MadD23 wrote:AirP. wrote:Mos_Heat wrote:OKC's beat reporter Royce Young on Dunc'd On pod said expectation around the team is that CP will play this year in Thunder uniform.
He also said that Presti will not attach any picks in a potential Paul trade
He also mentioned what I suspected, that he thinks OKC is trying to build leverage for the CP3 trade, so what Royce Young may be hearing could very well be propaganda. Unless OKC is going to try to create a contender on the run which I think they could by adding another good player (say Schroder + Roberson + picks) to CP3, Gallinari and Adams OKC really needs to be starting SGA for his development long term (because they see him as a long term core player).
Overall... OKC keeping CP3 and being happy not sending out 1 or 2 first round picks (lower 1st round picks like Miami's that they own) will hurt them long term by dropping OKC in the upcoming draft(s), for instance instead of possibly being bad enough to get the 5th overall pick, they could end up with the 13th pick which I'm not so sure 2 late 1st round picks would be enough to jump from 11th to 5th to get a better shot at a good long term player and that could happen for the next couple of years. I get not wanting to send out draft picks and a good player(which CP3 is) but good lord, they just did that to Houston. I believe OKC thought the CP3 trade wasn't much of a downgrade and figured they'd milk both Houston and Miami for picks, but Riley didn't go for that, OKC overplayed their hand.
Agreed. OKC is shooting themselves on the foot. There is no way they can presently build a team on the fly to contend in the West. Keeping Paul does more bad than good if what they want is to rebuild with younger talent. They should offer Miami at least one of those late first round picks and call it a day.
I actually think they can build a contender if they want.
1. Roberson and Schroder is ~25 million in salary and then throw in draft picks to try to get someone like Beal or DeRozan to go with CP3, Gallinari, Adams and SGA. That's a really good core.
2. See if extending Gallinari is willing to extend in OKC and if not, explore what it would take in a package with Gallinari to add Blake or Love.
I think it's very possible(if they really want) for OKC to have a CP3, SGA, DeRozan, Love, Adams starting 5 and that's a strong starting 5 in a season where there isn't an all-time great team to go through and of course I could see Presti being able to move some of those players in the future to reload if it doesn't work.
