This will fuel a Thunder dynasty...
Oct 16, 2026
This is how the Thunder keep their title window open
for even longer than what the rest of the
league would hope. After cashing in on an asset
from the Clippers last year in the form of Adai
Mara, who has been a star in the preseason,
the Thunder are set to reload yet again in the next
draft class in pretty much the exact same manner.
We're going to talk about it here today on the
channel, how the Thunder are going to continue
to use this long-thrown-out philosophy from Sam
Presti into continuing to build this team around
their core for the next handful of years. In the
second apron era with the current CBA,
we can all thank CJ McCollum, the Thunder and every other
team that tries to retain homegrown talent really is up against a wall.
And we're seeing it right
now in real time with the Thunder with guys like Cason Wallace.
And obviously it has been a struggle
and here we are four days away.
We'll probably have a video on it in the last couple of days
and we'll see if the Thunder end up getting pen to paper with Cason.
I'm not super optimistic, but there is a way for the Thunder
to continue to bring in young, talented players,
and it comes from the Los Angeles Clippers directly.
And if you've kind of been living under a rock in the NBA world,
you're just now surfacing back up with the season underway.
The Clippers got the absolute banhammer from the NBA
over the course of this offseason
with their Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention details,
getting five first round picks taken away getting
fined 30 million dollars you know something slight
on a little Thursday afternoon Steve Ballmer
and the rest of his team getting suspended for
one year in the front office from all league
and team activities well they moved on from Kawhi
Leonard they traded for Brandon Ingram coming back in as a result
and they're kind of trying
to build around a core of players that are either young
or really really old and kind of just in
weird limbo phase to the point where
the Thunder yet again own the Clippers pick next year and
we're going to talk in today's video about why
that is going to be such an awesome asset for
the future for this team. Before we do that here's
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so even more upside for Oklahoma City from all of the
Clippers setbacks at this point you know
the running gag has been that the Clippers are the
Thunder's farm system you know going all the way through
the trades of the last five or six years
because with everything all added up I think it's pretty fair
to say that the Thunder have kind of
fueled this title and this championship
dynasty-esque window literally off of the backs of
what the Clippers have given them directly you get
the MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from them back when
he's a young promising player you get 10 first round picks
but then the thing that we're going
to talk about in today's video is the two first round pick swaps
that you have from Los Angeles
and you're in a win now mode but usually
when that's the case you understand that you're not
really going to be able to bring in extra young talent well
the Thunder can chase a championship
while also kind of just throwing something down the road there
and saying all right the Clippers
you're going to give us your pick
and so we're going to get to add on through the draft whether
you like it or not and the Thunder
of course directly turning that into a more of this
past off season that was a pick
that they directly got from the Clippers for that trade
with Paul George back in the day
and the timeline to getting to this 2027 pick swap the Thunder
were able to pick that up in 2023 they helped facilitate
a James Harden trade if you don't
remember that trade here it is for you quickly
on your screen the Thunder basically just threw in
a first round pick from several years before
then to help facilitate this trade with James Harden
going to the Clippers so they sent a 2027 first round pick swap
and at the time in 2023 the
Clippers were still heavily in win now mode I don't think
that Steve Ballmer would have ever
foreseen things going the way
that it did he would have probably thought that a pick swap for them
with the Thunder honestly probably would have worked out better
in their favor and so he probably
just kind of threw that down the road
not even thinking about the potential consequences but now
here you are and the Clippers are in huge trouble
and so not only are the Clippers in a rebuild
situation but they also are having some devastating injury updates
as this season is about to get
underway you look at opening night
and some of their reports that they've got coming out you've
got the Brandon Ingram unavailable
with his partial Achilles tear that they found after the
trade went through I kind of searched in my mind
as to how it is that the Clippers couldn't forego
this trade and say no we're gonna we're not gonna accept
this because of medical reasons that has
happened plenty of times before
but I think more than anything the Clippers just kind of want to
be done of the Kawhi Leonard era so they just accepted it
so Brandon Ingram is not gonna play
for at least the first month of the season Max Strus has
an injury as well as one of their
primary bench players he has a partial tear
of his plantar fascia in the bottom of his right foot
so he's going to be reevaluated in four weeks.
Bradley Beal, their veteran presence on this team,
he's going to be out for the first game with knee inflammation,
so things are just continuing to
pile up for Los Angeles. And even if this team is fully healthy,
folks, I don't see a world where
this team is even close to being a playoff team,
let alone being outside of the top 10 of the worst
records in the league because if you remember we
were making videos on the channel probably nine
or ten months ago you know a couple months
into the last regular season saying the Thunder have
a realistic chance of getting
the number one overall pick obviously that didn't happen and
it was entirely because Kawhi Leonard came back
and just was absolute demon goblin mode for the
Clippers to at least get them to the 12th pick to give the Thunder
which ended up being a Dai Mara
so thank you very much but they don't have Kawhi Leonard this year
who was far and away the best
player on that team they trade him to Toronto
and they get Brandon Ingram in their turn Brandon
Ingram has been a solid role a solid number two option
on some winning teams but as a number one
option his teams have never really done well
and without Kawhi Leonard last year you see how much
different they were in the net rating as an offensive
and as a defensive team so without
Kawhi Leonard I've got some serious question marks
as to that team being able to finish outside the
top 10 of draft picks and it looks like a lot
of the other people out there tend to agree with me
going over some mock drafts that have come out within
the last two to three weeks sports
illustrated has the thunder getting pick number five
from the clippers in next year's draft
bleacher reports got him getting pick number
six tankathons got him getting pick number five
no ceilings who is a little group
that does uh nba draft mock draft prospect evaluations they
are really really good at what they
do go check them out they've got the thunder getting the
fifth pick in nba draft room another one kind
of along the same veins has him getting the 12th
overall pick so if you aren't familiar with the prospects
in this coming draft I honestly haven't
done like a super big deep dive into a lot
of these guys yet Tyron Stokes is kind of seen as
the number one prospect coming out of Kansas
and then you've got really your pick of anyone else
this draft is seen as being a little bit weaker
of a draft class that'll be yet to be determined
but if you want to go look into some of these guys,
you can, and I'm going to obviously be
getting all sorts of video breakdowns on this.
I just haven't gotten around to it yet. There's
been an off season of all this stuff with Oklahoma City and,
you know, the regular season's about to
begin. So I'm going to dive into some
of these guys once they start playing some college basketball
this year. So, you know, later this month,
November, December, January, you can expect
some videos like this on the channel,
especially if we can keep in track with where the Clippers
are going to be picking and where that Thunder would
be overall taking that pick. But these are
some of the guys that are seen in that area if you want
to go do some of your own looking right now
and so we should all be keeping up with just how long
LA's vets are out this season some of their
early losses maybe pushing them on a downward spiral before
this season begins and then some
of the development of some of their other guards Darius Garland
as kind of their number one option
Keaton Wagner as their pick that they took
in the top five this year all those things should be
looked at but overall the Thunder
and what they're going to be able to do is so unprecedented in this
league and that's kind of the point
of today's video being the rising salaries and it raising
extra stakes into the NBA draft
and most of the time you're putting a lot of stock into a guy
that's being taken with one of the last 10 to 12 picks in the league
but not this time I mean it's
looking like another lottery pick for Oklahoma City
and another chance for Sam Presti to go get
a guy on a rookie contract that's going
to be a big-time contributor in the first couple of years
before a potential rookie extension
and this comes at a perfect time with Shai's salary bump coming
next year where he's going to get an extra 21 million dollars it comes
when Chet and J-Dub are
also on their new contracts where they're making
40 plus million dollars so it gives the best
general manager in pro sports options for the future
and that's exactly what he could have
hoped for but I don't think he even could have thought
that it would be as good as this so just
is a quick reminder as we close out today's video
the Thunder are right there with the Nets for the
most draft capital over the next four seasons
and you see what the Thunder have got next season
they own the Spurs pick top 16 protected
so that's most likely going to go to Oklahoma City
they've got Denver's pick
which is top five protected that's most likely to go to Oklahoma
City as well and then you've got the Clippers pick
with the swap rights so you're the Thunder
going to really be able to keep two out of the three of the Denver
and the Clippers and their
own so there's a good chance the Thunder end up
with three first round picks this coming season
and they also have a swap with Dallas next year
which could be very very interesting if Dallas
is a little bit further behind in their rebuild
but we'll see how all that goes 12 months from
now okay so now to the part of the video where I want
to get you guys involved down below in the
comments what would you want to see the Thunder
do with a potential premium first round pick in
2027 if you have any prospects that you've done some research
on that you really like so far do
you have a position you prefer the Thunder
to go after would you use that pick for yourself would
you trade it for some immediate help in the form
of maybe another veteran presence what would you
do let me know down below
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as we have been doing our comment spotlight
for the end of today's video coming from Sarah
shout out to Sarah and obviously a bit of a somber tone
for this comment with the video I made about
Otega Owe away yesterday and if you had not heard yet it
is confirmed now that Otega did suffer a ruptured
right Achilles and he already has had surgery
on that so he's going to be on that long road to
recovery Sarah Stockton giving her thoughts
to Otega Owe hoping the Thunder can avoid the injury
bug this season amen to that let's hope that that can be the case
and let's hope that the
Clippers can maybe tread water slightly sink enough
to where the Thunder could get a top 10
pick into this coming draft wouldn't
that be pretty swell wouldn't that be pretty fun I think
so we'll see you guys later with some more content
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