Fire Sam Presti - Enough is enough

[meekrab]

The downfall started when he chose Westbrick over Harden.

[WestbrookGOATed]

Seattle SuperSonics - 1 NBA title
OKC Thunder - 0 NBA titles

Thank you Presti for hiring non-creative, mediocre, tread-mill type coaches that have sentenced your over talented teams to early outs. Now, you’ll have mediocre or young talent to go with that coaching. As a Seattle fan your future is everything i could have hoped for. May it never change.

Damn you're bitter. You must live a sad life.

[FlipFlopShot]

In the end, still got Westbrook!!!
Just let everyone else go.

[RoyceDa59]

I think Presti has actually done a pretty good job when you consider the owner has him on a short lease budget wise.

He 5x the Paul George investment, if they get a good haul for Westbrook they will be flooded with assets and in a good position to rebuild.


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[ThunderBolt]

I think Presti has actually done a pretty good job when you consider the owner has him on a short lease budget wise.

He 5x the Paul George investment, if they get a good haul for Westbrook they will be flooded with assets and in a good position to rebuild.


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This is dated information. Okc has had huge payrolls the last two years. Ownership added one of the wealthiest businessmen in America, George Kaiser. That has made a huge difference for OKC’s ability to spend. However the narrative won’t die because of the Harden trade. Presti is not and has not been on a short leash financially.

[MrSparkle]

Well, this Paul George trade was incredible.

You can’t count on Kawhi and George being healthy and dominant from 2022-2026. The Clippers will had to have reloaded by then with new FAs. And Miami’s unprotected 2021 has a long shot of imploding if Jimmy declines into his 30s.

So basically OKC has 6 future shots at a good pick, which isn’t shabby with the new lotto odds. You have a decent chance of going top-4 even if future MIA or LAC are a 10-14th lotto team. Realistically just 1-2 of them might be good, if even, but they have trade value and mystique.

Coupled with Gallinari and Shae being starter quality players... OKC got a pirate chest of treats.

[BigtimeNBAfan]

OKC fans should be happy with the PG trade. They got a good haul of picks.

A bunch of late first round picks don't make up for giving away a Top 3 player which is what George was last year with multiple years on his deal. It was a horrible trade for OKC and sets a terrible precedent for players just demanding out and getting their way like this.

[Deivork]

Ibaka's expiring contract, eventually turned it into this:

2021 MIA 1st (unprotected)
2022 LAC 1st (unprotected)
2023 Heat 1st (protected)
2023 LAC pick swap
2024 Clips first (unprotected)
2025 LAC pick swap
2026 LAC 1st (unprotected)
Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, Jerami Grant, Gallinari

I guess it depends on how much you want to blame him for roster construction and how much you will blame coaching or the play of your superstar. It's a complex equation, but there is little doubt that Presti will not be out of a job for long.

fallacious, none of this happens without George re-signing

[LightTheBeam]

Its too early padiwan. Presti needs to be the one who makes the high draft picks for you. Then 4 years from now once a solid team is assembled, you can his ass.

[Wargreymon]

Seattle SuperSonics - 1 NBA title
OKC Thunder - 0 NBA titles

Thank you Presti for hiring non-creative, mediocre, tread-mill type coaches that have sentenced your over talented teams to early outs. Now, you’ll have mediocre or young talent to go with that coaching. As a Seattle fan your future is everything i could have hoped for. May it never change.

[TimRobbins]

OKC fans should be happy with the PG trade. They got a good haul of picks.

A bunch of late first round picks don't make up for giving away a Top 3 player which is what George was last year with multiple years on his deal. It was a horrible trade for OKC and sets a terrible precedent for players just demanding out and getting their way like this.

PG was not a top 3 player. Not even close. Sorry. Picks won't be late. Not the later ones.

[Lalouie]

That's it. This must be the final straw. I can't deal with this **** anymore.

For years and years, all he did was sit on his ass and go after washed up vets as buyouts. The Derek Fisher, Cameron Butler era. With the Westbrook-Durant-Ibaka core, it didn't hurt that much, but he still didn't make a single move to actually go for a title.

Then he started the "Let me overpay for trash and force it down the Thunder's throat" era. Overpaid for Waiters. Overpaid for Kanter. Overpaid for Grant. Overpaid for Schröder. Again and again and again, he wasted draft picks on guys that were not good players and did not deserve such a trade return. And once those guys were on the roster, they were heavily featured, no matter their skillset and general fit with the guys around them. They,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Hiring Donovan without even interviewing anybody else. Why? Because they were buddies prior to the hire. Due to this, we got to enjoy the Donovan era, aka the "He could literally faint and nobody would notice because it would not impact the team's performance at all" era. No offensive system besides featuring single guys heavily. Defensive schemes that fall off a cliff sooner or later. No idea on how to adjust to opposing teams. Two postseasons in a row the Thunder defended the opposing point guard the same way, not really bothering any one at all, even though one was Rubio, one was Lillard. Whne asked about it, Donovan simply said that the Thunder were "an over team".

In Kevin Durant's final season, the biggest season in franchise history, Presti proceeded to hire his buddy and as his great trade deadline, one last push, aquisition, he went after RANDY **** FOYE. No urgency. None whatsoever.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The Thunder keep going after raw athletes with no real basketball skills besides jumping. Why you say?

"We like serious basketball players, guys that are ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Outsiders assumed Westbrook should be ringed by floor-spacing snipers, like Harden in Houston, but Presti demands evidence.

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I'm so tired of this. All of this is a direct result of general incompetence. He more or less lucked into the best draft core in NBA history and all he accomplished was **** things up. James Harden was traded in 2012 and 7 years later, we are still looking for a SG.

If the Thunder are about to tear it all down, the teardown needs to start with him.

Russ wasted four years of his prime for this. **** believable.

i'm with you brotha.

kd after he left "we were getting younger not better"

okc was too cheap to trade or buy a third star so they let go of harden, spent the rest of westbrook/durant's entire career looking for a third star on the cheap. they had to convert ibaka from a defensive titan into a scorer because of it. tried doing it through the draft and got good role players but no star. westbrook and kd spent their entire okc career carrying the whole team. everything that has followed STARTED with harden and got exponentially worse.

if i was living in okc i'd demand presti get fired. they lost the most iconic duo of the past decade.

[zimpy27]

Fire one of the best drafters ever when he just got handed a ton of picks?

Definition of insanity.

[Madhouse]

The downfall started when he chose Westbrick over Harden.

You mean Ibaka

[israelfirst]

Presti's biggest mistake was getting rid of harden and not westbrook.

[TdotRap4Lyfe]

I never understood why Presti failed so badly to surround Durant & RW with several 3pt shooters. All he had to do was get multiple shooters to space the floor and they prob would have won one title. Instead he kept investing in long guys that could not shoot. Total mismanagement. Bulls always surrounded MJ/Pippen with shooters, Shaq/Kobe had shooters. It should have been straight forward the type of players they should have acquired.

Biggest mistake was trading Harden. They made the finals and lost due to inexperience. Another year or 2 and they could have won it all...

[Middle Child]

Presti has had

Durant- MVP
Westbrook- MVP
Harden- 6th man, under team control
Ibaka
Paul George- MVP candidate, DPOY candidate
Adams
Melo- set career high in 3s in OKC on limited touches
Roberson- All-NBA defense
Oladipo- Got better after leaving

Dude couldn’t make any combination of these players work but there’s a common denominator and it’s Westbrook controlling far too much of what happens on the court on both ends.

He pounds the rock on O, doesn’t let others rebound, shoots bad shots, gambles far too much defensively and gets into shootouts with dudes he can’t even come close to.

Presti’s biggest issue is his loyalty to Russ.

His loyalty to Russ is largely connected to Russ’s willingness to be there I’m guessing. It can’t be easy selling talent on that market and when you’ve got a superstar that’s willing to embrace it you take care of him.

But he’s seen first hand the Russ playstyle is not something you can a title with.

If they’re comfortable winning 45+ games and getting bumped every year then fine but at some point you gotta sit Russ down and tell him this.

[Black Jack]

Presti is the Westbrook of GMs. Idiot savante who is incredible at accumulating assets but zero idea of how to mold a winner. Also hasto be called out for horrid coaching hires.

All in all, could be worse but he's made some incomprehensible decisions over the years.

[Najee12]

This is the Top 20 for 3PM in franchise history:



James Harden was traded 7 years ago. Thabo played his last game as a Thunder 5 years ago. Jeff Green was traded 8 years ago.

This complete lack of shooting for basically the entirety of Russell Westbrook's career is enough to get him fired, finally. It's just a complete disregard for the way the game went and what kind of players his core needed to be surrounded with.

The fact that Paul George is third all-time in team history in 3-pointers made by a wide margin after playing only two seasons in Oklahoma City also drives home the point that the Thunder have not been a good 3-point shooting team. You also can cite Carmelo Anthony being 11th in 3-pointers made despite playing only one year there (and being a 3-point shooter was not his game).

[jswede]

Do we all agree this is the greatest haul for one player in the history of the NBA?

He did his job. Very, very well.