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News - Oklahoma City Thunder - James
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Deals!
The last month has been an explosion of activity Thunder. The team happily exited the 2020 NSL Draft with 4 rookies they feel great about. Turning to free agency, it seemed to be a pretty boring afair for a team that needed to focus on finding a sign and trade destination for Gordon Hayward. When the day started, there were mixed rumors about whether the Thunder would put enough energy in convincing Hayward to work out a sign and trade deal instead of testing the market. OKC decided to roll the dice and let Hayward talk with the fews teams that could afford his services - ultimately deciding that the team's proposed destination of Toronto looked a lot better than any of the teams with sufficient cap space.
With Hayward locked up, OKC flipped him to Toronto, as agreed weeks earlier - for Christian Wood and Evan Fournier. Wood gives them a late-blooming prospect that has just started to come into his own as a PF/C. Fournier is a veteran who can replace some of the scoring and experience that the team was looking to Hayward for previously. There were serious discussions with a handful of other teams - but none presented the combination of present and future value that this deal offered.
With that deal locked up, the focus turned to filling out the roster with a shot blocker/rebounder type of center that the team was missing as well as, if possible, a starting point guard. The center became available early in the process, and a quick negociation saw Bismack Biyombo agreeing to a $3.5 mil deal with the Thunder. No starting-level point guards would even talk to the team left for the minimal assets they could offer (the BAE and minimum deals), so the team scooped up Kent Bazemore. An accounting mistake was brought to the team's attention (in that they forgot about second round pick Payton Pritchard, so Bazemore would bring them over the hard cap) - forcing Bazemore to go with backup option Utah Jazz.
With a roster that they liked, even if it had more depth than they could really afford to play - the Thunder headed to training camp. However, only days later, the Raptors, mired in their own hard cap issues due to free agent successes - were dangling Jrue Holiday to solve their problems. Holiday is the leader and starting point guard the front office had been looking for in exchange for one of their high-value PFs. The team had made inquiries about no less than 6 other lead guards, not coming to terms. OKC ended up having to send out the youngest of their PF screw, Lauri Markkanen as well as another of their best players in Caris LeVert and Jeremy Lamb for salary purposes. They were able to bring back Kevin Huerter and a future 1st round pick to offset some of that outgoing talent - but this is mainly about getting Jrue in place and the roster rounded out in a way that made sense but still provided a ton of depth.
Projected Depth Chart:
Christian Wood/Bismack Biyombo/Onyeka Okongwu
LaMarcus Aldridge/Julius Randle
Evan Fournier/Isaac Okoro/Dwayne Bacon
Anthony Edwards/Kevin Huerter/Shake Milton
Jrue Holiday/Devonte Graham/Payton Pritchard
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