Sam Presti Discusses Offseason, Financial Situation for OKC Thunder

This summer was much different than the last. A season ago the Thunder arrived at media day with 99% of its roster returning. This Media Day, there are new faces and 10,000 minutes to replace after trading Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe and Lu Dort. Those moves saved the Thunder $240 Million dollars against the luxury tax. Top executive Sam Presti spent the offseason openly discussing those moves as cost-saving decisions.

The Thunder stare down the barrel of tough decisions on Cason Wallace, who is contract extension eligible, before Ajay Mitchell and Jared McCain join him in that category next summer. Not to mention the other questions facing this roster. Presti detailed that it is still his expectations that the money saving moves this summer will help him retain the roster in the future and went into detail on that impression, how things can change and the overall financial landscape of the league.

"What I would say is certainly our anticipation, it's our expectation, but I would also say I've done this long enough to know that certainly things can change. I don't want to sit here and be definitive about that. I would say it would probably be another round of conversations like were had this past summer. I'll do a lot of listening. I'll try to understand where everybody is. Then we'll know what we have to work with, and we'll attack it from there," Presti said. "I would say that I think the thing we have to balance, and everybody is aware of this, is just honoring the moment and the rare and unique opportunity we have with this particular team and this particular group of guys, because what makes this group of guys so unique isn't just that they fit together on the floor and they play well together on the floor, but it's their connection with one another, which is really kind of where you get the marginal gains with this particular group. But we'll have those conversations at the end of the season, and I'll get a better understanding of what I have to work with, and then we'll go from there."

Presti was asked if having superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander perhaps made it easier to have these pick shake ups this summer understand that the back-to-back MVP is under club control through the 2029-30 season with a player option heading into the 2030-31 campaign.

"I mean, I hope not. I think, at the end of the day -- I've said this for many, many years -- to have a really great organization, you have to have mutual commitment. You have to have commitment from your players, your best players, and you have to have a commitment from your organization to those best players. I think if you're starting to look at things like, well, this person is committed for this long or this person makes this type of money, I think it can become transactional. I think that's certainly not where you want to be," The Thunder top decision-maker detailed. "The litmus test I've always tried to use with people is if -- and we've had some great players over the years. If this person was a free agent, would we be doing things this way? I think it's a good mental model for getting yourself down to what the shared values are because at the end of the day, trust is cumulative. It's built up over time. And I think trust compounds too. Once you get yourself to a situation where you're taking advantage of time you may think you have or not, I think it ends up becoming a bigger problem for you. We have never looked at it that way."

The second apron has continued to be a massive topic of discussion throughout the summer but Presti laid out how perhaps everyone is looking at the topic all wrong.

"I think it is polarizing because the people that talk about it all have a point of view as to how they're experiencing it. So I think that's the first thing. I would look at it this way also. Probably shouldn't mention it this way. What were they intended to do? That's the baseline question; what were they intended to do. They were, as I understand it, put into place to even the playing field amongst teams that have an outsized financial advantage in comparison to the majority of the league. That was the first order of business," Presti explained. "We had a 3-to-1 spending ratio. The teams that were in the 3 could stay in the 3 for 10 to 15 years. The other way to look at this is the aprons are intended to make it so a team's primary team-building philosophy can't be spending. Another point. Then if you look at when the rules were put in place, they didn't come in all at one time. They were phased in. So what were the things that happened right before the door shut behind everybody?"

"Well, teams in the luxury tax traded for big-name players. Boston was in the tax; they traded for Holiday. Phoenix was in the tax; they traded for Beal and Durant. Clippers traded for Harden. Dallas was in the tax; they traded for Kyrie Irving. Milwaukee was in the tax, and they traded for Lillard. None of those trades could be computed today. The aprons are intended so if you are a high-spending team, you're not in a position to add more talent," Presti continued.

Then, the Thunder top executive shifted the question to detailing why the league placed the second apron into action.

"Now, what are they not designed to do? Well, they're not designed to tell a team that may feel in any market that they have a very unique moment in their organizational history to pursue excellence, to say, hey, we might be here for 50 years, maybe more; this five years in the luxury tax may be something we want to be aggressive about because we don't know how many more teams like this we're going to have in said market, wherever that is. This could be anywhere," Presti said. "So the choice is there for the teams to make an educated decision about what they want to pursue or what their tolerance level is for different things. The key, though, is everyone has that opportunity, but teams that could do that for 15 years, that's not possible anymore. So it's kind of giving everybody the same opportunity to make a choice to push in and spend aggressively if they feel they have a team that warrants that. But not everyone can do that, put choice is there. The aprons are so that once you're at that level, you can't add more talent, and I think that's all getting mixed up with the way people present it. That's the most succinct and simple way I can answer that."

Presti has held firm that the second apron, especially for a team as talent rich as Oklahoma City with not only a title contending roster but one that is still developing, isn't all that restrictive and should not hinder a team from staying together. Reading between the lines, the only hinderance to OKC would be if the luxury tax bill is too high for Bennett to stomach despite getting a free new arena, expansion fees looming, the new TV deal and other financial advantages.

Time will tell if Bennet and company will pony up for this team, all signs point to they should. But as Cason Wallace remains contract eligible on the verge of hitting restricted free agency next summer where Jared McCain and Ajay Mitchell also become due for a new deal, the answer will be revealed sooner rather than later.

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