Oklahoma City Thunder
Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti is now the longest tenured general manager in the league and what he has done with this franchise over the last few years is quite remarkable. They have seen the departures of guys like Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Paul George over the last 4-5 years, yet the Thunder have still shown the ability to win games and be competitive.
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While the Thunder did finish 22-50 this season, Oklahoma City is one the verge of becoming something special, as they own the rights to 38 draft picks through the 2027 NBA Draft. With a ton of young talents on their roster already and six draft picks this year, the Thunder could immediately become one of the most talented, young teams in the league in a matter of years.
Not only does this make them an attractive destination for All-Star talents, but they could basically target anybody they want to via trade because of all of the draft assets they own! For this reason is why Donovan Mitchell could be a target of the Thunder moving forward.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is their star guard right now, so forming a potential backcourt duo with him and Mitchell in the future is definitely something that could be lethal. The best part about both of these young guards is that they can play with or without the ball in their hands as well, meaning that they could play off each other almost perfectly.
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Bringing in Donovan Mitchell and potentially another big name All-Star talent could definitely be in the future plans of the Oklahoma City Thunder given that they want to build a championship contending team with young players.
Having Kemba Walker also helps them in potential trade talks. His large contract through the 2022-23 season gives the Thunder an “equal” contract to potentially make deals with and while he is not viewed as highly anymore, Walker is still a 4x All-Star guard that is not a bad replacement for a guy like Donovan Mitchell.
Right now, it would be a very big long-shot for the Oklahoma City Thunder to be able to convince the Jazz to trade Mitchell, but moving forward, they have the draft assets and young talents that Utah could potentially want in a trade should their star player want out of his situation in Salt Lake City.
