What's next for OKC Thunder after trading Lu Dort to Atlanta Hawks?

Welcome everyone to the Thunder Buddies Podcast, your source for all things Thunder Basketball, courtesy of the Oklahoman. My name is Justin Martinez, your Thunder Beat writer. That's Joe Masato, our columnist. Joe, how you doing today, man? I'm good, Justin. How about you? I'm doing good. It's a busy time right now for the OKC Thunder. We got a lot to talk about on this pod. We gotta talk about the Lou Dort trade. We gotta talk about Summer League, which just wrapped up. Also, some comments from Sam Presti with an exclusive interview that we managed to get with him. So, a lot to get into here. If you're ready to go ahead and jump right into it. Let's do it. All right, so we'll start off with the big news. Obviously, OKC has traded Lou Dort to the Atlanta Hawks. OKC is gonna receive three future second round picks from Atlanta. Atlanta's gonna receive Lou Dort and Ryan Nembhard from the Dallas Mavericks. And then, Dallas will receive Zachary Richache from Atlanta. So, a big deal, obviously, here for OKC. Lou being the longest tenured Thunder player, full-time starter on a team that went 100 games over 500 in its last two seasons. So, Joe, we're gonna start off with that, but I figured before we do, we should go ahead and just get into Sam's comments first. I was able to catch up with him yesterday, pretty much right after the trade had happened. He was kind enough to answer a few questions while he was traveling, just about not only that trade, but the off-season in general, where, obviously, OKC has been making moves to save some money. So, let's go ahead and just jump into Sam's quote here on this Lou Dort trade, and then we'll go ahead and give our thoughts on it after that, if that sounds good. Yeah, let's do it. All right, so Sam was asked just about the approach to this trade, because, obviously, he had said at his season-ending press conference that a second apron would not prevent OKC from keeping this version of the team together, but if we did see changes, then it would be finances that would force a transaction. So, he was asked if that was still the case with this deal, which he said, yes, it was. And his quote is, this was a financial decision. The impression I've been given is that the savings generated this summer, and for being out of the tax the last several years, will be reallocated to future teams, along with other new well-documented revenue streams. This will allow us to make more basketball-related decisions over the next several years. So, Joe, hearing that from Sam, first of all, like I said again, super great that he was able to give us this. I thought these were very open, direct, honest answers. What's kind of your reaction to hearing him say that? Yeah, I mean, first off, it was a great get by you, Justin, to get Sam on the record, because we don't always, you know, he has at times held like a press conference, like after the Giddy trade, for example. But, yeah, shout out to you. It's cool to have this exclusively. In the Oklahoma, I thought he was very honest, and didn't make any bones about it, that this was a financial decision. I mean, he said exactly those words. And I think that right now, I mean, a lot of this goes back to ownership, and their appetite to spend, and to keep this team together. And I think he's sort of laying the groundwork in that quote to you of, hey, it's my expectation, or assumption, or however he phrased it, that this money will be reinvested into the team. So, I think now we have that as sort of a thing that we're going to look back on, right? Because like, trading New Dort, and the hundreds of millions of dollars it saved, combined with the Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe trade, the first two, trading Joe and Wiggins, you can see that this one's a little harder to stomach, but I think it's more about like, hey, what's this mean when, you know, during the Case and Wallace discussion? What's it mean next summer when AJ Mitchell's gonna be in line for a big deal? Because now, you know, Sam's telling us his expectation is that maybe this'll be a blip, you know, that this money will be reinvested, and we just have to wait and see. The onus is on ownership to follow through on that. Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it, is that, you know, there's gonna be some people who will look at this and say, ownership just is cheaping out, for lack of better words. And I don't think that is the case, based off of, you know, what Sam is saying. His impression is that this isn't necessarily ownership pocketing the money, this is them setting it aside, reallocating it towards the future, for obviously when the team gets more expensive, like you mentioned, Case and Wallace, being extension-eligible, AJ Mitchell being due for a contract next year, Chagos' Alexander Supermax contract kicking in, J-Dub and Chet already on their new deal, so like, this is a team that's only gonna continue to get more expensive, and it seems like, at least the plan as of right now, is to set aside that money, so that way they're able to continue to compete. And Sam also did say, you know, we have a team that is capable of contention, and as I understand it, the decisions this summer have positioned us financially to maintain a team of this caliber. So, it does seem like that is the plan, but like you said, it's a matter of if that will actually happen, you know, only time will tell. But right now, I do feel like it is important to have that context when looking at these deals, because there's gonna be people who will say, well, Isaiah Joe should be going for more than two second-round picks. Why are you trading Eric Wiggins for two second-round picks? Trading away Lou Dort, like, you have to understand the context of it, and also, like, leverage is a real thing, and OKC, in this situation, the other teams know that they're trying to save money. To get seven second-round picks out of this, to be able to create these trade exceptions that they will do, to be able to save the amount of money that they had, I feel like as long as this all does pan out the way that, you know, they're saying it should, where they're able to pay, you're able to do all of that, set yourself up for that, and get this future draft capital, like, I feel like that is a successful summer as long as they're able to follow through on this plan. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I do, however, I don't want to let ownership off the hook completely, even if they do reinvest, because, like, listen, we've talked about this for a while, like, the time to spend is now, and I get you can't do everything. No one is expecting them to bring back the whole team, but, I mean, they've parted with a guy coming off a down year, and had a bad playoff run, and was not playing as much, but a guy who's been a seven-year starter for this team, and they let go of him for purely financial reasons rather than picking up his option as they did, kind of seeing it through the rest of the year, and maybe parting ways then, I think would have been a little more understandable. I see a lot of people say, like, no, this was a basketball decision, like, they're just out on lieu, but, like, you have the general manager of the basketball team saying that it was a financial decision, and not a basketball decision, so it's not like, hey, save money now so you can pay later, I mean, maybe that's what they'll do, hopefully that's what they'll do, but, I mean, again, it's not my money, so easy for me to say from here, but another option would be spend this summer, spend next summer, spend the summer after that, and yeah, it's gonna get expensive, but you have to put this in context. What they bought the team for, what they're going to sell the team for, and a beautiful new arena that's being constructed as we speak that they contributed 5% for, and it was mostly paid by the taxpayers, and I'm not saying that, this was never explicitly said, but I think a lot of people's expectations were, okay, like, we're gonna do whatever we can to keep the team here, we're gonna build the arena, and ownership's gonna make sure there's a competitive team to put in place, and like, obviously, they'll be competitive, I'm not saying that, I think I, spoiler alert, I'm going to pick the Thunder to win the NBA title, I don't think losing Dort is the difference between that, but it's like, I don't know, the optics to me aren't great as we speak here on July 20th, because I don't think the Thunder is a better team, I think regular season-wise, for sure, they've taken a step back, and the goal this summer was to not get better, it was to get cheaper, now they haven't totally cheaped out, but I think by this time next year, we're gonna have a great idea of like, what ownership is willing to do. Yeah, and you mentioned some people might think that this is like an indication of, yeah, they're out on Lou Dort, there's also gonna be some people who feel like there's an indication of, they just did everything they could to go underneath the second apron, and this is another part of Sam's quote, which I think is worth mentioning, he says, we were comfortable being over the second apron with this team, and now we were uniquely constructed, we have been consistent with that view for a few years now, we've talked about this on this show, like, the restrictions that come with the second apron, I don't believe in, as Sam has said, did not play a role in this decision, Aaron Wiggins' decision, he has a Joe decision, this is a team that I don't think should be worried about the restrictions that come with the second apron, losing a bit of a level exception, not being able to aggregate contracts on trades, all these sorts of things, these are things, these are tools that OKC should not need to lean on a ton moving forward, it already has a very capable roster, so that's another, I think, misconception with this, is that I don't think the second apron restrictions itself played a role in this, it's just that, obviously, if you're in the second apron, you also have a large luxury tax bill, and that's what I think played the biggest factor in this, but yeah, I mean, obviously, this is a team that, you know, lost some key contributors here, Lew Dorf being at the top of the list, I think regular season-wise, you're going to see that impact a little bit more with, like, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins, I do still feel like they have a good playoff rotation set up right now, to where they would be my favorite, as well, to win a championship, but, you know, Sam had also said, like, the margin for error is smaller than it has been in some time, like, this is a team that is losing three, you know, producers on this roster, and it's going to be a matter of guys having to step up, you know, Jerry McCain, I thought, showed some great flashes during the post-season, towards the end of the last regular season, after being acquired, he's going to have to continue to do that, he's going to have a bigger role off the bench this year, you look at guys like, you know, Nikola Topac and Thomas Sorber, who we haven't seen a ton of yet, you know, they're going to have to be able to show what they can do now, you got the rookies coming in, and Dai Mar and Bennett Sturtz, like, there's going to be a lot of guys who will have to step up, OKC does have a good history of developing talent, and these are all first-round picks that we're talking about here, so these are talented players, but, yeah, it's going to be up to them to really step up, and I think, Joe, that kind of goes into our next segment here, is, you know, what is kind of your outlook on this team right now, what are some of, sort of, the domino effects of losing Lou Dort, who are some guys they're kind of looking at now that will have to step up? I want to go backwards just a bit, because I want to emphasize the point you made about the second apron, and I thought Sam's quote was very revealing, is, like, they were prepared to be over the second apron, and we just throw that around because it's like, oh, this second apron era, you can't keep teams together, and we just say that without really knowing what's going on, I'm not pretending to be a cap analyst, but, like, as you said, the second apron is more about roster-building restrictions, not keeping your current roster intact. There's a difference between, you know, tax payments, luxury tax payments, and the second apron, so I'm glad you laid that out. The question was about, is this team being good? Is what this means on the floor, you know, losing a guy like Lou? Yeah, so, listen, two things are true. Lou Dort is a year removed from being an all-defensive first-teamer and shooting 41% from three, and last season, he was not an all-defensive first-teamer, nor did he shoot 41% from three. I thought he took a step back on the defensive end, and shot just never came around. Like, in the playoffs, Justin, I was waiting for, like, the random Lou Dort game where he's gonna go five of eight from three, and, you know, he's going to win the Thunder a game like that. We saw that, one of the, maybe the best moment, on-court moment of Lou's Thunder tenures, game five against Denver last year in the West semifinals, when Thunder's down by nine, at home, facing a potential, you know, going down two-three at Denver, and Lou makes three three-pointers in a two-minute span, and, like, that's the thing that he could do. So, they'll miss that, and I think, like, Lou's a better player than what he showed to be this year. But I think, overall, I would probably drop the Thunder's win total by a few games with these moves as a whole. Losing Joe, losing Wiggins, losing Dort, like, I don't know if there's gonna be a 60-win team. That would've been a hard pace to keep up, even if they kept everyone together, because there's a lot of miles on the tires over these last several years. But I think, playoff-wise, I don't think we're going to get to a point where we're saying, man, you know, the Thunder might've won this. If not for Lou Dort, maybe we do. I don't know. It's gonna be impossible to prove either way. But I think that them and San Antonio are clearly the favorites atop the West. I think the Thunder's uniquely suited to overcome this loss with Kayson Wallace, with Alex Caruso, with the emergence of AJ Mitchell, and Jared McCain. But I think, like, part of, they're losing a piece of their identity, because Lou was here from the beginning, with Shea, with this new era. And I think, like, despite going through a lot of losing those first couple of years, Lou was a guy that, I think, made this, like, a defense-first team, or, like, set the tone for that. And part of why the Thunder's been so dominant defensively, obviously, they've got Chet on the back end, and a versatile defender like Dub, and a capable defending star like Shea. But I think it's, like, those three guys, and Dort, Caruso, and Kayson, that just can come at you in waves. And, like, we've seen teams just crumble, basically, at the pressure that the Thunder can put on teams. And I think it's gonna be a little bit different when you have two of those guys versus three of those guys. It's the most obvious thing I can say. But I think they're going to miss him more as, like, the depth that they have, than just, like, him individually. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's obviously gonna be a lot of pressure on Kayson Wallace, who I would pick to be the starter, to step in there. He's gonna obviously have to, you know, really step up as that point-of-attack defender in the starting lineup, if he does get the nod there. It's gonna put more pressure on A.J. Mitchell, who, if Kayson Wallace is going to the starting lineup, now it's on A.J. Mitchell to really run that second unit, or vice versa, however that ends up shaking out. So, like, there's gonna be pressure on these guys to step up. But I think you brought up a good point, that, like, it's also just the off-the-court, his impact to, like, on the culture of Thunder basketball. Like, when you think about Thunder basketball, you think of toughness and physicality. This era, and I think Lou Dort is really one of the guys who helped establish that. I was doing a story on Lou back in March, and I had asked Mark about that. And he had said that, like, when we started this rebuild, when we started this era of Thunder basketball, like, we were kind of being like, we were the little brothers of the league, you know? We were kind of getting picked on at times by these heavyweights, and, like, Lou was one of those first guys who really helped us kind of punch above our weight. You know, like, he was one of those guys who was the backbone, the muscle, the enforcer. And I think that really set the tone for what we now see throughout the entire team, which is the toughness that they play with. Also, he really set the tone for, like, the development. Like, when we talk about this era of Thunder basketball, it's not an era that's dominated by first and second overall picks. Like, it's guys who were end of the lottery, outside the lottery, second-round pick, undrafted guys. Like, this era of Thunder basketball is defined by maximizing talent, developing talent. And Lou Dort, I think, exemplifies that. An undrafted guy in 2019 becoming an all-defensive first-team player, a 40% three-point shooter. Like, he really set the tone for this is what it looks like. When you put in the day-by-day work, these are the results that you can get. And I think you're losing that as well. So, I mean, off the court, losing him, I think, is going to be maybe even bigger than the on-the-court production. Not to say he's not going to be missed on that end, but, like, I really do feel like he means a lot just to how they operated this era of Thunder basketball. Yeah, and I do think that's a big part of it. And removed from it, I think we sort of lose sight of those things where it's like, on paper, it's like, okay, yeah, this makes sense for the Thunder move on, but it's like, you, I mean, not to get, like, too sappy, but, like, think of all the relationships Lou had with people on the team, in the front office, and, like, their families knowing each other, and all of that. So, I think that's what makes this especially hard. Like, even when Lou was playing poorly, or people were, like, calling for him to be benched or have a lesser role, it's like, I just don't think that's going to happen. Like, Mark Dignold's the biggest Lou Dort fan there is out there, and he's going to ride with that guy. So, their actions sort of told you how they felt about him. And I think, as far as, like, developmental success stories, Lou is at the top of the list. I think, like, they've had all the second-round picks, but he's almost become, like, the poster child for the undrafted or second-rounder who signs a two-way, who then develops into a key rotation player. We saw Aaron Wiggins do that. We saw, who, A.J. Mitchell. A.J., yeah. Yeah, and, you know, other players to maybe lesser degrees, but, like, that's a pretty good hit rate to have three of those guys in the last, you know, half-decade or so. Yeah, for sure. So, I think Kayson will get the starting nod in terms of on the court. Are you in agreement with that? Do you feel like, A.J., I know it is a formality with the starting lineup, which we kind of have to say, like, it's not an end-all be-all. What really matters is who closes out the games, but would you expect Kayson to be the starter, or would you give the nod to A.J.? I keep going back and forth on this. I think the obvious answer's Kayson. It's almost like plug-and-play. Here's the next version of Lou Dort. We're off and running. But our good friend Andrew Schlecht, he's kind of changed my mind on this, and I don't know if he really believes it or not, but I think A.J. Mitchell has, like, all-star upside, and if he's that good, you just don't have a guy that is that good coming off the bench, and I think if he's, like, overwhelmingly, like, the best option, maybe they just go with him and put your best players on the floor. Now, we do overrate the importance of the starting lineup. Mr. Mark Degnault is very, he likes to remind us of that, I think, when we ask about the starting lineup. But I think A.J. is going to finish with, you know, being the closing lineup, so I think Kayson, at times, is gonna be in the closing lineup, so it doesn't really matter, but I almost wonder if this is, like, not learning their lesson from Harden, because that was a very different dynamic, but it was like, hey, are we sure this guy should be coming off the bench just for, like, he's too good for this, so I'm gonna boldly say A.J. Mitchell. I'm not mad at it. I mean, I do agree that, like, that will be OKC's best lineup. Just having three ball handlers with him, Shay, Dove, three guys who are able to get into the paint, create for others, like, I feel like that's gonna be incredibly difficult for teams to cover. I would still go with Kayson in the starting lineup just because I like the idea of staggering him and Alex Caruso, not here down to two elite defenders in terms of guards, as opposed to three with Lou being gone. I like the idea of one of them being starting, the other one coming off the bench, rather than both being on the second unit. And you could also stagger your ball handlers better, too, with A.J. coming off the bench. Yeah, that too, yeah. Like, in terms of who I would want more to run a unit, like, I would want A.J. to also run the second unit more than Kayson, so I would lean towards Kayson, but yeah, I think in terms of closing out the games, like, it's gonna be a game-by-game basis depending on what the matchup is. I would think A.J. would probably present the best overall lineup to close games, but, I mean, either way, like, these are two guys who are starting caliber players on championship contending teams. Like, these are obviously two great options to pick from. It really speaks to the depth that OKC has, even after losing a guy like Lou, like, you still have all these options, obviously, so. I mean, Kayson Wallace has basically been a halftime starter, halftime, not halftime, in his NBA career. I mean, he's played in 227 games, and he has started 114 of them, almost exactly half, so whenever the Thunder's had an injury, he's almost been, like, the de facto plug-in starter, no matter, like, what spot it is, so I think that's the safe money. Also, like, if he signs a big extension this summer, not saying they're gonna do anything based on, like, I feel like you see this in baseball. It's like, whoever's got the biggest contract is gonna play no matter what, but if he, like, signs a new deal, he's kind of, he's been here a year longer. Like, it might make sense just for optics alone, not that they're worried about that, but just looking in from the outside. For sure, now, we're talking about guys who might have to step up. Let's go ahead and talk about some incoming players for OKC, and I'm Mara, and Bennett Sturtz, two incoming rookies. First-round picks for OKC. We got to see them in Summer League, play each of them, playing in five games, four to Thunder. These are gonna be the main guys we'll just go ahead and talk about on this one. Atego Owei, the other draftee, played one full game in Salt Lake City. Second game, got hurt, suffered an apparent left foot injury, did not play the rest of Summer League, so too small of a sample size to really give our thoughts on him, and if you guys do wanna know some more thoughts on all of these top guys, with Josh Dix as well, another two-way player, Buck Sparnizer, paid in Sanford. I'm gonna be having an article out in the next couple days. It'll be great for all of these guys for their Summer League play. Let's go ahead and focus on the two first-round picks, Adai Mara, Bennett Sturtz, and just give our thoughts on how they looked this summer. Starting off with Adai Mara, obviously, 12th overall pick for OKC out of Michigan. Elite size, everybody knows that, 7'3", center. Go ahead and go looking at his stats here in his five games. He averaged 9.2 points, seven rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.8 blocks in 24 minutes. Shot 56.3% from the field, and then went 0 for 3 on his three-point attempts. I'll go ahead and just start off with my thoughts on him. I mean, I saw flashes of the potential. There were definitely times where he was using his size to his advantage. I think as Summer League went on, he became more and more of a pick-and-roll partner with Bennett Sturtz. That really became a two-man game that I thought was extremely effective. Bennett, I think, did a great job of finding him for lobs early and often. And I think there were times where he was also able to deter guys going to the rim with his shot-blocking skills, but it was in flashes. There were definitely times where I feel like he didn't match the physicality of opponents. Guys were able to attack him at the rim a little bit more than you would like to see. And also, as great of a passer as he is, which I think he had on display throughout all of Summer League, there were also times where like, this is a seven-foot-three guy going up against teams that are mostly undersized, actually. A lot of these opponents, okay, C-face, you would kind of prefer that he keeps it for himself down low as opposed to trying to make that extra pass. So, little things that I think he can work on. You know, being more aggressive on the glass as well. There were definitely some games where a guy that tall should be getting more rebounds, especially against an undersized opponent. I think there was some good, some bad. There are gonna be some people who are already overreacting to it, but at the end of the day, I really don't feel like he's meant to be this instant impact player. The whole Wimby stopper term was thrown out as soon as he was drafted. I thought that was way too premature and maybe just even setting him up for failure. I think this is somebody who's gonna take a little bit of time to adjust, which OKC, I think, can give him that opportunity. He has plenty of centers already, bringing everyone back in that department. So, overall, I thought it was a OK performance by him. There's definitely some room for improvement, as you would expect. I am hesitant to, not only to overreact to Summer League, but to react at all, just because I don't think it can tell you much. It's fun to watch the guys you just drafted out there. Listen, we knew Mara isn't a finished product. I mean, he's kind of a late bloomer in the sense of he had one dominant college season, so I think he's still pretty raw. We often see bigs take a little longer to develop, I think, especially one with an outlier body type, such as Mara. The other thing is Summer League is such a bad setting for bigs in every way possible. It's like, yeah, you could try to beat up on all of these teams playing small, but teams play fast, it's guard heavy, they're not really looking at bigs, so it's not exactly like setting him up for success. But, yeah, my thoughts on him haven't changed. It's just like, hey, this is breaking news. He might not be a major contributor, he's a rookie. Yeah, and I think, also, kind of along those lines of guys being put in tough situations in Summer League, Bennett Sturts, to me, I know he's a guard, but I think he also sort of falls into that category in the sense that Nikola Topac is somebody who I think a lot of people were hoping would be able to suit up this summer, was not able to as he's recovering from surgery, and that kind of put Bennett in a position where all of a sudden he's in this lead role. He's got to provide most of the shot creation because a lot of the other guards, whether it's Josh Dix or Peyton Sanford, are more of catch-and-shoot guys than guys are going to create for others. So he's already put into this situation where he's having to really run things, and I think that's- It's like he's back in college. Yeah, exactly, and I think that did kind of come with a little bit of an adjustment period for him. I think early on in Summer League, in Salt Lake City specifically, he was dealing with some turnover problems. I don't think he was the most efficient in terms of shooting, but I think to his credit, he looked more and more comfortable as Summer League went on. Like I mentioned, we found a lot of success finding Daimara in the pick-and-roll, and the pick-and-roll setting in general is something that I think he did really well at Iowa. So that's something that we got to see a lot more of as Summer League went on. He was able to create for himself. He was able to cut down on those turnovers, create for others, and also hit some big-time shots. Like there were some games where it was close for OKC down the stretch, and he was really a key factor in those comeback attempts. So he finished with an average of 14.4 points, 3.4 assists, 1.6 rebounds, one steal, and 2.6 turnovers in 27.4 minutes, and he shot 45% from the field, 30% from deep. So the shooting splits, like I mentioned, it's kind of weighed down from earlier on in Summer League play, but overall, I thought he showed adaptability. I think life is going to be easier for him once he joins OKC in the sense that there's not going to be as many playmaking duties. He's going to be able to shoot off the catch a lot more, get some cleaner looks. There just won't be as much pressure on him as well. Even defensively, he's going to have all these elite defenders to be alongside that can really help him on that end because he is limited in that sense. So I think his game is going to age well. We already saw that in Summer League. I think it'll continue to happen as he begins his NBA career. Yeah, and that's the starts I want to see. I don't want to see the role he played in college. It's good that he's maybe an option to handle the ball and to initiate offense if you need him to, but we've not seen what he looks like and how much of a weapon his shooting can be as an off-ball player. Bennett Sturtz, if he hits, I mean, maybe he has start potential. It's very unlikely. But if he tops out as a high-end role player, or even if he's an Isaiah Joe type guy, it's like Isaiah Joe being kind of out there by himself, you're not really benefiting from his skillset. But if you're surrounding him with players who are going to get him open shots, that's the best version. So it's almost like asking role players to play a starring role, not to use the same word twice, but in Summer League. I want to see what they look like surrounded by better players. Yeah, without a doubt. And like I said, we're going to talk more, I will be talking more about some of these other guys, Josh Dix, Brooks Barnheiser, Peyton Sanford, and an article that should be coming out in the next few days. I got a sneak peek at it, folks. And I learned a lot, because I got to tell you, I opted out of Summer League for the most part. So Justin here's doing the Lord's work. If you don't have the Josh Dix scouting report, you don't know what Brooks Barnheiser shot from three, just wait. I got you guys covered. But Joe, I want to know, before we get out of here, do you have any words of wisdom for the people, this is a time where people are maybe a little bit stressed out with all the moves that have been happening with underpass football, but what do you have to say to the people before we get out of here? Yeah, okay, this is good. You know what? I think in times like these, well, I don't even know if people are upset or not. I feel like a lot of Thunder friends of mine are happy that Lou Dohrt is no longer on the team, but then others are like, ownership's cheaping out. So it's kind of hard to, my role here is to, I guess that you've put me in is to console Thunder fans, but you guys won a championship a year ago. Just like, first world problems, but hey, we knew this was coming, team's gonna get expensive. I would just say, and I wrote this in a column, like ownership's now on watch. That's not like a threat or anything, it's just like, hey, they've kind of been operating in the background, which is great. The last thing you want is a meddling owner. But now they're a part of this, because it's not just Sam making decisions, Mark calling plays, and Shea Gilchrist Alexander making buckets. It's Clay Bennett and the six minority owners of like, how much are they willing to invest in this team? So there's a, they've entered the chat, as you guys say. And by you guys, I mean the youth. Thank you for clarifying that, Joe. Well, with that being said, we are gonna exit the chat here, so. That's smart, before I get in trouble. So we appreciate you guys for listening. To be honest, not sure what the next pod will be. We're not, I say this all the time, we're not Rylan Stiles doing a pod every day. Thank God. Yeah, there probably will be a little bit of a down period here, unless some news comes up. But of course, once we get closer to training camp, we'll be back at it, providing you guys with all the thunder coverage that you're looking for. But we do appreciate you guys for listening, and we'll talk to you guys next time.