Team Building: How The Oklahoma City Thunder Has Seen Expedited Success

The Oklahoma City Thunder has been long known for having some of the best talent evaluators in the NBA. Given Oklahoma City is a small market, the draft is much more important to the Thunder than other franchises in terms of the best path to building a team. Led by Sam Presti, OKC has put together a successful rebuild and seems to be just a few steps away from being back in the postseason regularly.

When evaluating prospects, both in the draft and existing players around the league, it goes well beyond the on-court skills and production. Especially for Presti, the person and their traits are also extremely important.

“We draft people first, and players second,” said Presti almost two years ago.

When looking at the roster the Thunder has put together, the pieces fit well both on and off the court. The tools, versatility, positional size and playmaking is easy to see across the young team, but the individual players also get along off the court. Multiple members of the Thunder mentioned last season that this group almost feels like a college team with how young and tight knit they all are.

Moving forward, Oklahoma City will need to continue this success in the draft to select prospects that fit on the court but also embody what is expected of a Thunder player off the court. In the 2023 NBA Draft, OKC will select at No. 12, No. 37 and No. 50 overall with three chances to add a cornerstone piece.

At the end of the 2022-23 season, Presti was asked about his draft philosophy and how he balances the on-court production and personal side of things when evaluating prospects.

“It’s a combination of left and right brain all the time,” said Presti. “I think you have to be able to operate both ways. I think the key is going left and right brain, but more importantly can you know when to deploy each side? But I think if you operate in one space, one way, I think you shut off.”

Talent evaluation is both an art and a science. This is essentially what Presti is alluding to with this insight. The left side of the brain is considered to be adept at tasks that are considered logical, rational, and calculating, while the the right side is best at artistic, creative, and spontaneous tasks.

To make the process even more complex, not only does Presti and his staff have to evaluate all of these individual prospects, but also consider how they would fit on the current roster and future iterations of the team.

“The nuances of bringing everything together, the current team and the player that you’d be adding,” Presti said. “The personal component, the analytical component, the strategic component all that stuff factors in. That’s what I like about it.”

Along with bringing Chet Holmgren into the rotation next season, the Thunder has a tremendous opportunity with its late lottery pick. Furthermore, Oklahoma City has plenty of assets and could move up quite a few spots in next month’s draft if there’s a prospect the team really wants.

After winning 40 games and making the postseason, the Thunder could truly take another huge step forward in the 2023-24 campaign. It takes the right approach to team building to ensure the roster fits on and off the court, but that is what Presti is so good at.