who lost Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency over the last two offseasons and received nothing in return for any of them.
The bad news for the rest of the NBA is that the Thunder are still sitting on a mountain of draft picks, and they've proven adept at both scouting and player development in recent years.
Long Reign The Thunder?
As part of the Gilgeous-Alexander trade, the Thunder got to swap first-round picks with the Clippers this year, so they jumped from No. 30 to No. 24. They also have the Atlanta Hawks' second-round pick at No. 44 overall.
Next year, the Thunder could have as many as five first-round picks. They get the two most favorable of their own, the Houston Rockets' first-rounder (top-four protected) and the Clippers' fully unprotected first, as well as picks from the Philadelphia 76ers (top-four protected), Utah Jazz (top-eight protected) and Miami Heat (fully unprotected). They also have a top-five-protected first-rounder from the Nuggets in 2027 and 2029 along with swap rights with the Clippers in 2027 and the Dallas Mavericks in 2028. And they have eight fully unprotected second-round picks from other teams between 2029 and 2031 alone.
While other top-heavy championship contenders are scrounging for depth by any means necessary, the Thunder have the type of draft-pick capital that could help them continually replenish their supporting cast with young players throughout the rest of the decade. They’re by no means batting 1.000 with their draft decisions—their trade for Aleksej Pokuševiski in 2020 majorly blew up in their face—but they have enough picks where a single mistake won't cripple them in the way it might do so to another title hopeful.
The Thunder will still inevitably begin shedding depth pieces in the coming years once Williams, Holmgren and Gilgeous-Alexander begin their respective new contracts. They might not be able to keep this exact group together beyond next season, although their entire roster is already under contract for 2025-26. Still, given the Thunder's recent history of hitting both big moves and smaller ones on the margins, they might be the NBA's best hope for a dynasty over the next few years.
Although the NBA is striving for more parity, OKC might put a wrench in those plans.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats viaNBA.com,PBPStats,Cleaning the Glass orBasketball Reference. All salary information viaSpotrac and salary-cap information viaRealGM. All odds viaFanDuel Sportsbook.
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