It’s good to be the Oklahoma City Thunder right now. Led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC is almost unstoppable, and their 35-7 record leads the Western Conference by 6.5 games. Just last week, they blew out the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers by 20 points in a game that actually wasn’t as close as the final score would indicate.
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The Thunder are one of the favorites to win the NBA title for a reason. Actually, they’re one of the favorites for quite a few reasons. In addition to Shai, OKC has the best defense in the NBA and a Coach of the Year winner in Mark Daigneault.
They have arguably the best collection of young talent in the league, a surplus of assets to make a move at the trade deadline, and they’ve been dominating teams despite being without Chet Holmgren, who should be returning from his fractured pelvis sometime around the All-Star break.
It’s all rainbows and gumdrops for the Thunder right now, but it’s about to become much more difficult to field such a stacked team. Just as NFL teams can massively benefit from paying a rookie quarterback pennies on the dollar compared to their veteran counterparts (just look to the NFC Championship Game-bound Washington Commanders and Jayden Daniels for proof), the Thunder’s youth is working to their advantage because most of their high-performing youngsters are vastly underpaid.
Shai is the highest-paid member of the team due to his rookie extension paying him just under $36 million, but Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace barely make more than $10 million combined. Holmgren, Alex Caruso, and Aaron Wiggins are each around $10 million apiece, while Lu Dort is at a reasonable $16.5 million.
Isaiah Hartenstein, who the team splurged for in free agency this past summer with a three-year, $87 million contract, is the only other player besides Shai who is taking up more than 12 percent of OKC’s cap.
The bill is about to be due for OKC general manager Sam Presti
Shai may be making over $35 million, but he’s still one of the best bargains in the NBA. That’s because he’s leading the league with 31.5 points per game while also pitching in 6.1 assists, 5.3 rebounds, and outstanding perimeter defense. According to FanDuel, he’s currently a -330 favorite to win his first MVP award, but whether he does or not, he was already primed to break the bank thanks to being named First Team All-NBA last season.
By virtue of that honor, SGA became eligible to sign an extension in excess of $294 million, the final year of which would make him the first player in league history to make $80 million in a single season.
Shai’s play on the court has made him worth that money and then some, and of course there’s no way OKC would ever let him get away. Sam Presti’s job is about to get much more difficult though, because Shai’s pay raise is going to come one year before Holmgren and Williams become extension-eligible, as well.
It’s simply not going to be possible for OKC to keep the band together long-term. Tough decisions will need to be made, and elite role players will need to be traded or let go. If Shai, Holmgren, and Williams take up a big chunk of OKC’s cap, it will weaken the rest of the roster and bring the Thunder back to the pack in the West.
Could Shai give the Thunder a hometown discount to help keep the roster intact?
It’s rare for superstars to give their teams a discount, but as we saw with Jalen Brunson and the Knicks this past year, it can happen, and in that case, it helped New York make a trade for Karl-Anthony Towns. Gilbert Arenas was asked about the possibility of SGA following suit on his Gil’s Arena podcast, but he downplayed the idea.
“They’re non-comparable situations, because who [the Knicks] are trying to pay don’t match up to the m************ OKC gotta pay.”
Arenas is talking about Holmgren and Williams and their rookie max extensions, and he’s right that this is a far different situation than what the Knicks faced. Even if SGA signs for less than what he’s eligible for, the Thunder will look very different two years from now.
Could Shai give his team a discount? It seems possible, as he steadily grew into a superstar after coming to OKC in the Paul George trade six years ago, but he hasn’t yet made an NBA Finals, let alone won a title. This Thunder team is especially close, with their endearing postgame interview-by-committees proving their affinity for each other, so it stands to reason that Shai would be invested in preserving as much continuity as possible.
On the other hand, though, OKC is a small market that doesn’t normally attract superstar free agents, so if SGA demands the max, the Thunder would have to give it, no questions asked.
The Thunder have more draft picks than they know what to do with, but although Presti has shown himself to be a first-class evaluator of young talent, there’s no guarantee that future draft picks will be as successful as those he’s made in recent years.
This makes it even more imperative that the roster is managed correctly, because unless SGA does give a discount out of the goodness of his heart, then some of the players contributing to this team now will have to be let go.
What this all means is that the window will never be more open for the Thunder to win a championship than it is right now. Last year’s playoff run ended in a loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals, and the pressure is now on Shai to take the next step and prove without a doubt that he’s worth being the highest-paid player in the league.
