Does this trade make sense for the Oklahoma City Thunder?
Oklahoma City wants to move up in the draft after falling outside the Top-5 and they definitely have the assets to be able to do so. Not only do they possess six draft picks this year (three first-rounders and three second-rounders), but the Thunder have 38 total draft picks through the 2027 NBA Draft.
They could literally just throw a trade package together containing 5+ draft picks in order to move up and grab the #1 overall pick, but is this really in their best interest? Obviously the Thunder are not going to keep all of their future draft picks, but trading a handful of them away right now may not be the best thing for them to do.
Being able to draft a guy like Cade Cunningham to pair with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the backcourt would be great, but Oklahoma City is in a much better position than Detroit in terms of having three first-round picks. The Thunder could keep all of these picks, draft three highly talented rookies and be just fine moving forward.
There is plenty of value available in this year’s draft for Oklahoma City to be content with and quite honestly, the only trade that would likely be of interest to the Pistons for this first overall pick would be one that contains a guy like SGA.
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Oklahoma City will be a team to watch in NBA trade rumors, in general, but particularly to move up in order, whether for the top pick or not.
He is a versatile, young combo-guard that can be the future of any team in this league and assuming they keep the #1 overall pick, the Pistons would be drafting either Cunningham or Green anyways. This is why the only thing that would make them give this pick up is getting a young, potential All-Star in return.
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Oklahoma City is unwilling to trade Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as of right now, which is why they most likely cannot move up and grab this first overall pick.
If they were to offer 5+ first-round picks to the Pistons, this would certainly create an interesting proposition, but at the end of the day, Detroit wants to maintain their position near the top of the draft and making any trade with the Thunder will not result in this.
